Watching Season Two Of 'Tokyo Vice'

I’m watching and enjoying season two of Tokyo Vice on HBO’ Max channel.

The series, based on Jake Adlestein’s true crime book, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, is an interesting journalistic thriller about an American reporter working on Japan’s largest newspaper. The young reporter covers crime for the newspaper and encounters Japanese yakuza gangsters and Japanese cops.   

Tokyo Vice is laboriously slow at times, but rich in exotic atmosphere and introduces the viewer to some unique characters, such as Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), a nice Jewish boy from Missouri who travels to Japan at 19 to attend college and later becomes the only American to work on a major Japanese newspaper. 

Other interesting characters in the series are a Japanese cop (the great actor Ken Watanabe) who mentors Adelstein, and a young yakuza gangster (Sho Kasamatsu). 

I’ve long been interested in Japan, having visited Sasebo and Nagasaki in 1971 when I was a young sailor serving on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. 

We were relieved from “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin where the carrier launched aircraft for combat sorties against the North Vietnamese, and sailed into Sasebo for a week’s R&R.

So whether you’ve visited Japan or not, most viewers will be fascinated with Tokyo Vice, and its fine portrayal of Japanese culture and Japanese crime.

Note: You can read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein's Tokyo Vice via the below link:  

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Beat Column: Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan 

Life As A Gangster In Japan Just Isn’t As Fun As It Used To Be

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat in Japan, looks at  the yakuza these days in his column in the Japan Times. 

A number of theories have been put forward on the reasons behind the 2015 split of the country’s largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Some say the factions that left the organization and formed a group called the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi were egged on by the police, who had deliberately encouraged suspicions to grow among rival syndicates. It’s worth noting that police officers stood guard outside the new group’s headquarters when it announced its existence to the public.

Others believe the split was supported by several former Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate bosses who had been expelled with Tadamasa Goto in 2008. Those involved in organized crime call the cull the “Goto Shock,” a nod to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the same year. Indeed, Goto allegedly bankrolled the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, allowing the new organization to get up and running.

And then there’s Morimasa Ohta, a syndicate leader who had been banished with Goto before eventually joining the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi as a boss. Ohta’s tell-all memoir, “Ketsubetsu” (“Blood Parting“) which was published in July 2015, weeks before the split, is now believed to have been a call to revolt. The book sales have since become problematic because Ohta had retired from organized crime when it was published. Now that he’s joined the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, however, Ohta’s royalty payments could contradict legislation on organized crime. The law prohibits payments to anyone involved in a crime syndicate.

Yet, none of these theories completely explain why the veteran Yamaguchi-gumi members decided to leave the powerful crime syndicate when they were nearing the end of their careers.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/02/national/media-national/life-gangster-japan-just-isnt-fun-used/#.WiNNx0qnGM8

You can also read my Crime Beat column about Jake Adelstein and Japanese organized crime via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html 

Are Crime Syndicates In Japan Sitting On A Gold Mine?

Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat in Japan, offers a piece in the Japan Times on Japanese organized crime and gold.

The Japanese underworld loves gold — it has been the analog bitcoin of crime syndicates in recent years. The origins of gold are difficult to trace, and the material is easy to convert into cash and store. Crime syndicates are increasingly smuggling it, stealing it or robbing it from other smugglers who don’t have ties to gangs.

A gold smuggler isn’t likely to report any theft to the authorities and therefore makes the perfect victim.

Over the past three years, thieves have conducted a “Reservoir Dogs”-style gold heist dressed as police officers hijacked a Mercedes believed to have been loaded with gold and robbed gold dealers in broad daylight.

According to the Finance Ministry, customs reported 294 cases of gold smuggling between July 2015 and June 2016.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/07/01/national/media-national/crime-syndicates-japan-sitting-gold-mine/#.WVhQ0IjyuM8

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein and Tokyo Vice via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html 

Yakuza Vs. Yakuza In A ‘Sea of Blood’

Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat in Japan, offers a piece at the Daily Beast of the growing Yakuza gang war in Japan.

TOKYO — Molotov cocktails, beatings, shootings—the tempo of Yakuza on Yakuza violence is picking up in Japan, and there’s every reason to believe it’s just a little taste of what’s to come.

Almost six months after this country’s largest crime organization—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the one yakuza group that once ruled them all—was split apart by the defection of many members to a new group calling itself Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, or KY, Japan’s tabloid press has been predicting “a sea of blood.”

Many fear the two gangs will go head to head in an all-out war, and other gangs may follow suit.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/08/yakuza-vs-yakuza-in-a-sea-of-blood.html

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein's book on Japanese organized crime via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html

Yakuza Hollywood: How Japanese Organized Crime Is Running Japan’s Film Industry

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat in Japan, offers a piece at the Daily Beast on how Japanese organized crime controls the Japanese film industry.

TOKYO — Japan’s entertainment industry is infested with organized crime and despite crackdowns on “yakuza Hollywood” nothing much seems to change. For example, last month 10 comedians from the colossal Yoshimoto Kogyo talent agency were caught up (innocently, they said) in a yakuza insurance fraud scheme involving, ahem, free massages. The scam reportedly netted over a million dollars. Who will be prosecuted remains murky. And that’s business as usual.

What is unusual is for a yakuza boss to break the code of silence and discuss how the talent agency he worked for intimidated its stars and the media, even using other yakuza to get the job done.

... Kazuo Kasaoka, the leader of the yakuza group Matsurua-gumi (Kobe),submitted a statement to the court which details the time he spent employed by the head of Burning Production, doing his own dirty work for the firm, he says, and watching the sinister activities of others.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/06/the-yakuza-are-running-japan-s-hollywood.html

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein's true crime book about Japan via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html 

Japan’s Biggest Yakuza Mob Group Splits Under Money, Police Pressure

Alexander Martin at the Wall Street Journal offers a piece on the yakuza organized crime syndicates in Japan.

TOKYO—The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest and most powerful yakuza crime syndicate, is undergoing a major split on its 100th anniversary after years of police crackdowns and financial strains, raising fears of a bloody gang war.

News broke in late August that groups within the Yamaguchi-gumi were parting ways with its sixth-generation don. The result is the creation of a rival syndicate, also based in central Japan.

Experts say the split reflects the harsher environment facing the yakuza following the adoption of anti-gang laws that have choked off revenues. Gang members are finding it harder to make money from traditional sources like protection rackets.

“Clampdowns against the yakuza have been enforced at all points, making it increasingly difficult for them to rack up profits,” said Yoshiaki Shinozaki, an attorney with decades of experience fighting organized crime.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-gangsters-find-extortion-no-longer-pays-forcing-yakuza-split-1441773870

Note: The above spells out yakuza in Katakana.   
    

The Case Of The Yakking Yakuza

Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, offers a piece at the Daily Beast on the arrest of a Japanese crime boss.

TOKYO, Japan — In southern Japan, where violent gang wars continue for years, everyone has a long memory and forgiveness is rarely given. But sometimes justice is served.

This week the Japanese National Police Agency used evidence from a cold case dating back 16 years to arrest the heads of Japan’s “most violent” yakuza group—the Kudo-kai—on charges of homicide. The cops have made dismantling the Kudo-kai a police priority and want to deliver a message to the remaining 300 full-time members that resistance would be futile. Japanese authorities also have won the support of the United States in this battle. In July, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Kudo-kai a transnational criminal organization, noting it was Japan’s “most violent yakuza syndicate,” and froze the assets of the same top executives now under arrest for murder.

On September 11, the Fukuoka Prefectural Police Organized Crime Division and the riot squad stormed the headquarters of the Kudo-kai and the home of the group’s leader, Satoru Nomura, age 67, and arrested him for his role in conspiring to murder Kunihiro Kajiwara, a leader in the local fishing industry. The Kudo-kai’s second in command, Fumio Tanoue, 58, initially escaped arrest, but turned himself in to the police on September 13.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/16/the-case-of-the-yakking-yakuza.html

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein's Tokyo Vice via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html

The Top Five Organized Crime Groups In The World

Chris Matthews at Fortune.com offers a piece on the top five organized crime groups in the world.

So, who are the biggest organized crime gangs around the world and how do they make their money? Organized crime revenues are very difficult to estimate, as criminals often spend a significant amount of time trying to hide what they make. Also, “organized crime” is a loosely defined concept. Anything from a vast drug smuggling ring to a handful of car thieves can be classified as organized crime groups, and the cohesiveness of organized crime organizations around the world varies widely. Some groups, like Japan’s Yakuza, are highly organized and hierarchical, allowing economists and crime fighters in Japan to attribute much higher revenue totals to Yakuza groups than others around the world. Here are the top five criminal gangs, ranked by revenue estimates:

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://fortune.com/2014/09/14/biggest-organized-crime-groups-in-the-world/

Head Of 'Particularly Dangerous' Japanese Gang Arrested

Julian Ryall at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on the arrest of a Japanese organized crime leader.

Japanese police have carried out the very public arrest of the head of the Kudo-kai yakuza gang, one of the country's most violent underworld groups.
 

Watched by hundreds of reporters, including television crews in helicopters hovering overhead, police officers in full riot gear and helmets entered the luxurious home of Satoru Nomura in the city of Kitakyushu, southern Japan.
 

Shielded by an umbrella before being bundled into the back of an unmarked police van, 67-year-old Nomura was taken into custody on Thursday on suspicion of shooting dead the leader of a local fisheries cooperative in 1998.
 

Nomura allegedly killed Kunihiro Kajiwara after he refused to assist the Kudo-kai's efforts to make money from a public works project at a nearby port.
 

The most powerful underworld group in northern Kyushu, the Kudo-kai has a hard core of around 600 active members and a reputation for being swift to resort to violence.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11073516/Head-of-particularly-dangerous-Japanese-gang-arrested.html

Japan Finally Convicts Powerful Yakuza Crime Boss

Jake Adelstein at the Daily Beast offers a piece on the conviction of a Japanese yakuza crime boss.

On March 22^nd, the second most powerful gangster in Japan, and for several years the de facto head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest mafia group (39,000 members), was sentenced to six years in prison for extortion, according to the Japanese media and police sources. The Kyoto District Court handed down the verdict today on March 22. The defense is expected to appeal the sentence, which came years after an initial investigation initiated by the Kyoto Police in late 2009.

Kodo-kai faction and the second in command of the Yamaguchi-gumi itself, was convicted of extorting cash totaling over 40,000,000 yen (approximately $422,000) from a 67-year-old president of a construction industry in Kyoto under the pretext of "protection money."

Mr. Takayama has a reputation as being a cunning and ruthless leader. He is a well-known figure in the country and on the cover of numerous publications about the yakuza. He was injured in his youth, allegedly in a sword fight, which resulted in his right eye being half-closed and giving him a frightening appearance. While feared and respected by many in the underworld, his unusually antagonistic attitude towards the police gained him criticism within and outside his own group. For decades, the police and the yakuza had semi-cordial relationships; cops would visit yakuza at their offices and they would casually talk to each other. The 3^rd Generation leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi once served as the Honorary Police Chief Of The Day in the Kobe area in the 60s. When yakuza were caught for a crime they committed, they would quickly confess. If there were a gang war, those who committed violent acts of retaliation in the conflict would turn themselves into the police. Under Mr. Takayama, Yamaguchi-gumi members became more adversarial towards law enforcement and would not generally allow detectives into their offices, nor cooperate with investigations, nor confess to crimes.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/23/japan-finally-convicts-powerful-yakuza-boss.html

You can also read an earlier Jake Adelstein piece on Japanese organized crime via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/12/the-death-and-legacy-of-japanese.html 

Japan's Number Two Yakuza Jailed For Extortion

The Inquirer News in the Philippines reports on the arrest of the number two yakuza in Japan.

TOKYO — A “one-eyed” gangster, the number-two man in Japan’s biggest yakuza crime organization, was convicted of extortion on Friday, winning a high-profile victory for the country’s anti-mob police.

Kiyoshi “Mekkachi” Takayama, 65, who reputedly lost the use of his eye in a swordfight early in his career, was jailed for six years. His underworld nickname of “Mekkachi” means “one-eyed” in the dialect of western Japan.

Takayama is second in command of the Yamaguchi-gumi, a vast organized crime syndicate that had 27,700 members at the end of 2012, according to the National Police Agency.

You can read the rest of the story via th below link:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/377995/japans-no-2-yakuza-jailed-for-extortion

You can also read my Crime Beat column on the yakuza and Jake Adelstein's Toyko Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat in Japan via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html

The Death And Legacy Of A Japanese Organized Crime Yakuza Boss Known As 'Mr. Gorilla'

 

Jake Adelstein at the Daily Beast reports on the life and death of a yakuza crime boss known as 'Mr. Gorilla.'

Yoshinori Watanabe, the previous boss of Japan’s largest yakuza group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, passed away this weekend according to the Hyogo prefectural police. He was the fifth-generation leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi and had rarely appeared in public since retiring or being forced out of power in 2005. He was 71.

... Watanabe was a charismatic leader and a good businessman. By keeping the association dues low and through aggressive gang wars and leveraged peace treaties with rival gangs, he expanded the organization to become Japan’s largest organized crime group; by 2004, the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters was collecting nearly $25 million per year in association dues alone, according to police files. In the book The Business Management Methods of the Yamaguchi-gumi (2005), by yakuza expert Atsushi Mizoguchi, Watanabe succinctly explains the secret of his organized crime management: “Absolute Unity. Retaliation. Silence. Appropriate rewards and punishments, and judicious use of violence.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/03/the-death-and-legacy-of-yakuza-boss-mr-gorilla.html

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein and his book Tokyo Vice via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html

U.S. Treasury Department Guns For Japanese Yakuza Groups

 

Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat in Japan, offers an interesting piece in The Daily Beast on the U.S. Treasury's crackdown on Japanese organized crime.

The U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on Japan's second largest yakuza crime syndicate, the Sumiyoshi-Kai and its leaders today. The sanctions make it possible to freeze their U.S. assets and block their transactions with American corporations or other entities.

The Sumiyoshi-Kai’s leader, Shigeo Nishiguchi, and the underboss Hareaki Fukuda, were added to the U.S. Treasury’s list of persons that are targeted for punitive financial measures.

The Sumiyoshi-kai is a designated organized crime group in Japan, regulated but not outlawed. It has offices, the members have business cards; fan magazines, comics, and books list the top executives and celebrate their exploits. The Sumiyoshi-kai, with close to 11,000 members, is based in Tokyo, with offices in the luxurious Ginza area and flashy Akasaka. The group’s moneymaking activities include real estate, construction, prostitution, temporary staffing, as well as the standard extortion, blackmail, and racketeering.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/28/u-s-treasury-department-guns-for-japanese-yakuza-groups.html

You can also read also read my Crime Beat column on Jake Adelstein's Tokyo Vice via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html  

Yazuza Godfather Targeted In U.S. Crackdown On Crime Gangs

Terje Langeland at Businessweek reports on the Obama administration' crackdown on Japanese organized crime.
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Japan’s yakuza organized-crime groups, having operated openly in their home country for more than a century, are facing tougher treatment by an overseas foe: the U.S. Obama administration.
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The largest of Japan’s yakuza organizations, the Yamaguchi- gumi, and two of its leaders will have their U.S. assets frozen and transactions barred under sanctions announced yesterday by the Treasury Department. The group earns “billions of dollars” a year from crimes in Japan and abroad, including drug and human trafficking, prostitution, money laundering and fraud, the department said in a statement.

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You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-24/yakuza-godfather-targeted-in-obama-crackdown-on-crime-gangs.html

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Yakuza Godfather Kenichi Shinoda appears in the above photo.   

Yakuza Aid: Even The Japanese Mafia Is Offering Humanitarian Help To The Japanese Disaster Victims

Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice, reports in The Daily Beast that the yakuza, Japan's organized crime group, is helping the disaster victims in Japan.

Although Adelstein, who worked as a crime reporter in Japan, describes the yakuza as a criminal organization, and notes most yakuza members are tribal sociopaths, he reports that the Japanese underworld is pitching in with food and other services to help the victims.

You can read the Daily Beast piece via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-18/japanese-yakuza-aid-earthquake-relief-efforts/?om_rid=DQC92W&om_mid=_BNhK8NB8Zvt3ru#

You can also read my column on Adelstein and Toyko Vice via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/03/tokyo-vice-american-reporter-on-police.html