About 1,200 companies, mainly listed firms based in the Tokyo area, have declared plans to sever relations with "sokaiya" corporate extortionists, the Metropolitan Police Department said Friday.
About 100 of the firms have notified sokaiya that they will stop subscribing to about 10,000 of the racketeers' publications, the MPD reported. According to an MPD division dealing with organized crime, about 270 companies and financial institutions had severed ties with sokaiya by the end of September. Afterward, more than 900 insurance, nonlife insurance, pharmaceutical, automobile and other companies notified Hiroto Yoshimura, chief of the MPD criminal control division, that they had severed their sokaiya connections.
Fearing the racketeers may retaliate, the MPD has listed about 300 presidents and general affairs section chiefs of the companies for protection and tightened security at the firms. Mitsubishi Motors Corp., four of whose board members were arrested Tuesday in connection with sokaiya payoffs, notified the MPD the same day together with 12 other automakers that they had severed their sokaiya links .