National / Crime & Legal Jan 4, 2018
by Alex K.T. Martin
Starting Thursday, Japanese Bankers Association members will be able to screen individual loan seekers using the National Police Agency’s database of organized crime members.
National / Crime & Legal Sep 8, 2017
Kudo-kai gangsters held in Shimizu worker's 2011 shooting in Kitakyushu
Six members of the Kudo-kai underworld syndicate are arrested in connection with the shooting of a construction worker in Kyushu in 2011.
National May 29, 2017
The organizer of the famous Kishiwada Danjiri Festival in Osaka will remake its poster for this year's event because a yakuza appeared on it. The Kishiwada Police Department said Sunday that a member of Yamaguchi-gumi, the nation's biggest crime syndicate, is in the poster, which ...
National / Crime & Legal May 11, 2017
Man wounded as biker opens fire on van carrying yakuza in Chiba
A motorcycle attack on a yakuza-filled van in Chiba Prefecture has left one man injured and bleeding from the head, police said. The shooting took place Wednesday evening at an intersection on National Route 6 in Matsudo, and close to a police station, investigative sources ...
National / Crime & Legal Jan 19, 2017
12 yakuza arrested over 2011 drive-by shooting of Fukuoka construction executive
A dozen gangsters affiliated with the underworld group Kudo-kai have been arrested in connection with the fatal drive-by shooting of a construction company executive in November 2011. Toshihiro Uchino, 72, chairman of Hakushin Kensetsu, was shot to death in front of his home in Kitakyushu ...
National / Crime & Legal Sep 8, 2016
Colombian's memoir reveals deceptions that pulled her into Japan's sex trade in 1990s
by Tomohiro Osaki
Mother Marcela Loaiza tells tale of how she was lured to Tokyo for dance work only to wind up in the hands of the yakuza.
National / Crime & Legal Jun 1, 2016
Police in the city of Okayama were on alert Wednesday after the deadly shooting of a senior member of a branch of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate. Okayama Prefectural Police said Tadashi Takagi, 55, of the gang's Ikeda-gumi faction, was found dead at 9:50 a.m. ...
National / Crime & Legal May 30, 2016
Lay judges in Kyushu approached before yakuza trial decision
Lay judges involved in the trial of a senior yakuza have been approached by someone believed to be associated with the defendant, sources said Monday. According to the sources, the person in question said something like "I'm counting on you" to the lay judges after ...
National Sep 1, 2014
Property and casualty insurance companies plan to let crime syndicate members buy auto insurance so that victims can be compensated in the event a gangster causes an accident, industry sources said. The move comes as the financial sector is otherwise shunning dealings with organized crime ...
Business / Corporate Jul 5, 2014
Mizuho Financial Group Inc.'s newly chairwoman says she wants to be receptive to the opinions of those running its frontline operations to boost the lender's oversight structure in the wake of last year's yakuza loan scandal. Hiroko Ota, who got the shareholders' nod to lead ...
National Nov 1, 2013
Since the revised law against organized crime took effect a year ago, mob-related offenses appear to be on the wane in Fukuoka Prefecture, which was targeted by the amendment for escalating violence waged by three underworld syndicates. Police, however, have not made substantial progress in ...