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 |  Subject: Big criminals stealing from little criminals: U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Japan's Yakuza Syndicate  Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:03 am | |
| The U.S. government entered the battle against Japanese organized crime, announcing a freeze on American-owned assets controlled by the largest yakuza syndicate, Yamaguchi-gumi, and the group's top two leaders.
The sanctions imposed by U.S. Treasury Department Thursday are the latest blow to Japan's nearly 80,000-strong yakuza gangsters, who face tougher conditions at home from increasingly aggressive enforcement of laws that prevent ordinary citizens from knowingly associating or accepting business from gang members.
David Cohen, the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence told reporters in Washington, D.C., that the Yamaguchi-gumi generates billions of dollars annually in illicit proceeds from criminal endeavors such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, fraud and money laundering. He declined to elaborate, or provide an estimate on the amounts that could be frozen under Thursday's order.
An official in Japan's Foreign Ministry said that the Japanese government was "aware" of the U.S. action, but declined additional comment. Officials at Yamaguchi-gumi were not immediately available for comment.
The sanctions against the Japanese syndicate were the first under an executive order issued by U.S. President Barack Obama last July, which extended financial penalties used to disrupt suspected terror groups to organized crime as well.
In addition to targeting the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Treasury said Thursday that it would take similar action against eight members of The Brothers' Circle, a multiethnic network that includes the leaders of criminal groups in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. U.S. banks are expected to immediately freeze the assets of 10 people named in the order.
"They use our financial system, they use our commercial system to both penetrate the markets, to disrupt the markets and to make use of their illicit proceeds," Mr. Cohen said of both groups. "One of our most important roles is to protect the integrity of the U.S. and international financial systems."
In addition to identifying the 35,000-member Yamaguchi-gumi, U.S. officials said they would freeze the assets of the two top officials of the group, Kenichi Shinoda and Kiyoshi Takayama.
Mr. Shinoda, who also goes by the alias Shinobu Tsukasa, is the sixth-generation leader, or godfather, of Yamaguchi-gumi. He was released from prison in April after serving a six-year sentence for owning firearms, a violation of Japanese law. Mr. Takayama, who was acting as the de facto leader while Mr. Shinoda was in prison, was arrested in 2010 on extortion charges.
Over the last few years, Japanese police and local governments have stopped the deeply entrenched practice of indulging the influence of yakuza whose crimes range from traditional activities such as protection rackets and loan sharking to white collar crimes such as stock market schemes. Late 2011, the governments of Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa joined the rest of the country in introducing laws that target the companies that do business with gangsters.
In a rare interview with the Sankei newspaper in October, Mr. Shinoda, one target of Thursday's actions by the U.S. Treasury, said the anti-yakuza laws could ultimately threaten public safety, because organizations such as Yamaguchi-gumi provide a framework to maintain a chivalrous code to many young people.
"If Yamaguchi-gumi were to disband, public order would probably worsen," he said. "I know it may be hard to believe but I am protecting Yamaguchi-gumi in order to lose the violent groups."
In Tokyo, if a person or firm breaks the ordinance, they will be warned first. But if they persist on maintaining ties, they will be threatened with shame by having their names exposes. The public exposure of possible ties to yakuza could threaten its other business relationships. A final measure for repeat offenders is a fine and, possibly, jail.
Last year, Shinsuke Shimada, one of Japan's most successful comedians who hosted a variety of talk shows, resigned abruptly from his management company once his ties to organized crime were revealed, prompting pledges from executives across Japan's entertainment industry—long rumored to be a hotbed of yakuza influence—to crack down on any gangster ties.
The ordinances will likely send yakuza gangsters deeper underground. Since the early 1990s, the yakuza have been stepping back from maintaining a fairly open profile. Many gangsters carried business cards emboldened with their gang affiliation and were registered as members of a "boryokudan," translated literally as "a violent group."
The number of registered yakuza members is on the decline. According to figures from the Japan's National Police Agency, there were 78,600 registered "boryokudan" members in 2010, a decline of 14% since 1991. The same report said Yamaguchi-gumi's membership fell 4% from a year earlier to 34,900 members.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577241844134189560.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read
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“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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