The modus operandi and the national and international impact of a particular Japanese criminal organized group: the Yakuza

Résumé du document

Yakuza are Japanese organized crime groups represented by several syndicates in the whole country. They also have got many networks in the world especially in the Pacific zone, The United States as well as in Germany. The modern Yakuza derived from two distinct formations: the bakuto involved in gambling – one of the most lucrative activities of the modern yakuza – and the tekiya mainly involved in peddling. But the term yakuza comes from a Japanese card game – Oicho-Kabu – in which players should do a row of numbers, it refers to the lose-handing ya-ku-sa meaning “eight-nine-three”.

At the beginning, yakuzas were recruited among rural dwellers but today they come from different environments. There are many different bands into the Yakuza; those different groups are often called Boryokudan which means “violent gang”. But they frequently refer themselves as gokudo which literally means “ultimate path” (Adelstein, 2009). They are “close societies in their individual groups but the groups are interlinked through a widespread underworld syndicate” (Takahashi and Becker, 1985: 3).There are three main yakuza syndicates; together they would be the largest organised crime group in the world today. First, the largest boryokudan is the Yamaguchi-gumi, it is gathering more than half of the yakuza members, it was created in 1915 and actually continues to grow; it dominates the industrialized part of japan that is Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area as well as Tokyo area and other powerful centres across the country.

The second one is the Sumiyoshi-Kai with more than 20 000 members divided in about 280 clans so it is more a confederation than a united group, and finally the third one is the Inagawa-kai, it is also a confederation of several clans which was the first to expand its illegal activities abroad.

Extraits

[...] But they more and more spread their activities abroad. Sexual industry is extremely developed in the whole Asia area especially in China, South Korea, Philippines, Viet Nam and Taiwan thanks to numerous yakuza groups established there. But they extend their businesses above all in the United States especially on the West coasts. They have accompanied the large spreading of Japanese population worldwide. Hence they are extremely present above all in Hawaii or in California especially in Los Angeles where they invest in real-estate business. [...]

[...] Indeed new groups of younger and more violent members appeared in addition to being less organized than traditional yakuza groups. They specialized them in amphetamines trafficking, casino games, prostitution and pornography industry. Today all those activities are under the control of the most important boryokudan: the Yamaguchi-gumi. During the 60s yakuzas groups increased their headcounts and reached a peak (more than yakuzas divided between about 130 gangs; but such a number of clans triggered many gang wars into the yakuza organisation. [...]

[...] Moreover today yakuza has got a huge virtual army of thousands of men and women in order to control online traffics and to develop a new form of criminal activity on the web. It is a bright organization evolving with its society and fitting its activities to the new stakes. So Yakuza might become the most threaten society for the world during the next few years, so it becomes the objects of the all the attentions today and it is closely watching by governments. [...]

[...] Thus the Japanese criminal rate in cities is quite low in comparison with other Asian areas - Korea for example. Indeed, in Japan there is still a close connection between authorities and organized crime groups in order to “help the police forces more unpredictable, disorganised crime to keep the streets safe” (Linter, 2002: 10). They are often used by government to maintain security across the whole country especially during periods of crisis (economic, political or social crisis). Nonetheless, their activities has changed, they are more clandestine than before; now they have to balance their business with many kinds of trafficking and lower-end prostitution (massage parlours or special bars because of the recent illegality of prostitution). [...]

[...] The impact was important because it has triggered to an important devaluation to the property in Tokyo which is so one of the cheapest place to live in our current context. Then, women prostitution is the third most important activities of the Yakuza while prostitution is illegal for nearly half a century; their prostitutes mainly come from south-east Asia and Russia. Their sexual business is mostly concentrated in one of the most important center of sexual industry in the world, Kabukicho the famous red-light district in Tokyo. [...]