by ChristianMB1 » Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:18 pm
The Yakuza crackdown has been so brutal because of how public the clans were prior to Japan doing their own RICO in the late 90s.
After the war, the government directly handed off policing to the Yakuza (which had existed underground since the 15th century) because the government was too weak to do anything and it’s within organized crime’s interest to prevent petty crime, and the Yakuza in turn agreed to generally keep civilians out of everything. The government quickly rebounded in a miraculous economic recovery, but the Yakuza was too deeply entrenched by that point to get taken out, so they begrudgingly allowed them to stick around despite how pathetic it made Japan’s LE look. It’s not hyperbole that Yakuza families had giant coroporate-style HQs and that made men were given ID cards.
After the American Mafia got busted due to RICO and new policing technology in the 90s, the Japanese government realized they didn’t have to tolerate powerful organized crime, so they adopted the same legal strategy and technologies in the late 90s-early 00s. At that point, the members never stood a chance. Some people theorize that the Yakuza will recover and go back underground like they existed during Imperial times, but I don’t find that likely because the openness is so fundamental to their operation at this point.
The Yakuza is absolutely done for and will probably not exist at all in 30 years.
If you want some news about Japanese gangland happenings, read up on the “Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi split”. The Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest Yakuza clan, with around 8,000 members, split because their don (oyabun) Keichi Shinoda has no trust amongst the capos. A capo named Kunio Inoue split off to form the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi and took several of the YG’s gangs with him in 2015. There’s been a few shootings and stabbings, but no full-scale war.
The Yakuza crackdown has been so brutal because of how public the clans were prior to Japan doing their own RICO in the late 90s.
After the war, the government directly handed off policing to the Yakuza (which had existed underground since the 15th century) because the government was too weak to do anything and it’s within organized crime’s interest to prevent petty crime, and the Yakuza in turn agreed to generally keep civilians out of everything. The government quickly rebounded in a miraculous economic recovery, but the Yakuza was too deeply entrenched by that point to get taken out, so they begrudgingly allowed them to stick around despite how pathetic it made Japan’s LE look. It’s not hyperbole that Yakuza families had giant coroporate-style HQs and that made men were given ID cards.
After the American Mafia got busted due to RICO and new policing technology in the 90s, the Japanese government realized they didn’t have to tolerate powerful organized crime, so they adopted the same legal strategy and technologies in the late 90s-early 00s. At that point, the members never stood a chance. Some people theorize that the Yakuza will recover and go back underground like they existed during Imperial times, but I don’t find that likely because the openness is so fundamental to their operation at this point.
The Yakuza is absolutely done for and will probably not exist at all in 30 years.
If you want some news about Japanese gangland happenings, read up on the “Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi split”. The Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest Yakuza clan, with around 8,000 members, split because their don (oyabun) Keichi Shinoda has no trust amongst the capos. A capo named Kunio Inoue split off to form the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi and took several of the YG’s gangs with him in 2015. There’s been a few shootings and stabbings, but no full-scale war.