Japan’s organized crime groups, known collectively as the “yakuza,†i.e., “Losers,†or “Gokudo†(the ultimate path), are different from the mafias we know about in the West. They are treated as if they were some sort of controlled substance, dangerous but accepted within certain parameters.
They are Goldman Sachs with guns—not to mention knives, bazooka launchers, sniper rifles, and assassins.
So, in Japan, there are 21 designated organized crime groups that are regulated and policed by the Japanese government, and the yakuza themselves are not outlawed. Many yakuza pay taxes and declare their income. There are yakuza fan magazines; the upper echelon carry business cards. If you go to the webpage of the National Police Agency, you can find a listing of all the major yakuza groups, their headquarters, and their emblems (PDF).
The Inagawa-kai, Japan’s second largest yakuza group, has its offices across from the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. The Sumiyoshi-kai is located in opulent Ginza.
The groups are all structured as pseudo-families with lower members pledging allegiance to their surrogate father—the oyabun—and their “brothers.â€
Of the yakuza groups, the Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest and most powerful. It had over 23,000 members and associates at the end of 2014, accounting for over 40 percent of those affiliated with gangs in Japan. However, even the Inagawa-kai, due to blood-brother relations between its leader and a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, is essentially under the Yamaguchi-gumi umbrella, giving it a majority stake in the underworld.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=80838.0