A 26-year-old American resident of Kanagawa Prefecture died early Saturday after allegedly being assaulted by a group of men who looked like gangsters, police officials said.
Edward Alex Gonder, who lived in Ebina and taught English at a language school in Yokohama, died of his wounds at a hospital in Kawasaki, where he was taken for treatment with a friend.
According to police, Gonder and his friend appear to have got into an argument with a man who was apparently a member of a crime syndicate on the streets of Kawasaki sometime between midnight Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday.
The man was joined by several others, who forced them into a car, took them to an unidentified location, beat and kicked them for about an hour before dumping them in front of Kawasaki-Daishi Station in the city.
The friend took Gonder to a nearby hospital, but he was already in a weak condition and died shortly afterward, police said.