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Calling themselves the "chivalrous groups" (仁侠団体 ninkyō dantai) and based on a strict code of conduct and rituals reminiscent of samurai days, the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, are involved in numerous illegal activities, ranging from gambling, prostitution and protection rackets to white-collar crime to this day. Dwindling acceptance in the population, tough anti-mafia legislature and sweeping law enforcement campaigns have resulted in a stark decline in yakuza members: the 10 largest groups in 2009 fielded some 35,490 members. This number fell to just 16,200 in 2016 and continues to plummet.

The Yakuza Thread is for the general discussion of our article on the Yakuza - Japanese crime syndicates and for news and updates relating to Japan's mobsters.
 
Here's an article of a former yakuza member who succeeded in restarting life in legality. As a construction worker, he now earns less than a third of what he did as a gang member. But he's happy.

When he was in his mid-20s, the man worked as the chauffer for a gang boss in Tokyo. He received 700,000 yen ($6,300) a month. But he was expected to be at the beck and call of his boss at all times. In those days, the man would often have sushi or grilled beef dinners at restaurants. Working in the construction industry today, the man makes about 200,000 yen a month, so his dinners consist mainly of bento meals from convenience stores. But he says he does not mind the switch to the less luxurious fare. "Meals after a hard day of work are really delicious," he said. "I should have realized much earlier how great a normal life is."

However, not everyone manages to leave gang life behind:

The agency said there were about 78,600 gang members across Japan in 2010, but that fell to about a third over the span of a decade, to 25,900 in 2020. Between 2011 and 2020, about 5,900 gang members have left their gangs behind after receiving help from police and local organizations striving to drive out organized crime. However, it can be tough to find help once they leave gang life. Only about 210, or 3.5 percent of the total, have found jobs through the association set up to help such individuals return to a normal life.

 
The ones who came to the bar where I worked always liked to show off their knives they carried , but not their tattoos. Most of their knives looked like they would break if they stabbed a pillow , LOL. For some reason , they needed to be pretty drunk before they would show off their tats. I only met 10 or 12 , so I can't speak about all of them as a whole.
 
According to Mainichi, the yakuza now resort to meetings in family restaurants and regular apartments. Gone are the days of camera-surveilled fortresses and convoys of black limousins.

The Mainichi Shimbun investigated the situation with the Kudo-kai, one of Japan's largest yakuza groups, which is based in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Fukuoka. In Fukuoka's Chuo Ward, a high-rise apartment building with over 100 apartments stands along a main road. One of these apartments is used as the office of a gang operating under the Kudo-kai, which is headquartered in the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Kitakyushu. Looking at housing registry records, ownership of the apartment was transferred to a business in the city of Fukuoka about 20 years ago. A senior member of the Kudo-kai was listed as a director of the company. Fukuoka Prefectural Police recognize the apartment as an office affiliated with the Kudo-kai. When a Mainichi Shimbun reporter talked to people living in the building, most of them gave responses such as "I've never seen a gang member," and "there's no interaction between residents amid the coronavirus crisis, so I don't know about that." According to one investigative official, there are many days when there are no gang members present in the daytime, so in the event of a criminal investigation, the group may be contacted to come and unlock it. There are believed to be about 100 gang offices in Fukuoka Prefecture, and one investigation official divulged, "Gang offices in Fukuoka are often in one apartment, and there are quite a few offices that forward calls."

 
The police are helping former yaks to set up bank accounts to assimilate into society and stay away from trouble.

The National Police Agency in February provided written guidelines to prefectural police departments on procedures to enable former gangsters, who have severed all ties with organized crime, to open bank accounts. The NPA, through the Financial Services Agency, also notified financial institutions, from megabanks to community banks, about the assistance measure for former mobsters. Lacking a bank account hampers the social reintegration of former gangsters because, for example, they have difficulties receiving automatic deposits of their wages. The NPA's move is intended to encourage as many gangsters as possible to quit their yakuza groups and get reintegrated into society. "It is a key element of anti-gang measures to allow those who have left yakuza groups for good to open their own bank accounts," a senior police officier said. "We hope to work steadily and do whatever we can do as a police force." The decision on opening accounts is ultimately up to financial institutions, which have their own anti-gang provisions.

 
An Asakusa-based yakuza gang called Anegasaki-kai (姉ヶ崎会) officially disbanded on 25 July. They "specialised" in scalping tickets for concerts and running stalls at summer festivals. The group founded in the early Taisho Era (1912-1926) officially informed other yakuza organisations of their business termination. The group saw its business shrink due to increased electronic ticket sales and the cancellation of many events and festivals during the pandemic.

The Anegasaki-kai was regarded as a leading ticket scalper in Tokyo as it monopolized the business in the capital. The group also made a handsome profit running stalls at summer festivals, the sources added. For well over a decade, the group would "hire" part-timers to buy up tickets in bulk for concerts featuring prominent live acts or sports events, such as professional baseball games, a source close to another crime syndicate said. This activity was its main source of funds. The Anegasaki-kai prospered by reselling those tickets at inflated prices to diehard fans near the event venues. However, the group's membership plummeted from about 700 in 2003 to 85 or so at the end of 2021.

 
Although the Japanese police are trying to curtail yakuza activities, criminal gangs in Tokyo continue to run protection rackets. However, shopkeepers who pay mikajime-ryō (みかじめ料) protection money violate an ordinance aimed at eliminating syndicates. In July, the police in the Japanese capital only referred three such cases to the public prosecutor's office.

The managers of three restaurant and sex establishments in Tokyo found themselves on the wrong side of the law for paying protection money to a local yakuza gang that operates in the busy Kanda commercial district of the capital. [...] Aside from the three outlets, several other stores in Kanda are known to have offered mikajimeryo as well. Officers at the Kanda Police Station estimated the three managers paid a combined total of 720,000 yen ($5,000) in mikajimeryo to a senior member of a gang affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai syndicate between October 2019 and January of this year. The gang member has already been indicted for extorting protection money from the operators in breach of the ordinance. The MPD in March arrested the senior member and three others linked to the same group in a separate case of extortion over a five-year period from an "izakaya" pub operator. Investigations revealed the gang coerced more than 10 outlets located around JR Kanda Station that included an izakaya and a hostess bar to pay mikajimeryo over the course of 10 years or so.

Just like in a cheap B movie, mikajime-ryō is handed over in brown envelopes on deserted streets and can also be discounted.

The [bar] manager knew that paying protection money was wrong as it brought no discernable benefit to his establishment. But he feared that his staff and customers would be assaulted and the bar's reputation undermined. "My predecessor and all the others paid protection money," the manager said. "I simply viewed the payments as a necessary expenditure like utility expenses in order to dodge risks." He did not bother to consult with the police, saying, "It is impossible for the police to protect us day and night." Looking back on those days, he said, "The idea of sharing the problem with the police never crossed my mind."

 
Just a comment that such extortion is by no means limited to Japan.
My brother once opened a bar with a couple of friends in a fairly prosperous market town in England and had to pay the equivalent of a few man a month to the local gang to ensure that their bar was 'protected' against fire.
 
The Conversation on the only woman to join the yakuza.

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The yakuza is dominated by men and leaves only informal roles to women. Typically a woman involved with the yakuza might be an anesan, a boss' wife who takes care of young affiliates and mediates between them and her husband. Wives and partners of the members support the group in a peripheral way. Some get involved to the extent that they manage yakuza-owned clubs or deal drugs. When I interviewed Nishimura recently as part of my research, she told me that when she had become involved with the yakuza at 20, she took up both roles. But she went one step further – Nishimura is the only woman who has ever partaken in the sakazuki ceremony of exchanging sake cups. This is the ritual that confirms formal affiliation with a yakuza group.

 
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