Japan is widely-acknowledged to be one of the world’s safest countries, so with this in mind, it’s strange to think Japan is also home to one of the world’s largest and most notorious organized criminal networks – the Yakuza (ヤクザ, ) also known as Gokudō (極道 “the extremepath”).
In Japan, the term used to designate organized crime is Boryokudan (指定暴力団 ): characterized by violence, organizational structure, camaraderie, the discipline they possess, and involvement in legal and illegal activities- “organized crime” does not have an exact equivalent Japanese term.
But unlike the Mafia, they don’t need to hide their membership, because it’s not illegal in Japan to be a member of organized crime .
“Right now, we don’t hide the fact that we’re Yakuza,”,said one Yakuza boss.
He also went on to say.
“To be a Yakuza in Japan is to live an unalterable way of life.
It’s not an occupation.
It’s to follow and explore the lives of the Samurai, the code of the Samurai.“
When asked how a person can tell if someone is a Yakuza, he replied,
“It’s the smell….the smell of another beast.”
“When you join the boryokudan, they become your family,“
HISTORY
Yakuza can trace its origins back to as early as 1612, when people known as kabuki-mono (“crazy ones”), began to attract the attention of local officials.
Their odd clothing and haircuts and behavior, along with carrying long swords at their sides, made them quite noticeable.
Kabuki-mono made a habit of antagonizing and terrorizing anyone at their leisure, even to the point of cutting someone down for sheer pleasure.
The kabuki-mono were eccentric Samurai, taking outrageous names for their bands and speaking heavily in slang.
Their loyalty to one another was remarkable.
They would protect each other from any threat, including their own families.
In fact, the kabuki-mono were servants of the shogun, also taking the name of hatamoto-yakko (“Servants of the shogun”).
seen above :
The groups were comprised of nearly 500,000 Samurai forced into unemployment during the time of peace in the Tokugawa era, forcing them to become Rōnin (浪人, ” Wave Man” “drifter” or “wanderer”) which was a Samurai without a lord or master during the feudal period (1185–1868) of Japan.
A Samurai became master-less, either from the death / fall of his master, or after the loss of his master’s favor or privilege.
Many turned into bandits, looting towns and villages as they wandered around Japan.
Hatamoto-Yakko
The Yakuza do not truly see the kabuki-mono / hatamoto-yakko as their forebears instead, they see the machi-yokko (“Servants of the town”) as their ancestors.
Machi-Yokko were consisted of clerks, shopkeepers, innkeepers, laborers and homeless warriors along with other Ronin who took up arms and defended the villages from the hatamoto-yokko.
Everyone who was part of the machi-yakko was an adept gambler, which helped develop a closely-knit relationship with each other and their leaders, much like today’s Yakuza.
The machi-yakko soon became folk heroes, praised by the townspeople for their actions against the hatamoto-yakko, though they were, for the most part, untrained and weaker than the hatamoto-yakko.
They were very similar to England’s Robin Hood. Some of the machi-yakko were even subjects of stories and plays.
The early Yakuza did not surface until the middle to late 1700’s.
These members include the bakuto (traditional gamblers) and the tekiya (street peddlers).
These terms are still used today to describe Yakuza members today, although a third group, gurentai (hoodlums) has been added in the post World War II era.
Everyone in those groups came from the same background: poor, landless, delinquents and misfits.
The groups stuck closely, to the same small areas without problems : the bakuto mostly along higways and towns, and the tekiya operated in the markets and fairs of Japan.
Tekiya
Some of the Tekiya’s history is still widely debated, but also said to serve as spies.
The most widely accepted theory was, the Tekiya came from Yashi, an earlier word meaning peddler. Over time, Yashi became a catch-all for all merchants and peddlers.
Tekiya followed the usual Yakuza organization:
oyabun, underboss, officers, enlisted and apprentices.
The oyabun controlled the stalls and the availability of goods.
He also collected rents and protection money – pocketing the difference.
In the middle 1700’s, everything they did was legal – feudal authorities recognized and therefore increased the power of the tekiya.
Oyabun had the authority of a supervisor : have a surname and carry two swords similar to Samurai, in order to reduce the threat of turf wars, due to widespread fraud.
However, the tekiya still embraced criminal traits such as protection rackets, harboring of fugitives and known criminals, and brawling with other gangs.
Bakuto — the Gamblers
The Bakuto were first recognized during the Tokugawa era, when the goverment hired them to gamble with construction and irrigation workers, in order to regain a portion of the substantial wages workers received.
The use of tattoos also came from the criminal aspect of the bakuto.
Criminals were usually tattooed with a black ring around an arm for each offense committed.
However, the tattoos soon became a test of strength, as they were applied by undergoing 200 hours for a complete back tattoo.
The tattoo also marked a misfit unwilling to adapt to society.
Structure
The Yakuza began organizing into families, adopting a relationship known as oyabun-kobun (father-role/chiled-role).
The oyabun was the “father,” providing advice, protection and help; the kobun as the “child,” swearing unswerving loyalty and service whenever the oyabun needed it.
The initiation ceremony for the Yakuza also developed in this period of time.
There is an overall boss of the syndicate, the kumicho,
directly beneath him is the saiko komon (senior advisor)
and so-honbucho (headquarters chief).
The second in the chain of command is the wakagashira, who governs several gangs in a region
with the help of a fuku-honbucho who is himself responsible for several gangs.
The regional gangs are governed by their local boss, the shateigashira.
Each member’s connection is ranked by the hierarchy of sakazuki (sake sharing).
Kumicho are at the top, and control various saikō-komon (senior advisors). The saikō-komon control their own turfs in different areas.
They have their own underlings, including other underbosses, advisors, accountants and enforcers.
Those who have received sake from oyabun are part of the immediate family and ranked in terms of elder or younger brothers.
However, each kobun, in turn, can offer sakazuki as oyabun to his underling, to form an affiliated organisation, which might, in turn form lower ranked organizations.
Yamaguchi-gumi, now controls around 2,500 businesses and 500 yakuza groups
Rituals
Sometimes an underboss may do this in penance to the oyabun, if he wants to spare a member of his own gang from further retaliation.
Its origin stems from the traditional way of holding a Japanese sword.
The bottom three fingers of each hand are used to grip the sword tightly, with the thumb and index fingers slightly loose.
The removal of digits, starting with the little finger moving up the hand to the index finger progressively weakens a person’s sword grip.
The idea is that a person with a weak sword grip then has to rely more on the group for protection—reducing individual action.
In recent years, prosthetic fingertips have been developed to disguise this distinctive appearance.
Many Yakuza have full-body tattoos (including their genitalia).
These tattoos, known as irezumi in Japan, are still often “hand-poked”, that is, the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made and handheld tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel.
The procedure is expensive, painful, and can take years to complete.
Tradionaly, the irezumi master would interview you too see which tattoo fits your personality best.
It’s a significant physical and spiritual commitment –taking more than 200 hours to complete and the content of the tattoo is very personal.
When yakuza members play Oicho-Kabu cards with each other, they often remove their shirts or open them up and drape them around their waists.
This enables them to display their full-body tattoos to each other.
This is one of the few times that yakuza members display their tattoos to others, as they normally keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts.
When new members join, they are often required to remove their trousers as well and reveal any lower body tattoos.
Instead of bloodletting practiced by the Mafia and the Triads, Yakuza exchanged sake cups to symbolize the entrance into the Yakuza and the oyabun-kobun relationship.
The amounts of sake poured into each cup depend on one’s status and whether the participants were father-son, brother-brother, elder-younger, etc.
Restoration Years
The Meiji Restoration in 1867,changed the history of Japan – therefore the world.
It was a series of events that surrounded and included a return to Imperial rule within Japan.
This meant that the Japanese emperor had full control of the nation, where as he did not before.
This change from a technological recluse, to finally opening up trade, meant Japan was becoming one of the most powerful countries in the world.
Political parties and a parliament were created, as well as a powerful military.
They also began to modernize, keeping in pace with a rapidly changing Japan.
They recruited members from construction jobs and dockworkings.
They even began to control the rickshaw business.
Gambling, however, had to be even more covert, as police were cracking down on bakuto gangs.
The tekiya, unlike the bakuto, thrived and expanded, as their activites were not illegal, at least not on the surface.
The Yakuza began to dabble in politics, taking sides with certain politicians and officials.
They cooperated with the government, so they could get official sanction…or at least some freedom from harassment.
The government also found a use for the Yakuza – as aid to ultra-nationalists, who took a militaristic role in Japan’s adaption into democracy.
Various secret societies were created and trained militarily and in languages, assassination, blackmail, etc.
The ultranationalist reign of terror lasted into the 1930’s, consisting of several coups d’etat, the assassination of two prime ministers and two finance ministers, and repeated attacks on politicians and industrialists.
The yakuza provided muscle and men to the cause and participated in “land development” programs in occupied Manchuria or China.
Things changed, however, when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
The government no longer needed the ultranationalists or the Yakuza.
Members of these groups either worked with the goverment, put on a uniform, or were put into jail.
During the World War II , in Japan, the more traditional tekiya/bakuto form of organization declined as the entire population was mobilised to participate in the war effort and society came under strict military government.
However, after the war, the Yakuza adapted again.
Occupation Years
Gangs were then able to act unhindered, and since civil police were unarmed it was impossible to reduce threat to the occupation, so some occupation officials even aided the Yakuza.
The gurentai began to form during the occupation, as there was a power vacuum in the government because the occupation took out the top layer of control in government and business.
They mainly dealt in the black market, but also went so far, as to use threat, extortion and violence in their activities.
Their members were then unemployed and repatriated.
The goverment used one gurentai as a controller of Korean labor, even though he could be apprehended with criminal items.
Occupation forces soon saw that the Yakuza was well organized and continuing to operate under two Oyabun supported by unidentified high-level goverment officials.
They admitted defeat in 1950, as they realized that they could not protect the Japanese people from the Yakuza.
In the post-war years, the Yakuza became more violent, both on the individual and collective scales.
Swords had become a thing of the past, and guns were now becoming the new weapon of choice.
They chose ordinary citizens, not just other vendors,gamblers, or specific group targets anymore as targets for shakedowns and robberies.
Their appearances also changed, taking American movie gangsters as their influence.
They started wearing sunglasses, dark suits and ties with white shirts, and began to sport crewcuts.
Between 1958 -1963, the number of Yakuza members rose by over 150%, having 184,000 members, more than the Japanese Army.
Yakuza began to stake out their territories, and bloody and violent wars began to break out between them.
The man who brought peace to many Yakuza factions was Yoshio Kodama.
Kodama was in jail for the early part of the occupation, placed in the same section as cabinet officers, military, and ultranationalists. He was part of the ultranationalist group Kenkoku-kai (Association of the Founding a Nation).
In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, he worked as an espionage agent for the Japanese government, touring East Asia. He worked on a major operation to obtain strategic materiel needed for the Japanese war effort.
By the end of the war, he had obtained the rank of rear admiral (an impressive feat at the age of thirty-four), and was advisor to the prime minister.
He was rounded up with other government officials in 1946 and placed in Sugamo Prison to await trial.
The occupation forces saw Kodama as a high security risk, if ever released, due to his fanatacism with the ultranationalists.
Kodama had made a deal with the occupation forces G-2 section, and upon his release, was working for the intelligence branch of G-2.
He was the principal go-between for G-2 and the Yakuza by 1950. In the early 60’s, Kodama wanted the Yakuza gangs, who were now fighting one another, to join together into one giant coalition.
He deplored warfare, seeing it as a threat to anticommunist unity.
He used many of his connections to secure a truce between the gangs. He also made fast alliances between Kazuo Taoka, of the Yamaguchi-gumi faction, and Hisayuki Machii, a Korean crimeboss in charge of Tosei-kai.
The alliance broke the Kanto-kai faction for good. Kodama continued to use his influence to mediate the alliance between the Inagawa-kai, its Kanto allies and Yamaguchi-gumi. The truce that Kodama had envisioned was now at hand.
ACTIVITIES
The Yakuza tend to be classier than their Italian cousins.
In general, they are not involved in theft, burglary, armed robbery, or other street crimes.
However, they have been involved in similar activities, as other organized crime networks, such as: extortion, blackmail, smuggling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, and day-labor contracting.
They control many restaurants, bars, trucking companies, talent agencies, taxi fleets, factories, along with other businesses in major Japanese cities.
According to the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, Japan has the fourth biggest GDP just behind the United States, China, and the European Union.
They are one of the most technologically advanced societies, and have some of the lowest major crime rates.
But since 2001, the U.S. Department of State has released a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report measuring countries on human trafficking problems and what governments are doing to combat the problem.
It contains four levels: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 watch list, and Tier 3, and an additional category for special cases.
Tier 1 countries are the best at handling human trafficking.
It includes countries like the United States, Australia, Canada, and many countries in Europe.
Japan, on the other hand, has never ranked higher than a Tier 2 country and has dipped to Tier 2 watch list in the past.
Much of the human trafficking in Japan is handled by Yakuza.
Tier 2 are “Countries whose governments do not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to meet those standards.”
Other Tier 2 countries include Iraq, and the Northern Triangle countries: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
The Northern Triangle is the most violent area of the world not at war, and it’s on par with Japan in terms of human trafficking.
Yakuza also frequently engage in a unique form of extortion known as sōkaiya.
In essence, it is a specialized form of protection racket.
Instead of harassing small businesses, Yakuza harass stockholders’ meetings of larger corporations.
Or intimidate an ordinary stockholder with the presence of Yakuza operatives, who obtain the right to attend meetings by making a small purchase of stock.
Yakuza also has ties to the Japanese realty market and banking, through Jiageya.
Jiageya specializes in inducing holders of small real estate to sell their property, so estate companies can carry out much larger development plans.
Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s is often blamed on real estate speculation by banking subsidiaries.
Tokyo Stock Exchange dealers give their orders on a bustling trading day in the 1980s.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
After the collapse, a manager of a major bank in Nagoya was assassinated, after that much speculation ensued about the banking industry’s indirect connection to the Japanese underworld.
As a matter of principle, theft is not recognized as a legitimate activity of Yakuza.
This is in line with the idea that their activities are semi-open; theft by definition would be a covert activity.
More importantly, such an act would be considered a trespass by the community.
Also, Yakuza usually do not conduct the actual business operation by themselves.
Core business activities ,such as merchandising, loan sharking ,or management of gambling houses ,are typically managed by non-yakuza members who pay protection fees, for their activities.
Yakuza and Society
Such actions by the Yakuza are a result of knowing what it is like to “fend for yourself,” without any government aid or community support, because they are also considered “outcasts” and “dropouts from society“.
Yakuza members have also been called upon to perform public functions, such as when a Yakuza group was assembled to serve as a security, during a 1960 visit by U.S. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower (although the visit ultimately did not occur).
Yoshio Kodama was then referred to as the Japanese underworld’s visionary godfather. (Kaplan, p93-99)
In 1980, when the Yamaguchi-gumi attempted to expand their territory into Hokkaido, they were met at the Sapporo airport by 800 members of local gangs who united to keep the Yamaguchi-gumi out of their area.
Nearly 2,000 anti-riot-equipped police kept the two groups apart.
The Yamaguchi-gumi then were prevented from opening their headquarters in Sapporo.
By July 1981, Taoka suffered and died from a heart attack, ending his 35-year rule as oyabun.
His death was celebrated by his underlings in the finest Yakuza style.
Police used this event to raid Yamaguchi-gumi homes and offices across Japan, arresting 900 members, and taking contraband,firearms, swords, and amphetamines.
The funeral was grand indeed, bringing in members from nearly 200 gangs, singers, actors, musicians, and even the police (who attended dressed in riot gear).
Taoka’s successor was to be his number-two man, Yakamen. However, he was in prison , during his absence everyone (including the police) was surprised to see the newly selected, temp leader was Taoka’s widow, Fumiko.
Yakamen died of cirrhosis of the liver and did not succeed Taoka, which sent Yamaguchi-gumi into chaos.
They then operated under the same patterns that existed for the yakuza for over 300 years, basically depending upon the oyabun-kobun relationship which controlled the day-to-day management of the syndicate.
Their management style was envied by such organizations as the Mafia and General Motors.
Yamaguchi-gumi had 103 bosses or various ranks from well over 500 gangs.
Yamaguchi-gumi now deal in narcotics, primarily amphetamines.
Other fields of choice which brought in a high capital: money lending, smuggling, and pornography (hard pornography is illegal in Japan).
Rigging baseball games, horse races, and public property auctions were commonplace for yakuza.
Seizing real estate, entertainment halls, hospitals, and English schools were also done.
During Fumiko Taoka’s rule, the membership of Yamaguchi-gumi rose to 13,346 members from 587 gangs by the end of 1983.
Their control stretched to 36 of Japan’s 47 prefectures.
A council of eight high-ranking bosses took control, under the guidance of Fumiko Taoka.
Masahisa Takenaka became the new oyabun, as everyone preferred his militant style over Hiroshi Yamamoto’s (his opponent) interi (intellectual) yakuza.
Yamamoto, after a fit of anger after losing, took 13,000 men from Yamaguchi-gumi and created the Ichiwa-kai, one of Japan’s top three syndicates.
In 1985, Ichiwa-kai assassins slaughtered Takenaka, creating a bloody gang war.
Kazuo Nakanishi became the new oyabun for Yamaguchi-gumi and declared war in retaliation.
Police interfered and arrested nearly a thousand mobsters and confiscated many weapons.
Yamaguchi-gumi was desperate to win, so they turned to operations in the US, to fund their war.
They obtained many highly illegal weaponry, including rocket launchers and machine guns, in exchange for narcotics, however the conspirators were arrested, including Masashi Takenaka, Masahisa’s brother, and Hideomi Oda, the syndicate’s financial controller.
Yamaguchi-gumi was thrown back into chaos.
When members of the yakuza ambushed and stabbed filmmaker Itami Juzo over an anti-yakuza movie entitled “Minbo no Onna” (A Woman Yakuza Fighter).
A boryokudan defector commented on the attack, and was later found shot in the leg. (Shinnosuke, p356)
Even outsiders of the Yakuza protested the new laws against them.
Over 130 lawyers, professors, and proclaimed that the yakuza countermeasures were unconstitutional, basically on the grounds that the Christian ministery infringed basic rights, such as the freedom of assembly, the choice of occupation, and the ownership of property. (Shinnosuke, p358)
In fact, even ordinary citizens were against the Yakuza.
The Yakuza were operating out of a green building, that the neighbors quickly termed as burakku biru (“black building”).
Citizens in one publicly videotaped everyone who went in and out of the building, noting specifically, ones wearing flashy suits, dark glasses and short hair with hints of tattoos on their arms.
Yakuza retaliated against the citizens, smashing windows of the local garage mechanic, stabbing the town’s lawyer in the lung, and slashing another activist in the throat.
However, after police arrested half of the gang, the Ichiri Ikka, led by Tetsuya Aono, abandoned the burakku biru in an out-of-court settlement, as they did not want to stir up trouble for gangsters elsewhere. (Chua-Eoan, p42)
Although there are many different yakuza groups, together they form the largest organized crime group in the world.
Despite more than one decade of police repression, the Yamaguchi-gumi has continued to grow. From its headquarters in Kobe, it directs criminal activities throughout Japan. It is also involved in operations in Asia and the United States. Shinobu Tsukasa, also known as Kenichi Shinoda, is the Yamaguchi-gumi’s current oyabun.
Yakuza activity in the United States is mostly relegated to Hawaii, but they have made their presence known in other parts of the country, especially in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Seattle, Las Vegas, Arizona, Virginia, Chicago, and New York City.
The Yakuza are said to use Hawaii as a midway station between Japan and mainland America, smuggling methamphetamine into the country and smuggling firearms back to Japan.
They easily fit into the local population, since many tourists from Japan and other Asian countries visit the islands on a regular basis, and there is a large population of residents who are of full or partial Japanese descent. They also work with local gangs, funneling Japanese tourists to gambling parlors and brothels.
In California, the Yakuza have made alliances with local Korean gangs as well as Chinese triads,
The alliances with Vietnamese gangs were used as muscle, as they had potential to become extremely violent as needed. (Yakuza saw the potential following the constant Vietnamese cafe shoot outs, and home invasion burglaries throughout the 1980s and early 1990s).
The Yakuza has always been involved in politics and business right from the start.
In 1987, Noboru Takeshita was elected prime minister in Japan.There were always suspicions of gangster ties in the election.
When questioned on the accusations in 1992, Takeshita denied knowing at the time that Yakuza were involved.
But the Liberal Democratic Party kingmaker was made to resign from politics in October 1992 when he admitted to receiving bribes.
Shigeaki Isaka, who was very close to the leader of Aizu Kotetsu, would helped Takeshita win the election, in order to have a hold over him, possibly for future blackmail. (Economist, p33)
Aother Yakuza incident that hits closer to home.
The FBI is gearing up to handle the new threat from the Yakuza, now that their handling of the Mafia is nearly complete.
However, their investigations will be difficult, as they can operate though shell corporations without the close scrutiny that hampers crooks in other companies.
Secondly, money laundering is not a crime in Japan, so the investigations into the money angles of the Yakuza extremely difficult to trace. (Castro, p21)
The groups are always hungry for more power and money, wherever they can find it.
In New York City, they appear to collect finders fees from Russian, Irish and Italian mafiosos and businessmen for guiding Japanese tourists to gambling establishments, both legal and illegal.
Handguns manufactured in the US account for a large share (33%) of handguns seized in Japan, followed by China (16%), and the Philippines (10%).
Evolution: Today’s Japanese gangsters are moving away from the image of tattoo-covered killers who are missing the odd finger and into white-collar crime. One expert said the tradition of the gun-toting tattooed Yakuza is dying out
The FBI suspects that the Yakuza use various operations to launder money in the U.S.
In 2001, the FBI’s representative in Tokyo arranged for Tadamasa Goto, the head of the group Goto-gumi, to receive a liver transplant at the UCLA Medical Center in the United States, in return for information of Yamaguchi–gumi operations in the US.
Tadamasa Goto
This was done without prior consultation of the NPA. The journalist who uncovered the deal received threats by Goto and was given police protection in the US and in Japan.
Recently in 2017, a report was made that Yakuza, after years in the shadows, forming a group appearing like it’s trying to go legitimat and become a “humanitarian organization” that keeps the peace and at least limits its criminal activity to the traditional tacitly socially approved rackets.
The new group has adopted the name Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gum, which loosely translates as “Chivalrous Humanitarian Yamaguchi-gumi” with a very high profile: a press conference, scores of magazine interviews, and a PR blitz.
The future for the Yakuza as of right now is uncertain.
Perhaps the gangs will still survive in Japan, moving back into the underground where they hid during the occupation.
Perhaps they will just move their operations elsewhere, amongst the Triads of southeast Asia, with whom they have had good relationships and business.
Only time will tell…