Five people in Fukuoka Prefecture have filed a lawsuit seeking roughly ¥22.5 million ($157,400) in damages, including compensation for losses and emotional distress, against top leaders of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the country’s largest yakuza syndicate.
The plaintiffs claim they were defrauded of a total of about ¥18 million by a member of the syndicate, who has already been convicted of fraud in a criminal trial. The damages lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Fukuoka District Court, names four defendants including the group’s boss, 83-year-old Kenichi Shinoda, better known as Shinobu Tsukasa, and his second-in-command, 77-year-old Kiyoshi Takayama.
The lawsuit was filed under a system introduced by the Fukuoka Prefectural Police in June 2023 that covers legal costs such as attorney investigations and court record copying fees. The program, which caps support at ¥500,000 ($3,500) per case, is available when yakuza-related criminal cases result in a guilty verdict.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs argue that Shinoda and other senior Yamaguchi-gumi figures bear organizational responsibility under the law against illegal activity by members of organized crime groups. Police in Fukuoka and Aichi prefectures also issued provisional orders to the four defendants on Tuesday, demanding that they not obstruct the legal proceedings.
This marks only the second time the system has been used. The first was in October 2024, when relatives of victims of attacks linked to the Kudokai gang, based in the city of Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture, sued the group’s leader Satoru Nomura, who is currently appealing a life sentence.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.