Yakuza: since the Japanese mafia works

The yakuza is the acquaintance like Japanese mafia. In boingboing an interview has appeared to the reporter Jake Adelstein who has devoted himself to investigate on the yakuza. Threatened with death for some of the chiefs he explains it in the book Tokyo Vice.

Here I leave you with part of an interview that I have translated from English:

Why do the people join the yakuza?

There are usually the maladjusted ones of the Japanese society. The word itself comes from moon losing hand in the game. 893 (Ya-ku-za). It is the worst hand that one can have. This way, when they refer to themselves as yakuza, they refer like losers.

In the west of Japan, there is still many discrimination against the burakumin (I already told who the burakumin are), the alienated class. If you come from some parts of the country, it can be thought that you are low, dirty and impure. There are also many Korean yakuza because of the discrimination against them. Now it is better, but in the past, the employment options for the Koreans were the lounge of pachinko, operator of restaurants of yakiniku, clubs of sex, or the yakuza.

Some of them are normal persons who basically want to execute a small business providing safety to houses and business. They gather money of the bars and clubs of the quarter, and in turn, give a service. If there is a rebellious client, they give him a drubbing without calling the police. If someone does not pay the account, the Yakuza are going to his door to ask politely for the money.

Do they come from broken families?

Not necessary. Many of them come from wealthy families – children of police officers, bureaucrats. [My bodyguard and ex-chief of the Yakuza] Mochizuki-san grandfather was a police officer, and his father worked for that of government all his life.

Sometimes, if the parents worried about the use of drugs of his children, they will take it to a place of the yakuza to convince this boy, and to extract it of the drugs, and to do of him a man. It would do it, and then the child will join the yakuza later.

But I am sure that it is not what the parents want!

Very well, at least, his child does not take drugs: truth? And it has a work. In fact, a lot of of the normal people it goes to the Yakuza to solve problems. In Japan, the civil judgments always take a lot of time it to manage to resolve, and even if it gains the judgment, nobody is going to expire – if a type owes money to him but they do not pay, the police officers are not going to go out to make use of his goods. If someone owes money to him or you are in a civil litigation, the yakuza will have half of what it owes to you of the person who harmed you. The half is alone but it is more rapid.

Do exist erroneous ideas that we have on the yakuza?

Mochizuki-san is a wonderful father. He is very patient and it never shouts him. Some family parents yakuza make sure that his children should not be yakuza. Some of them really do benefactions and contribute with funds to the orphan-asylums and other things. It is strange, but it keeps on being surprised.

Another thing that I surprise is that in his free days they are in his house with T-shirts of Mickey Mouse and sports pants, and I think, wow. He had never imagined this way when they are out of the work. I meet a chief yakuza that behaves like a baby, one puts nappies as a baby and absorbs the milk in the nipples of a woman. Do I say, this is what this fearsome man does for pleasing?

Of what you have said to me of him, there seems to be a person perfectly decent. What made him join the yakuza?

Emotion, the promise of the woman. The piled up one enormous debts in a “center of massages” – legal brothels of Japan. It supported his putting in his card until he could not return the money. It was trying to collect money when the owners yakuza Soapland: why do not I work for them and can pay to them?

What raisin very much now is that the people to graduate in the university and they are going to be employed at some company and, next, they realize that it is being financed by the yakuza. The Yakuza thinks, hey, this type is intelligent. It gains money. We might use it. So I will say to him: would you like being a member? We are going to make you important so that you do not have to spend two years the cleanliness of the office and answer the phone. It is an employment of for life! Due to the reputation of the Yakuza, most of the people are scared and hesitate to push back. When you do not know how the company works, it is a little difficult to begin behind.

Does the yakuza kill the people at random?

The value yakuza traditional is:“ Neither Katagi nor Meiwaku wo kakenai” we bother to the common citizens. You can come to us looking for gambling games, drug, or sex, and this is our business. But we do not bother to citizens of on foot. We are involved neither in thefts or assaults nor in violations. Now it is already not like that. Now everything is the money. The ideals that were supporting the traditional system of the meritocracy have gone away. You can buy his way to the power. The classic scheme of the life yakuza was usually the one that began in the fund doing what is, companies, the usury or prostituion or drugs, the extortion the blackmail, things yakuza quite standard. Finally, there would be a war of bands in which a member of a band shoots you rival, you go to the jail, and salt after 10 years in a higher position with a better salary. But since the gang warfares have diminished and the organizations have moved to the financial crimes, like the manipulation of the stock market or of managing the companies, opposite to the companies that appear in this list, the money has become more valuable than the honor. There was usually a premium for the one who was defending from the codes yakuza correct, but nobody already pays attention to them.

How does it take part there are the yakuza in the business in Japan nowadays?

On the financial markets, I would say that about 20 % of the quoted societies is hard connected to the yakuza. A lot of more money is obtained moving a million actions that with the drugs contraband in the streets.

How in the politics?

The Democratic Liberal Party was founded in the money yakuza.
grandfather of the ex-prime minister Koizumi was a member of the Inagawa-kai, it had everything tattooed up to his dolls. According to articles about magazines written in the nineties, the current received Minister of Finance Shizuka Kamei 400.000 dollars of a speculator yakuza and, certainly, it received donations of the usurers.

What does pop spend in the culture?

A big part of the industry of the spectacle is in charge of the yakuza. When a more dumb police officer leaked incidentally all the files of the Department of Metropolitan Police of Goto-gumi in 2007, a company called Productions Burning – of more powerful production in the country – was included one of the companies like a company organized like cover by delinquents. Nobody in the Japanese mass media because they are going to lose the access to his stars. It is like the Hollywood in the 50s, when the mafia had a big participation in everything.

Do you believe that one day you are going to change? Will there be in Japan a society without yakuza?

So that this happens, Japan needs two sew. There would have to be a law of criminal conspiracy so that it could sue the chiefs for the crimes committed by his subjects. It would not have to be a negotiation motive so that the people in the fund might denounce the persons over them, and a witnesses' protection program so that the persons who do agreements with the district attorney's office do not kill them as soon as they go out of the jail. There is needed a law that allows phone tappings – the laws are so strict now when hardly ever they are used. If you put all these things in his place, Japan might get rid of the groups yakuza. Probably clandestine, but that would never be powerful again.

Part of the reason for which sound so powerful now is that they are completely exposed. You can see the Yamaguchi-gumi head office in the Google Maps. The Inagawa-kai office is to another side of Ritz Carlton. Every year, the Academy of Police officer edits a list of 22 groups of crime organized with his names and directions. It is not a mystery who are or where they are.

What is avoiding the change?

The politicians. They do not want a law against the yakuza. I do not believe that there are politicians who do not have anything that about hiding. And if some politician begins having hard hand to the organized crime – if they do not kill it as they did it the mayor of Nagasaki – they are going to ruin his reputation.

The kit of the question is: the Japanese like the yakuza. They admire them. There are movies on them, cartoon stories books on them, there are fans' magazines … there are a part of the culture. They promote the traditional values.

One of the reasons Japan low valuations of delinquency of the street is due to the fact that these boys are very good executors. In the quarters where there is the companies or the cashing of money by protection, it will not be able to see the people being assaulted by the yakuza they do not want that the people are afraid of going there and spending money. There are the second police officer force and in this sense, and they realize a valuable role in the Japanese society.