Membership in organized crime syndicates has been decreasing about 10 percent each year since 2011, according to National Police Agency statistics. The reasons for the decline in membership are complex but we should give credit to the police for using every means at their disposal ...

"Imagine someone stole everything in your store and you reported the crime to the police," says Nobuyasu Ogata, defense lawyer for Mark Karpeles. Karpeles, 33, is the former CEO of Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world. "A year later," Ogata says, ...

One could almost be forgiven for thinking that con artists are a dime a dozen in Japan. They've been terrorizing elderly folk over the telephone in recent years with their ore-ore sagi ("It's me" scams) and sending threatening emails that warn recipients their computer ...

Ten minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, Kazuhiro Kusakabe drove a rental car into pedestrians on Harajuku's famed Takeshita-dori, injuring nine people. The 21-year-old college student drove around 140 meters the wrong way on the one-way street before crashing into a building, forcing him to ...

The Nov. 19 arrest of ousted Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn, his 23-day detention, his subsequent arrests and lengthy stay in detention has resulted in international scrutiny of Japan's criminal justice system. Is that fair? Shin Kukimoto, deputy public prosecutor at the Tokyo District ...

Freedom is easy to take for granted — at least until it is taken away from you without warning. Carlos Ghosn, chairman of the alliance between Nissan Motor Co., Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., was arrested on Nov. 19 for alleged financial violations. Two days ...

Advances in artificial intelligence have come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, prompting police in Fukuoka and Kyoto to look into ways of using the technology to tackle organized crime. The Fukuoka Prefectural Police in Kyushu face a particularly daunting task, with some ...

Business cards carry a lot of weight in Japan, so much so that they can be used to devastating effect if someone decides to deploy them for criminal purposes. A recent case highlights the danger that comes with placing trust in such cards. At the ...

Japan is for the most part a safe country. Gun-control laws are so strict in this East Asian nation of more than 120 million that fatalities remained in single digits last year. And yet we still feel a palpable sense of relief when we make ...

Is this a case of deja vu on the dancefloor? In 2012, police in Osaka started raiding clubs for violating the adult entertainment business law, popularly known as fūeihō. The law forbids dancing after midnight. When pressed on the matter, police officials said they were simply ...