Forbidden History - The Yakuza: Secret Societies

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

With its origins in the Samurai culture of 17th century Japan, the Yakuza are one of the most infamous, secret and feared secret societies. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we investigate just how the Yakuza operate today... Cast List: Jake Adelstein: Journalist & Author  Hiroki Allen: Security Consultant  Robert Whiting: Author, Tokyo Underworld Horiryu: Tattoo Artist  Shintaro Hayashi: Prosthetic Finger Specialist  Shoko Tendo: Daughter of Yakuza Boss Manabu Miyazaki: Ex-Yakuza Member  Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Formed from the atomic ashes of World War II, the Japanese Yakuza are one of the most ruthless and feared criminal organizations in the world. They claim to be able to trace their roots back to the time of the samurai, but today are involved in drugs, extortion, and gambling.

The Yakuza exists because the public tolerates to them some level. The Japanese have this word Boriokudan, which means violence group. Violence is crucial part of our presence. Make no mistake, the Yakuza will kill people. The Yakuza are known to be a very violent organization, with a history of brutal attacks, beatings, and killings. Their images of these noble outlaws that uphold a code of ethics that don't bother the ordinary Japanese person, but if you're in their way or you're not paying the protection money, then you do get killed.

A large number of the murders in Japan every year are created by the yakuza because they're violent groups. Although the yakuza are a strictly men-only criminal fraternity, women still play a significant role. People are going to want drugs, they're going to want access to brothels, All the things that under-world gangs provide that, you know, so-called straight society can. There are still incidents now of traditional Yakuza, grabbing someone from their street, kidnapping them, taking them somewhere, beating the crap out of them. That things happen all the time.

The Yaksal places over the victim's head, oxygen deprivation, he passes out, he's revived, and then the fun starts again until the Yakuza get what they want. You're never going to stop crime. It's just a fantasy. The Yakuza will always be there. is a Japanese crime organization. It's mysterious, secretive, and utterly ruthless, with a fearsome reputation around the world.

It's said to be heavily involved in drugs and illegal gambling. Like the Mafia, the Yakuza insists on a ruthless code of silence any transgressions, and the sentence is immediate death. Its numbers are secret, but it's believed to have around 50,000 members today. members today with 21 different bosses or Oyeabun. The Yakuza are criminals. They engage in extortion, blackmail, fraud, gambling. But almost every yakuza group has a set of rules, a code of ethics,

that prohibit robbing, burglary, sexual assault. And that means that they don't contribute to street crime. And because they don't contribute to street crime, that means if you're walking around this area, you don't feel unsafe, you don't feel like you're getting mugged by the yakuza. The stereotype is these people who are godly dressed with sunglasses and running around and looking like people you see in movies or TV shows. That's generally not the case. A lot of these guys are dressed just as regular businessmen.

Decent suit, a white shirt. They will use violence against you unless you comply with their demands. Yalka said they just had this look, they had this edge about them. Maybe they'd be a little scar over the eyebrow or this kind of swagger or glare or glare. or Galaire, you knew who they were. It's generally believed that modern-day Yakuza gangs were formed in Japan at the end of the Second World War after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed by atomic bombs.

After the war, when Japan lost, I mean, Tokyo, for example, was devastated. Half the city was just leveled. You had all these people coming back from the war, and there was no work for them. People were starving to death, and the only thing that kept them in business, The thing that kept them in business was the black market. So people naturally gravitated towards crime.

What used to be common was a protection racket, where the yakuza will come in, they'll say, hey, nice place you have here. We'd hate to see somebody mess it up. So why don't you pay the yakuza a certain amount? They get their money, you get some kind of tangible reward, and you get the added benefits of having a sort of on-call security service. In the old days, that wasn't a bad deal.

But who actually runs the Yakuza today? Its 50,000 members are said to be run by a small star chamber of ruling bosses, known as the Oyabun. There are 21 different Yakuza organizations, and each one has a sort of different structure, but basically they're all pyramid. And they're structured as a kind of all-male family. There are no females in the Yakuza,

not many females with any power. So you have at the top of each part of the pyramid, the Oyaboon, that is the father figure. Under him are the oldest brother and all the other children. Depending upon where you are in the Yakuza group, you pledge allegiance to the Oyeaboon, or you pledge allegiance to the older brother. There are also brother-brother ties within the organization. It's very fraternal, it's very patriarchal, and it is meant to be a family kind of structure.

Everybody starts on the bottom, they work their way up. They can start as early as teenagers. First, they're their loose associates, and they earn their positions. and they earn their positions, and they give them positions more responsibility as they perform better. And now, as far as performance, that means money. See, a yakuza must pay dues to his organization to belong.

Those who cannot produce a profit are usually shown the door. Authority is absolute from the top down. You're never supposed to speak back to your elders or dispute your boss. There's this famous yakuza saying, which is, if the Oya Boone says the passing crow is white, it's white. The Yacos will often say, we're not like the mafia. We have a certain code of honor. We have loyalty to the bosses.

We don't bother the average person in the street. They provide services for society. You know, we keep the crazies and psychos off the street. There's a certain truth of this, but at the same time, these guys are also criminals, you know, and there's some really nasty people, and they do some horrible things. Their images of these noble outlaws

that uphold a code of ethics, that don't bother the ordinary Japanese person, but if you're in their way, or you're not paying the protection money, then you do get killed. A large number of the murders in Japan every year are created by the Yakuza because they're violent groups. But how powerful is the Yakuza in Japanese society today?

American journalist Jake Adelstein is one of the world's leading authorities on their activities and history. He has spent years investigating the Yakuza and has received several death threats. His book on his exploits, Tokyo Vice, has become a bestseller. In the 90s, you would have touts on the street, scantly-clad women,

incredibly brazen advertisements for the various sexual services out here. It was insane. There was a time, like, in the 90s, when you would go into the Fudin Kaikhan and see an incredible assemblage of thugs and people with tattoos and missing fingers and things. Are Yakuza very visible here? I wouldn't use the Y word here because it makes people nervous.

Some Yakuza are very smart and charming, very sophisticated. I mean, there are all sorts of levels. I mean, there are guys you'll see who wear bryoni suits speak English. But on the other end, there are guys that can't get a good job anywhere. Just troublemakers, but they have muscle, and so they join gangs. And the gangs that use that muscle when necessary, like that. when necessary, like collecting loans. When someone gets killed in Japan and it's a homicide,

it's a big deal and it's national news and police have to set up a special investigative division to take care of a murder because it's a serious crime. To catch a killer before he kills again, a huge operation to track down the person responsible for at least one death and perhaps more. It's sort of a mutual agreement that there are certain areas that the cops will enforce.

and there's certain areas that they'd rather have the Yakuza enforce. They will defend their own turf. They will not tolerate petty crimes in their area that gives their businesses or the businesses that they're under the protection any kind of negative effects. The competition is fierce here. Every gang has its own little fiefdom here

and you don't want to step on somebody's shoes. They have this really ugly, violent side. People who wind up in Yakuza organizations are people who can't function. They have violent tempers and they can't control them. So they have to join an organization where the boss is so powerful that he can control them. Kubuki Cho, the heart of Shinjuku, like Japan's oldest Red Light District. You can get anything you want here, booze, weird fetish outfits.

You can also get ripped off and have your life-saving stripped from you if you go to the wrong bar. If tourists is just there in Shinjuku to enjoy the sites, drink in a few bars, eat at some restaurants, generally they will not encounter the yakuza. The yakuza will come out when it's time to defend their turf, or sometimes they'll be out as a show of forest patrol area. I've had threats from one individual and his men. I've had angry words exchanged with two or three yakuza over the years. But I mean that's kind of how they are, right? They make threats, they yell at you, they say they're going to kill you.

It's kind of like how you and I would say good morning to each other. If they really want to kill you, they're not going to threaten you. They'll just do it. Like the Mafia, the Yakuza insist on a ruthless code of silence. Hiroki Allen is a security consultant who has worked with many of the world's leading governments, advising them on combating the Yakuza. In Japan, laws forbid private citizens from owning most weapons. No firearms, no blades.

You cannot carry these. The Yakuza know their victims are unarmed. unarmed. So they can just use brute force, mass numbers. If they grab somebody out the street and they're torturing him, they can use anything from advanced techniques, very simple stuff, such as like placing pen or a pencil between the victim's fingers and squeezing his hand very hard. Caused an intense pain doesn't leave any marks so they can take back to the police and say that they're actually physically assaulted. They will most likely be complying with the Yaku's wishes after some time with them. Alan agreed to explain some actual

Yakusa torture techniques. The Yakuza wants money from a victim like this. We don't want to leave scars that he can report as being assaulted to the police because that could bring the heat on us. So we want to cause terror, we want to cause pain, and also to get him to pay up. Here's a very common comb. This snapping action into the eyeball causes intense pain but leaves no external scar. We can continue this for as long as we want until we get this guy to agree to sign the document we want.

We have a plastic bag. You've all heard of waterboarding, but there's no need to use any water if you have one of these. The yaksa will place this over the victim's head or hold over his face. Oxygen deprivation, he passes out, he's revived, and then the fun starts again until the yakuza get what they want. He's already angered the yakuza enough to have them actually take him away and confine him like this. He knows he has one chance to get out of here alive. If he doesn't do what the Yakuza want this time, well, he'll find himself buried in a hillside

or thrown into the ocean and he'll never be seen again. Frankly, the victim has no idea when these tortures will stop, how much more they'll escalate. Traditionally, extortion was the bread and butter of the Yakuza. And it works like this. You open a bar or you open a restaurant. The gang members will come to your office or come to your bar and tell you, you're operating in our territory.

It would be advisable for you to pay an honorarium so that you can do business here. We will protect you from other Yakuza organizations harassing your business. You might be leasing flowers from the Yakuza. You pay them an exorbiant amount of fees. There are sometimes when paying off the Yakuza is a good business investment. Not only do you keep them out of your business, but when you have an unruly customer that you can't get rid of, they will come much faster than the police. Like the Mafia, the Yakuza is made up of hundreds of small and mid-soulixtrous.

gangs who are constantly fighting over money, drugs, and of course, turf. The battles are bloody and brutal. Every so often, two gangs will move into the same territory. There'll be an argument and there'll be a shootout. There'll be a fight. You know, guns are illegal in Japan. If you're caught with a gun, you know, you can go to prison for several years. They're very serious.

The Yakuza know not to carry firearms around because if they are caught by police, they're going straight to prison. They're carrying blades, yes, that's the same thing. So many times they'll carry innocuous-looking items that may not qualify as weapons. For example, a drink in a glass bottle. They don't walk around with weapons. The number of shooting incidents involving the Aka Zeta is extremely rare.

Last year, the number of shooting deaths in Japan was six people. That's in a nation of 127 million people. And I think that's like, you know, one hour in the United States. Firearms. The mere sight of these will cause panic. The Yakuza don't have unlimited supply of ammunition. So there are reports that many times they are taught to use these as contact range weapons. They can grab the victim, pull them in, put the muzzle against them, and shoot. This not only ensures a hit, also expanding gas is coming in the barrel, going into the body,

causing a much more lethal effect. Impact weapons. Collapsal baton. These, actually the police use these as well, so the police use these as well, so they're, So the yakuza are quite familiar with these. Now granted, you're not supposed to be carrying these around. They're supposed to be from martial arts practice uses, but many yaksa do use these. This will break bones on contact. A very effective short-range impact weapon.

Make no mistake. The yakuza will kill people, but they're very judicious about it. And it's a business decision. It's not something that's done in a hot rage. I mean, an assassination, when they take out a civilian, the calculation is that the greater benefit of the group is worth the bad publicity and the heat from the police you'll get from killing someone. And sometimes they kill someone and stage it as a suicide. Everyone knows that they were probably whacked, but they don't want the police to crack down on them. They don't want any of their

people to go to jail. The message still gets across. One of the sure signs of someone being a member of the yakuza is a missing little finger. Many members cut off portions of, or the entire finger, as a mark of Yubitsumi or apology. Shintaro Hayashi's company makes prosthetic fingers, among other body parts, and is in demand from former Yakuza members who are looking to replace their missing digits. The Yakuza come here for various reasons, often when they want to get out of the yakuza for regular community. They are possibly feeling that because of their lack of fingers, people feel scared.

So they quite often hold their hands behind them so it's hidden and put them. people don't notice it. I've been in this business for 13 years, and I've made fingers for about 50 yakuzas. But I've never counted properly, but possibly 500, 600 fingers for yakuza I've made. It scares the crap out of people to see someone missing a finger. It's like, if this guy's going to cut off his own finger,

and it's not like you see in some bad movies where someone holds the guy down and cuts off the finger against the will. That's sort of, I think, a popular conception. If you screw up the yakuza, you get held down, and they chop off your finger. No, you do it yourself. If you walk into a golf course and say, I want to play 18 holes,

and you have a missing fingertip, they won't let you. So that's why some doctors have set up a business making prosthetic fingertips. It looks quite real, you can't really tell. Now, there's two reasons that Yakuza used to chop off their fingers. One is that you chop off your finger because someone under you has screwed up, and you are atoning for their mistake,

and asking for the boss's forgiveness. When you chop off your finger for someone else, which is an altruistic act, that's considered a living finger, EQUB. When you chop off your finger because you've screwed up, then that's called a dead finger, right? You might get forgiven of your debt.

You might be allowed to stay in the organization, but it's nowhere nearly as cool as doing it for someone else. The Akers in the world, that's the ultimate way to apologize. I couldn't imagine cutting my finger off. It takes an enormous amount of courage. There's a certain way that they do it.

They take a knife and they'll stick it in the table and then boom! And one sharp movement, they'll get right at the joint. And if you're really good at it, it's done really fast. Either way, it's not an easy thing to do. But it intimidates people. And you know, you're yakuza, someone sees the tats, they see the missing finger, they know that you're probably,

not afraid of pain and if they're afraid of physical violence, they're liable to back away. Tatusus are a way of life for all Yakuza, denoting both their life stories and their positions within the complicated hierarchy. Mr. Hori has been inking Yakuza members for many years. We have a long history of tattoos and a very special, peculiar kind of design, with color and all also patterns. Tattoos of a very unique position in our culture. Traditionally, when you get tattooed, you were saying goodbye to the civilian life, because Japanese really discriminated against tattooed people. So you're sort of saying, the hell with being a normal person, I am dedicated to this organization. So that's one meaning.

And often young Yakuza would have the name of their organization tattooed on their body, sometimes even the name of their Oyabun, their Yakuza father. That's corporate branding taken to extreme because once you have your organization tattooed on your body, it's very hard to change jobs or organizations. Tattoos are a sign that you belong to a certain gang. You have a certain design, a dragon on your back. It's a very painful process. It takes quite a while. It's another kind of right of passage. Traditionally, the tattooing was done with blunt needles and literally gouging into the flesh so deeply that it destroys the epidermis. It's painful. There's a lot of blood. And by getting a tattoo, especially an ornate tattoo,

you are showing the world that you are a tough guy. This is how much pain I can endure. And other yakuza is seeing the depth of your tattoos and how finely colored it might be are going to assess, wow, this is someone who can take a lot of pain. There are a lot of establishments and won't let yakuza in. Public baths, golf courses, some restaurants, nightclubs will have signs out there that say,

Bori Okudan allowed, which is kind of ironic since in many of those cases they're owned by Bori Okudan. Shoko Tendo is the daughter of a high-ranking Yakuza boss. She has seen the organization from the inside out, and she doesn't like it. We had people coming into our house with tattoos or without a little finger. My father had tattoos too. When I saw that guests called my father, Oyyubin, basically boss, I realized at quite an early age he was a member.

If you're a Yakuza wife, your man calls you Mrs. They appear to kind of be nice to you, but that tradition works out only when your boss is with you. The Yakuza's loyalty is to his organization of all else. If it means offering up his daughter or a family member to pay back a debt, he doesn't think about it twice. He looks at his organization ties as being more important. Yakuza view women as commodities, something to be traded, something that has value.

They don't look at them generally as human beings. When Shoko was 16, her father owed money to another Yakuza boss. A proposition was then put to her. If you want to pay off your father's debts, then you know what will be required. It was unspoken, but of course he was implying that I would have to be his mistress. I knew that my father's debts were quite a lot, and that's not something that he could really fully pay back. So I really did not want to become his mistress, but I had no choice.

He was treating me as if I was his possession, and he also got me on drugs and was just trying to control me. But he also knew, also knew that he couldn't hurt my feelings and he was frustrated. That's why he was so abusive with me. I would never recommend becoming a mistress to the Yakuza. It's a terrible life. Now you might have some Yakuza boyfriends that are decent human beings,

but generally speaking, Yakuza used the women in their lives to make money. Their means to an end. In many ways, the Yakuza society is a reflection of traditional Japanese values. First of all, it's incredibly misogynist and sexist. There are no female yakuza. Japan is where Dansom Juhi respect the male and disrespect the female. And you certainly see that in Yakuza society where women are only seen as commodities are best somebody that helps support the big boss.

Yakuza members are notoriously media-shy. They rarely give interviews and hate being filmed or photographed. However, we got one member to agree to talk to us, provided we don't reveal his identity, in any way. We are regarded as a necessary unit of society. I'm in the middle rank. I have been in this business for nearly 20 years. We have our own belief of faith.

If the seniors give us orders, we do as much as possible and follow this order. Always the danger or a threat is being around day by day, and I just seek for the danger by myself, to step into it, to get it, but I do it. It's very hard to identify Yakuza on the street these days because they're a pressure from the police, so they're being forced underground. The Yakuza have generally made a lot of money from extortion, gambling, and they're also taking protection money from a lot of the businesses in the area. I think the current estimate of Yakuza numbers is close to $40,000. That's probably downplaying the number that are still in business, but the police have done a good job driving, lower ranking members. out of the business are into jail.

It's now over a week since the head of an 11-year-old boy was found outside the gates of a junior high school in Kobay. The number of official Yakuza keeps going down, but crime keeps going up. Somebody is committing the crimes and just take a wild guess and I would say that these are former members of Yakuza groups that are working as freelancer, working in a different capacity. It isn't easy to be a proper member,

to be a proper member, there are several years of being an apprentice with a trainee kind of status. Then, to be recognized and to be received as a full member and go up the hierarchy. It's about doing a good job and business or to commit something, like going to prison. Violence is a crucial part of our existence. We have to commit something and be in prison for that. Despite being very secretive and shy, the Yakuza feature heavily in their own comic book. books, which are on sale to the public. They depict their history as well as news of recent events, arrests, and even deaths.

There's interviews with members of the Naga-Kai. There are letters from people in prison. There's a quick round-up of who's been arrested. So you can see if your buddy's in jail or not or when he might be getting out. It must appear is kind of insane, right? This magazine itself has 221 pages. Imagine going to the bookstore in the United States and buying, you know, it's a book store. know, Crips Monthly, which would give you, you know, 200 pages of what's happening with the Crips.

People who are reading this stuff are the same people that read historical novels in Japan. I mean, it's your middle-class white-collar salary man, or maybe blue-collar guys as well. They're reading it and they're thinking about a time when if you had guts and brains and daring, you could be a successful gang boss and that people would admire you. is a writer who's long been a figure connected with the yakuza. He has always denied being a member, but the rumors persist, and he's become what he calls a freelance yakuza in Japan. He explains the importance of the sake ceremony within yakuza circles.

Because the yakuza is a kind of imaginary family, the ceremonies are very important for the yakuza. because doing the ceremony establishes the relationship of the person to not ever be betrayed. So in a way you cannot get away from the Yakuza community. For that reason, they spend a lot of money to conduct the ceremonies. And to have the sake confirms the relations and makes a strong pledge. Miyazaki explains that when you're in or associated with the yakuza, it's a dark, dangerous business where you always have to be looking over your shoulder.

To illustrate the point, Miyazaki himself was shot in a gangland attack in 1986. I went to the restaurant for dinner with all my friends, just having a meal and some negotiations. Then the hitman came in and shot me. One of the bullets hit my body. When I was shot, I just felt hot, not much pain, actually. Then it gradually came. These last 30 years have always been tense.

I cannot be relaxed at any moment. You have to stay alert to stay alive. So when Gang War escalates, it can really escalate into a bloody mess. But the Yakuza exists because the public tolerates to them some level. So when you start having shootouts in the streets and innocent people get killed, that results in stronger laws,

police crackdowns, lots of arrest. So it's bad business to have a gang war. And as the Yakuza has become more financially savvy, and laws in Japan have changed to make it so that the top dogs can be sued for any crime committed by the lower level Yakuza things, they're less prone to use violence because it's costly.

Many times the Yaku's the Yaku they'll use an indirect approach to get their message across. So instead of attacking the actual principle, they'll attack close family member, someone who means a lot to them, to send a message. Now, to get to this level, they most likely warned verbally, or maybe in a written way,

if they don't follow the arguments, then they put the Yakuza into a position where they must defend their turf. And this is where the violent acts may occur. You know, they'll start out with the midnight knock on the door. You know, we've come to collect our money. They're just scared. the be Jesus out of you.

I'll start calling you in the middle of the night. They could beat you up, they could kill you, they could, you know, make your daughter come work for one of their nightclubs or houses of one of their brothels. In the extreme case, in the past, the yakuzo have found people who will not comply with their wishes. So in order to make an example of them, they'll send guys out to grab them, put them in a car,

take them the remote location, torture, and kill them. The Yakuza has dominated the Japanese media for most of the 20th century. But what does the future hold for this mysterious organization? And is it, as some say, slowly losing its edge and control of events? Japan is one law away from wiping out the Yakuza, and that would be a criminal conspiracy act. A criminal conspiracy act would allow the Japanese police to seize the property of the Yakuza bosses, take down their offices, take down their offices, take their businesses, take away all their assets, and put everyone in jail.

The Japanese police have instituted a number of anti-gang laws in the past 20 years, and most recently, there's a pretty intensive crackdown in which you can't do business with any individuals associated with organized crime. Any member of a gang cannot hold a bank account any longer. That's pretty serious stuff. I think that's part of that, I think, is the influence of the United States because they see the U.S. government cracking down on the gangs at the police feel they need to do something more or something at the same time. Japan only needs to do three things to get rid of the yakuza. They need a criminal conspiracy law.

They need to allow plea bargaining. They need to allow undercover investigations. They won't do it for a few reasons. One is this administration has so many yakuza ties that trying to get rid of the yakuza can only be bad news for them. Also, they need the yakuza to run the nuclear power plants. No one wants to do those jobs and the only people are managed to find labor that will do the jobs is the yakuza. The shame of the Yakuza we have nowadays is lost.

Of course there will always be different forms and they will go underground and those groups always remain. But what we call Yakuza now are antisocial groups. I don't think they are going to last because the government has implemented more severe laws. If a normal person does something, they say fine. If you're yakuza, then they start taking the person more seriously than the other person. And they treat the yakuza not really like humans, so they cannot survive. The police crackdown on the yakuza has been widespread and extensive over the last few years, with a number of bosses and foot soldiers arrested and sent.

to jail. After years of holding the country in the grip of its power, it does seem as if the Yakuza Iron Fist is loosening a little. In many ways, Japanese society is now embarrassed by the images of the old crime bosses and their obedient thugs with tattoos and missing fingers, just as the influence of the mafia has sharply declined in the United States. It's just not that cool to be in the Yakuza anymore. The mystique and dark appeal has faded in recent years, and yet to many these ruthless underground gangs remain a potent force in Japanese society. And the success of the Yakuza comic books proves that to those in that world and to those

who want to be a part of it, their mix of violence, sex, gambling, and drugs is as alluring as ever. Japan doesn't want to have this sort of spectacle of semi-public organized crime groups that no other country has. You know, what other country has Yakuza fanzines? You can't go to England or Australian by Mafia Monthly. So when you have organized crime members existing in public and with impunity, it makes Japan look bad.

Yakuza will always be there. Whether they're as members of formally organized groups or in some of the people. other form. I mean, there'll always be criminals in every society. To catch a killer before he kills again, a huge operation to track down the person responsible for at least one death. They provide a service, they answer needs of society that other institutions can't provide. People are always going to need somebody, say, to collect a loan that nobody wants to pay. People are going to want drugs, they're going to want access to brothels.

the things that under-world gangs provide that, you know, so-called straight society can. The yakuza would like to survive because they don't know any better. I mean, you take a guy who's in his 30s or 40s who's tattooed, he's missing a finger, what the hell is he going to do in Japan? The number of yakuza that are successfully integrated in society after leaving the yakuza are less than 10%. The number of successful cases that the police can claim of reforming yakuza is a big, and that's going to be a real problem for Japan.

Technically they've reduced the numbers by half of what they were four or five years ago. But where are these yakuza going? What will they do? When they got out of prison, what jobs will they find? And with no discipline and no organization to go to, they'll probably turn to violent crime because that's all they know. You're never going to stop crime. It's just a fantasy. Always be there.

The yakuza will always be. Despite constant media speculation about their future, the Yakuza remain a dominant force in Japan today. According to police estimates, the number of members is said to be half of what it was. But make no mistake, it still has a very real presence in cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, and it still has its fingers in all types of crime, extortion, gambling, But as the Japanese government cracks down, many former Yakuza members released from jail find it hard to live a straight life, often returning to crime. The Yakuza have a long, dark, and violent history, and like the mafia in the United States,

are ingrained in the very fabric of society. Their numbers and popularity might be declining, but they're not done yet.