Infighting in Japan's criminal mafia

2015 should have been a good year for Japan’s largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. With an estimated yearly revenue of $6.6 billion, mostly generated from drug trafficking, the gang is the second wealthiest group of its kind worldwide (the richest – the Russian Solnt-sevskaya Bratva – is thought to make roughly $8.5 billion a year). On the centenary of its foundation, however, infighting at a senior level looks set to rip the Yamaguchi-gumi apart. 

The term ‘yakuza’ is several hundred years old and denotes both gangsters and the groups they belong to. It is believed to be derived from the Japanese for ‘eight nine three’, the losing hand in Japanese card game oicho-kabu, a reference to the gambling sector which remains a cornerstone of organised criminal activity in Japan. Unlike their counterparts in China, the yakuza operate semi-openly and are immediately identifiable by their pompadour hairstyles, tinted-glass black Mercedes and full body tattoos – or irezumi – which are administered using non-electrical handheld tools. 

Members are generally feared and shunned by the wider Japanese society, and while the Robin Hood-image they promote was bolstered by high-profile aid efforts following the Kobe Earthquake in 1995 and the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011, most Japanese citizens avoid unnecessary interaction with the yakuza; it is common for instance for public baths not to allow entrance to anyone with tattoos in attempts to limit contact with criminals. 

These explicit demonstrations of identity and the yakuza obsession with tradition are perhaps attempts to conceal short histories with uninspiring lineages. The relative peace of the Tokugawa Period (1603 – 1868) left the samurai classes largely unable to use their fighting skills to generate revenue. While upper-level samurai were granted bureaucratic and military positions for local feudal lords, masterless samurai – or ‘ronin’ – were forced to rely on other means to make a living, like banditry and the running of protection rackets. It wasn’t until the Taisho Period (1912 – 1926) that many of the gangs around today were formed when the demand for blue-collar workers transformed the architecture of Japanese labour structures and small fraternities of workers and bosses began to develop. By the mid-20th Century, well-established rival gangs had emerged, each with elaborate rituals, rigid hierarchies and strictly enforced rules, like ‘yubitsume’, the requirement to cut off one’s finger to atone for wrongdoing. By the 21st Century, the Yamaguchi-gumi accounted for 50% of all yakuza in Japan, far outweighing rival gangs the Sumiyoshi-kai and the Inagawa-kai, and at the start of 2015, it seemed very unlikely the empire could crumble. 

The current squabble revolves around Shinobu Tsukasa, the Yamaguchi-gumi’s kingpin since 2005, who has been accused of giving preferential treatment to the Kodo-kai, a disliked Yamaguchi affiliate he founded in 1984, whose persistent refusal to cooperate with police is reportedly at least partially responsible for the recent government anti-yakuza drive. Perhaps even more offensive to Yamaguchi’s conservative clique, Tsukasa supposedly planned to move the gang’s headquarters from Kobe – where it has been based since 1915 – to Nagoya, a city 215 kilometres east where Tsukasa started his yakuza career in 1962. 

More than 3,000 members have defected to the newly-formed Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi under the leadership of Kunio Inoue, a former senior figure in the Yamaguchi-gumi, best known for having been the target of a grenade attack in 2010. Inoue has accused Tsukasa of “extreme egoism”, and has claimed the principal reason for the defection was to honour the wishes of former Yamaguchi-gumi leaders. 

The split has sparked national fears of sword fights, drive-by shootings and pitch battles on the streets of Kobe – exacerbated by the mysterious fatal shooting of a Yamaguchi boss in late October – and with good reason. From 1985 to 1989 the Yamaguchi-gumi entered a conflict with the Ichiwa-kai, a breakaway yakuza gang formed after a succession crisis following the deaths of two Yamaguchi bosses in the early 1980s. On 26 January 1985, Hiroshi Yamamoto – who had been beaten to the position of kumicho by Masahisa Takenaka – sent a hit squad to assassinate his rival at Takenaka’s girlfriend’s home in Osaka. The killing ignited the Yama- Ichi War, in which 36 yakuza members were killed in over 200 gun battles. The conflict was resolved through negotiations arbitrated by the Inagawa-kai, a neutral Tokyo-based gang, and the Ichiwa-kai was ultimately disbanded.

Things have changed since the ‘boom’ years of the 1980s however, and lessons have been learned; samurai ethics and blood oaths may still feature in Yamaguchi propaganda – accessible to all via their website, which includes a poetry page – but the organised crime world essentially revolves around money, and war isn’t cheap. 

In 2004, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that organised crime syndicates’ leaders were liable for damages incurred by any members of their organisations. These laws were introduced after a court ordered Yoshiori Watanabe, Tsukasa’s predecessor, to pay 80 million yen ($740,000) in damages following the killing of an off-duty police officer by Yamaguchi-gumi members. In 2008, Tadamasa Goto, a senior Yamaguchi figure, was held responsible for the murder of a real-estate agent carried out by his men and was forced to pay 110 million yen ($1.4 million) in damages. 

In October 2011, Tokyo enacted a local governmental anti-yakuza measure which prohibits company owners from knowingly conducting business with organised criminal gangs, with penalties ranging from the company’s name being revealed to the public to heavy fining and prison time. 

The full effects of this have not yet been felt, and the long-term implications could be disastrous for yakuza groups, many of which have traditionally relied heavily on a racketeering method known as soukaiya to extort money out of executives from Mitsubishi, Nikko Securities and other well-known corporations. Soukaiya usually entails the blackmailing of executives with threats to reveal embarrassing – and often fictional – company secrets. The potential shame of being outed by the government for paying soukaiya fees, however, may outweigh the threat from claims by gangsters, who are known to make money through dishonesty. 

There is nothing stopping Japan’s parliament going even further, and if criminal syndicate members step up the violence, the Japanese authorities are likely to respond with force, penalising more heavily or even closing down headquarters and arresting bosses for the crimes of their foot soldiers. This would mean the end for all organised criminal groups in Japan, the worst case scenario for Yamaguchi members on both sides of the divide. 

Memories of the Yama-Ichi war and tales of Tsukasa’s exploits, who served 13 years in prison for murdering a rival with a samurai sword, will certainly feature in Japan’s broadsheets in the coming weeks, but the yakuza themselves – if they are to survive – will have to fight with snide remarks, ostentatious usage of the gang emblem and acerbic poems in their self-published magazines.