Gangs Japan

Signs are emerging that Japanese organized crime syndicates are building their presence in the United States, following the huge wave of investment and legitimate business from Japan since the late-1980s, law enforcement officials say. Members of the yakuza , or boryokudan , crime families are starting to spread out from their traditional U.S.

Japan's Ministry of Finance acknowledged Wednesday that gangsters play an important role in delaying a solution to the country's bad-loan crisis and said that it will create a new institution to combat them. Key to the new effort, the ministry announced, will be the creation of one or possibly two institutions somewhat similar to the U.S. Resolution Trust Corp., which was established in 1989 to deal with the U.S. savings and loan crisis.

Japan's Ministry of Finance acknowledged Wednesday that gangsters play an important role in delaying a solution to the country's bad-loan crisis and said that it will create a new institution to combat them. Key to the new effort, the ministry announced, will be the creation of one or possibly two institutions somewhat similar to the U.S. Resolution Trust Corp., which was established in 1989 to deal with the U.S. savings and loan crisis.

In a wealthy neighborhood in the hills above quake-battered Kobe, hundreds of well-dressed residents join a line that snakes around the block of a large walled compound. They leave loaded down with buckets of water, six-packs of toilet paper, bags of disposable diapers and packets of noodles, cake and powdered milk. "Distribution point for baby goods," says a sign on the wall. Is this a government distribution point for the needy? Hardly.

In a wealthy neighborhood in the hills above quake-battered Kobe, hundreds of well-dressed residents join a line that snakes around the block of a large walled compound. They leave loaded down with buckets of water, six-packs of toilet paper, bags of disposable diapers and packets of noodles, cake and powdered milk. "Distribution point for baby goods," says a sign on the wall. Is this a government distribution point for the needy? Hardly.

Beneath the orderly surface of this coastal city is the tale of an extraordinary gang war, one that pitted an entire neighborhood against the local mob. The neighbors won. After nearly two years of noisy confrontation, they drove a gang of yakuza from their midst, forcing the swaggering, tattooed men to abandon a fortress-like office building that they had constructed, and painted black, just down the street from an elementary school.

Police investigators following the serpentine money trails of a company strongly suspected of being tied to a major Japanese yakuza (gangster) group have stumbled across a surprising American connection.

A wave of violence directed at business executives here is casting a spotlight on the murky world of relationships between gangsters and big business in Japan--and stoking fear among those with gang contacts. Just last week, shots were fired at the home of a retired insurance executive who still consults for his company, and last month a Sumitomo Bank executive was murdered, execution style.

The woman who at one time led Japan's largest underworld organization has died of a liver ailment, police said Saturday. Fumiko Taoka, 66, became de facto head of the Osaka-based Yamaguchi-gumi crime organization after her husband, Kazuo, died in 1981. She picked Masahisa Takenaka to succeed her husband as the gang's leader in June, 1984, leading to a division in the group.

What are we to make of a society in which pornography is readily available, violence pervades the arts and the media, men frequent bawdy shows and children are raised with the greatest permissiveness? I refer, of course, to Japan. This is the Japan that is almost unique among industrialized nations for its remarkably low rates of crime, especially violent crime, and its legendary ability to control the spread of dangerous drugs.

A wave of violence directed at business executives here is casting a spotlight on the murky world of relationships between gangsters and big business in Japan--and stoking fear among those with gang contacts. Just last week, shots were fired at the home of a retired insurance executive who still consults for his company, and last month a Sumitomo Bank executive was murdered, execution style.

Signs are emerging that Japanese organized crime syndicates are building their presence in the United States, following the huge wave of investment and legitimate business from Japan since the late-1980s, law enforcement officials say. Members of the yakuza , or boryokudan , crime families are starting to spread out from their traditional U.S.

Police investigators following the serpentine money trails of a company strongly suspected of being tied to a major Japanese yakuza (gangster) group have stumbled across a surprising American connection.

Beneath the orderly surface of this coastal city is the tale of an extraordinary gang war, one that pitted an entire neighborhood against the local mob. The neighbors won. After nearly two years of noisy confrontation, they drove a gang of yakuza from their midst, forcing the swaggering, tattooed men to abandon a fortress-like office building that they had constructed, and painted black, just down the street from an elementary school.

The woman who at one time led Japan's largest underworld organization has died of a liver ailment, police said Saturday. Fumiko Taoka, 66, became de facto head of the Osaka-based Yamaguchi-gumi crime organization after her husband, Kazuo, died in 1981. She picked Masahisa Takenaka to succeed her husband as the gang's leader in June, 1984, leading to a division in the group.

Desperate for a liver transplant at UCLA Medical Center, the leader of Japan's third-largest organized crime group offered as much as $1 million to potential intermediaries to help him obtain a U.S. visa, according to several people who said they were solicited for assistance.