Police on Monday searched the Kobe headquarters of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the nation's largest crime syndicate, on suspicion it was involved in the killing of a senior member of the rival Sumiyoshi-kai this month.
Tokyo police on Feb. 21 raided the offices of the Kokusui-kai, a yakuza group affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi, on suspicion of murder and weapons violations.
At around 10 a.m. Monday, about 230 police officers, raided the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters, seizing boxes of documents within an hour.
On Feb. 5, Ryoichi Sugiura, 43, a senior Sumiyoshi-kai member, was gunned down on a street in Minato Ward, Tokyo. The killing was followed by a spate of shooting incidents in Tokyo that police believe are connected with a turf war between the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshi-kai.
In what appears to be related to the gangland war, Kazuyoshi Kudo, 70, head of the Kokusui-kai, was found dead at his home in Taito Ward, Tokyo, on Feb. 15 in an apparent suicide.
According to police, the Kokusui-kai, which controlled organized crime operations in a downtown area of Tokyo, had been allowing the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai to operate there on a kind of "lease" basis. However, the Kokusui-kai joined the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi in 2005 and police say they believe Sugiura was having trouble with the Yamaguchi-gumi over the "leased" area.
