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CHAPTER TWENTY JAPAN 20.1 Yakuza & Boryokudan: Organised Crime in Japan Organised crime in Japan is frequently associated with the yakuza (߿ߊߑ), the name for criminal syndicates that have evolved in Japanese society over the last 400 years. The word yakuza refers to a traditional card game and means as much as ‘worthless’. In Japan, the term is used to refer to individual members of criminal organisations while law enforcement agencies prefer the term boryokudan (᥸ജ࿅, or violence groups) to refer to the groups themselves.926 Historically, boryokudan comprised groups of outsiders including people involved in gambling, low-level crime, or protection rackets.927 Beginning in the 1800s, boryokudan gradually began to get involved in more sophisticated and organised crime forms, such as prostitution, extortion, illegal supply of liquor, and the sex and gambling industries. To raise further funds and exercise greater power, the boryokudan also set up a range of legitimate businesses and entered into strate- gic relationships with political figures, often by way of corruption.928 The boryokudan and its members were largely tolerated by Japanese society and many yakuza portrayed themselves (or were portrayed by others) as heroes, Robin Hoods, and modern-day samurai. Until the introduction of anti-organised crime laws in 1991, it was also com- mon for some groups to use gang emblems and tattoos to openly display membership.929 Peter Hill notes that ‘the yakuza apparently 926 In this report, the two terms are used interchangeably. 927 Peter Hill, ‘The Changing Face of the Yakuza’ (2004) 6(1) Global Crime 97 at 97; Keith Maguire, ‘Crime, Crime Control and the Yakuza in Contemporary Japan’ (1997) 21(3) Criminologist 131 at 135. 928 Joseph E. Ritch, ‘They’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse: A comparative anal- ysis of international organised crime’ (2002) 9 Tulsa Journal of Comparative and Inter- national Law 569 at 581–582; Peter Hill, ‘Heisei Yakuza: Burst Bubble and Bōtaihō’ (2003) 6(1) Social Science Japan Journal 1 at 2, 3. 929 Hitoshi Saeki, ‘Japan: The Criminal Justice System Facing the Challenge of Organised Crime’ (1998) 69 International Review of Penal Law 413 at 414. On the 262 chapter twenty enjoyed a position of wealth, security and acceptance, inconceivable for organised crime groups in other advanced democracies.’930 Simi- larly, Keith Maguire remarks that: Although crime rates in Japan are generally lower than in the West, organised crime is a much more serious problem. Organised crime had been given a role in society which on the one hand leads to serious prob- lems of corruption, but on the other hand contributes to keeping down the worst excesses of street crime and the heroin and cocaine problems that are found in the West.931 The yakuza took great advantage of the lack of government control and law enforcement that followed Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. During that time, boryokudan in cooperation with low-level racketeering groups ran much of the black market for food and basic supplies.932 Over the years, the yakuza became increasingly influen- tial across Japan and—particularly in the decade of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’—became more and more involved in the stock market, real estate, and politics. John Huey Song Long and John Dombrink note ‘an unusual relationship of Japan’s organised crime groups to that society and to its legitimate institutions’ and observe that boryokudan ‘evolved into wealthy and sophisticated, even semi-legitimate, societal institutions with a strong political presence.’933 At that time, the yakuza also became involved in an activity known as sokaiya, a unique form of corporate blackmail,934 and in corporate crimes such as money lend- ing (sarakin), debt collecting and loss cutting, auction obstruction, and early years of the yakuza generally, see Kaplan & Dubro, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, 3–27. 930 Hill, ‘Heisei Yakuza: Burst Bubble and Bōtaihō’, at 2. See further Hill, The Japa- nese Mafia, 36–42. 931 Maguire, ‘Crime, Crime Control and the Yakuza in Contemporary Japan’, at 140. 932 Hill, ‘The Changing Face of the Yakuza’, at 98; Kaplan & Dubro, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, 31–55; Maguire, ‘Crime, Crime Control and the Yakuza in Contemporary Japan’, at 135–136. 933 Huey Long Song & Dombrink, ‘Asian Emerging Crime Groups’, at 232. See also Ko Shikata, ‘Yakuza—organised crime in Japan’ (2006) 9(4) Journal of Money Laun- dering Control 416 at 417; Kaplan & Dubro, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, 56–108, 175–195. 934 See further, Kaplan & Dubro, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, 159–164; Hill, ‘The Changing Face of the Yakuza’, at 99; Hill, The Japanese Mafia, 124–128..

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