Julian Dorey Podcast - #262 - Inside Japan's DEADLIEST Criminal Enterprise | HBO's Jake Adelstein

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

SPONSOR - ACORNS: https://www.acorns.com/julian (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Jake Adelstein is an American journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan,” which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/   INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/   X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey  GUEST LINKS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Tokyo-Noir-Out-Japans-Underworld/dp/1957363916  LISTEN to Julian Dorey Podcast Spotify ▶ https://open.spotify.com/show/5skaSpDzq94Kh16so3c0uz   Apple ▶ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trendifier-with-julian-dorey/id1531416289  JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips    - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily    - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP    ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - Living in Japan, Shinzo Abe Assassination, Yakuza Boss Mob hit on Nurse 8:14 - Jake’s Obsession w/ Japanese Culture, Moving into Zen Buddhist Temple 18:05 - Japan Assimilation, Jake gets first gig in Japan 23:53 - Who are the Yakuza, Japan’s Class System 31:20 - 1992 Anti-Organized Crime Laws, Yakuza Commits Face Cutting-Crime 36:41 - Japanese Extreme Legal System, Jake Dating Mistress of Yakuza Boss 44:39 - Japanese Cop Helps, #1 Rule for Japanese Yakuza for Journalists, Jake attacked by Yakuza 50:19 - Turning Down his Last Yakuza Boss 54:06 - Corruption Scandal of Yakuza, Pr*stitution Laws, Tr*fficking Protection 59:22 - Police Officer Downloading Corn, Sotry of police protection ending 1:12:55 - Jake gets Police Protection, Bad Liver due to Tattoos, FBI Massive Failure 1:18:38 - Yakuza Boss Scared Japanese Citizens, Jake Finding FBI Angle 1:21:46 - The Story Nobody Will Print, Getting Kicked out of Yakuza 1:27:22 - 2 Faction Split of a Yakuza Gang Story, Yakuza Boss Gives Death Threat to Jake 1:34:11 - Major Leaders Targeting Jake (Death Threats), Getting Photo of Major Boss (Hiding Out) 1:42:26 - Japanese Customs, HT in Japan, Bush Administration Issues 1:52:15 - HT Gang Stopped & Laws Strengthened 1:56:12 - Leaving State Department, Yakuza Infiltrating Massive Companies, Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 2:02:12 - Jake Doing Favor for Yakuza Member Story, Getting Info from Yakuza 2:10:22 - HBO Series on Yakuza Series & Working w/ J.T. Rodgers, Tokyo Vice 2:18:00 - Hollywood Changes to Series, Bizarre Gun Rules of Japan, Jake’s Books and Stories 2:25:45 - Fukushima Disaster still Happening, Demographic Birthrate disaster in Japan 2:33:31 - The Fall of the Yakuza  CREDITS: - Host & Producer: Julian Dorey - Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.instagram.com/allaman.docyou/  Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 262 - Jake Adelstein Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jake, you're the first person on this podcast coming from Japan. It is a pleasure to be here. It's great to have you, man. It is a long way from Tokyo to Hoboken. What are you doing in town? So I've written three books. Tokyo Vice, The Last Yakuza. Tokyo Vice is the one that made me, paid off my kid's college because I got turned into a TV series.

The Last Yakuza and the sort of Tokyo Vice trilogy finale, Tokyo Noir, which just came out on October 1st. So I'm doing a sort of mini book tour, which is rare to do these days. I've got a gig at the Japan Society tomorrow night where we're going to do a lecture and a talk about the changing of organized crime in Japan over the last 20 years. So that should be fun. The Japan Society? The Japan Society? The Japan Society. The Japan Society is like a bunch of people who are really into Japanese culture and customs and kind of otaku. But also the people who are into the karate and shogun and all that stuff. There's all kinds of people who have interest in Japan.

As your Japan guy, I'm kind of limited in my area of expertise is basically organized crime. The fun stuff. Organized crime, esoteric Buddhism, and is there anything else? Oh, Japanese politics, which is pretty boring for most people. Japanese politics got pretty interesting after Abe took one to the head. That was wild. When Abe got assassinated, my daughter was interning with me. We were working on this podcast called The Evaporated.

I was in Hokkaido going to private detective school, and I was like, Benny, the prime minister or the ex-prime minister has been assassinated. I need you to grab my business cards, your business cards, and your best friend and get on Shin Kansen in 20 minutes. You're going to the scene. You're going to go talk to the cops and they probably won't talk to you. And she was like, you mean like right now, dad? Like now, now? I'm like, yes, now, 20 minutes. You have 20 minutes. If I call in 40 minutes, you're not on the train. You're fired. And I was like, I won't really fire you, but really you go now. So she was there, the body wasn't even cold. I think the body wasn't even cold because they were keeping him on life support while they're trying to figure out what to do. I mean, he was dead dead.

Yeah. I mean, he was dead on arrival. But they kept pumping blood into him for a while. If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. Do you know why he was assassinated? You know? not really. And that's a huge oversight on my part

because right when it happened, I knew a decent amount about Shinzo, but after he went down, I was like, wow, RIP, and then forgot about it. Well, I mean, they asked me, you know, I got asked by someone, you know, like, you know, this is unprecedented. Like, no one would ever attempt to kill, you know, a politician.

I was like, well, actually the Yakuza killed the mayor of Nagasaki. And then in 2000, around 2000, a bunch of Yakuza who he screwed over threw Molotov cocktails at his office. So I was like, you know, Abe has enemies. But this case, he was killed by this guy named, I don't remember his first name. Can we Google it, Alessi? Just a while. Yamagami. Yamagami-san.

Yamagami. Yamagami-san was – his parents got into the Unification Church and they blew through all his money and ruined his life. And Abe had made this sort of backdoor deal with the Unification Church, like the cult from South Korea, to gain political support. And he decided that the only way to crush this organization was to point out the political ties between the Unification Church and Prime Minister Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party by assassinating Abe. Wow. And he sent a letter before he did it explaining exactly why he was doing it. And when the Japanese public realized that, you know, wow, our ex-prime minister has been in bed with this Korean cult and, you know, there's not a lot of love between the right wing and the Koreans in Japan, it pretty much had the desired effect.

I think it is, you know, I'm not saying it was a good thing, but it was probably the most effective political assassination ever. Wow. Because the Unification Church lost their religious status. And Abe lost whatever respect the people had for him in Japan because these are just not people you want to get into bed with. And Yamagami-san, who hasn't gone on trial yet, has like a folk hero status among some people in Japan. Weirdest political assassination I've ever covered. I did cover the assassination of the mayor of Nagasaki briefly. When was that?

I think that was like 2007. Okay. So a while ago. Yeah. I mean, he was assassinated because he was trying to keep the Yakuza, the Yamaguchi Gumi in particular, out of public works. And they were like, well, if they throw us out of public works and construction, that's bad for business everywhere. Yeah, it's their bread money.

So we're going to have to make it a judicious example of someone. The Japanese mafia tends not to kill people because it's bad blood and they're supposed to be humanitarian organizations. Yeah, they got a magazine. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're just looking at this you know i have before it looks so official i have 20 years of these like stacked up in my in my second in my second home uh because if you're you know if you're a reporter covering organized crime in japan you have to know who's who you have to be

able to recognize the names and faces yeah and since they're you know there's people on the cover i mean that's the head of the amaguchi Yumi, the largest organized crime group in Japan. He's still alive. I think at like 81, he's still running the organization. Yeah, I can't show this page, Alessi, but it would get interesting. Oh, is it the penis enlargement ad? Because there's always a penis enlargement ad. No, it was female oriented, but either way.

Penis enlargements in Japan, they're going around these days? I mean, well, that would be a whole other tangent, but there is a Yakuza boss who ended up getting sentenced to death because one of the people he tried to kill was the nurse who laughed at him while he was getting his penis enlargement procedure done. Oh, no. That would be Nomura from the Kudokai. Wow. I see why he became a gangster. Well, yeah.

I mean, because literally the nurse said, I'm sort of making a pun here, but she said like, you know, as he was wincing, like, look at you with all your, you know, with all those tattoos that take hundreds of hours and are very painful and you can't take a little prick. I'm laughing, but she got killed for that. She didn't. It was attempted murder. Oh, it was attempted murder. All right. So she's still kicking.

Nice job, lady. Yeah. And this guy, Goto Tadamasa, who I'm not a fan of because he wants to put a contract out on me. We'll get there. We'll get there. You know, he was once the largest shareholder of Japan Airlines. Very wealthy, very powerful. Is he chewing on a toothpick in that?

I think so, yeah, yeah, yeah. I once put up a photo of him eating yakisoba from a Yakuza video that was like a succession video, and he really hated it. Yakisoba? Which is like Japanese spaghetti. All right, you're dealing with someone who went into a Chinese restaurant four years ago and ordered sushi. So I just want to warn you.

All right. It's okay. Not the most cultured in that part of the world. Whenever I go to France, they have yakitori fromage, which is like a yakitori chicken stick with cheese on it. And you tell the French, like, this is an abomination and you would never have this in Japan. So it's okay that you order sushi at a Chinese restaurant. Yeah, I was with a couple of my Asian friends.

They weren't too happy. I was like, where the fuck is the sushi? They're like, it's a Chinese restaurant. I go, I know. Yeah, it wasn't good. But anyway, what got you, a kid from Missouri, so into Japanese culture that you've now spent the last 35 years of your life

living there. And again, we're going to get to all the good things you're covering, but like, what, what makes you want to do that? Well, so the, the, the short version of this story is that in high school, uh, it was like a, a punk rocker in a really preppy high school. You were either like a redneck or a, or a uh or like a preppy i mean this is like the 1980s so i got picked on a lot and there was this one one guy who really picked on me uh a lot um well we made peace so i'm not gonna say his name uh anyway i decided that you know that the only way i could survive the rest of my high school was just to beat him up um and you know but of course i was like'm not going to win in a fair fight.

But I need to show that people should leave me alone. So we were in the middle of class one day. And as we were walking out, I kicked him in the balls. And when he leaned over, I grabbed his hair and smashed his face into the table. Nice. Probably broke his nose. He was bleeding from his nose. And I was like, OK, I'm going to probably be expelled. I mean, now I and probably broke his nose. He was bleeding from his nose. And I was like, okay, I'm going to probably be expelled.

I mean, now I'd probably go to jail. Yeah, you did the old hair smash. That's some good shit. That's some Jersey shit right there. Well, I mean, it works effectively, right? I mean, I sort of asked my father who'd done like martial arts all his life, and he's like, hey, Dad, could you teach me a few moves? And I don't think he thought that I would really do it.

So, you know, he's sort of sitting there sort of bleeding a little bit. And, you know, the science, the life sciences teacher, which was biology. I don't know why you call it life sciences because it's the 80s. Sort of took us aside and he's like, you know, everybody, he tells everybody to leave the classroom and he's like, you know, he's like, you know, you know, you know, Jake and, you know, Mr. H, uh, I see that there's something has just happened and I'm not really sure what happened. So there are two possibilities. One is that Jack, you tripped and you need to go to the nurse's office. Um, and the other is that, uh, Mr mr adelstein beat you up and you need to go to the nurse's office and he needs to be expelled but if that's the case then by the end of the day everyone will know you got your ass kicked by the skinny jew so what would it be and he said i tripped

so off he went to the nurse's office. What a gangster of a teacher. And then as I was sort of like, oh, yeah. Oh, you know, he was like, excuse me, Mr. Adelstein. We cannot solve our problems with anger and violence. I understand why you are upset, but that is not acceptable. I see you have some anger issues. And he says, and I would predict that he is going to come back and eventually try and return the favor. So what I'm going to suggest you do is that there's this good

karate school that you should enroll in and they'll teach you how to channel that anger and defend yourself. And I was like, okay, what if I don't? And he says, then you're going to be expelled. And I said, great, I'm taking karate. Guys, it's about to be that time of year again where you're making those new year's resolutions. Now, obviously a lot of them we give up on by February. It's just the nature of the human beast. I know I've struggled with that in the past. I'm sure you have as well. However, if you could set up something automatically so that you don't have to think about it and it was a good new year's resolution, I feel like that's something you might be interested in. And that's why today you're going to hear me talk about my friends over at Acorns once again.

You've heard me talk about this before. Acorns is a unique investment platform that allows you to invest either your spare change or whatever predetermined amount you want to invest every single day so that you can have a chance to grow your money. Now, I've been using Acorns since the very beginning of the pandemic. I really didn't have any money, if you know the story of this podcast and everything, but I put in just a little bit every day. And believe it or not, that really did grow into something over time that allowed me to invest into some of the equipment in this studio you're looking at right

now. So it can make a difference. And that's why, once again, today's episode is sponsored by our friends over at Acorns. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids, and your retirement. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. And like I was just saying with my own story a few seconds ago, you don't have to be rich either. You can start with $5 or even just your spare change. Also, it's so easy to set up an account. I did it inside of five minutes and you can too.

So head on over to acorns.com slash Julian. That link is in the description below or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today. This is a paid client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier one compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns advisors, LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash Julian. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered.

Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. And that's how it starts. That's how it started. So when you went to do karate, because like this is something a lot of kids do and they don't want to fucking move into Japan. Like what made you fall in love with the culture? Well, my teacher, Mr. Foley and John Foley had grown up in Okinawa and he was sort of on the spiritual side of things. And I really enjoyed karate and we would meditate before the sessions and afterwards. And I felt like, oh, this is very calming.

Like this helps me feel like I'm in control because I did have anger issues. This is the 80s? This is the 80s. Did he grow up there in the wrong years? I don't know, man. I mean – Like the – I mean I don't know, man. I mean – Like the – I mean, I don't know when Foley grew up.

No, he wasn't that old. He was like maybe 20 years older than me or 15 years older than me. I think his father was in the military. And then I started studying like, okay, I like karate and so I was studying the culture and the literature. And then I started reading about Buddhism because we were doing meditation. And I was like, you know, it would be nice to go to study karate in the birthplace, which it's actually Okinawa. But, you know, going to school in Okinawa wasn't very feasible. So when I was at the University of Missouri, they had an exchange program. One day, I mean, I was literally walking across the campus when on my way to McDonald's.

I don't have very good healthy eating habits at the time. And this like study in Japan flyer hit me in the face. So I had to make this monumental decision. Like, should I immediately go see about this program or should I get a Filet-O-Fish? And I was like, you know, the Filet-O-Fish will always be there. So I went over and I talked to them about the program or should I get a Filet-O-Fish? And I was like, you know, the Filet-O-Fish will always be there. So I went over and I talked to them about the program and they told me I couldn't go because you had to have two years of Japanese under your belt to go. But it turned out because Japan was in the middle of this, what they call the bubble economy and was very expensive, that they had this exchange program with 20 Japanese students coming from Sophia University and no one going from the University of Missouri.

And in probably the best negotiation in my life, I said, you know, I'm certainly not an expert on Japanese culture, even though I have taken karate for many years. But I do know that if you have 20 people coming and no one going, that that's not an exchange program. That's a fiasco. So you should let me go. And you should be glad that I am applying. Gracing you with my presence. And I said, you know, I understand that you're saying that's expensive. There must be a way that other people manage to survive there. And like, yeah, they teach English on the side. I said, great. I'll do the same thing. So let me go. And they gave me the application form and I

filled it out and I was approved. And they gave me the application form and I filled it out and I was approved. And now you never left. I never left. So I was there a couple months, um, living in what we call a gaijin house, kind of like these low rent housing for foreigners who are, have a hard time finding places to live in Japan even now. Like a hostile kind of? Kind of hostile, right? But it's, Japan is very xenophobic. So if you're a foreigner, it's really hard to find a place that will rent to you. But there are sort of these sort of substrata kind of old places that will rent to foreigners because money is money. Right. I lived there for about a couple months and then I ran into someone in the middle of the night on their bicycle.

We struck up a conversation. He introduced me to this Zen Buddhist priest he was teaching English to. The Zen Buddhist priest, Ryogen-san, and I hit it off. And then after about three months, he was like, you know, you're a student. You're clearly interested in Japanese culture. We have an empty room upstairs that's meant for monks, but no one wants to be a monk because it's a huge financial boom. So if you're welcome to stay there, the rent would be cheap. And if you help out now and then,

maybe you don't even have to pay rent at all. And I said, that's great. And it was a lovely arrangement. The only conditions where I had to come go to Zazen, which is sitting meditation every Sunday started, um, at seven sharp, which means you had to be there at six 30 and get to be ready. What'd you have to do for that? Well, you know, you, you have to, you have to meditate for about like 90 minutes. And then, uh, then afterwards you have green tea and cakes and, you know, there's a little bit of a sermon. And then you talk to the neighbors. It was a great way to learn Japanese.

However, because there's this kind of Pavlovian thing that happens, if you always have green tea and sweets after you've been sitting in Zazen for, you know, up to 90 minutes with some breaks, you get this sort of reaction is that my knees start to hurt whenever I have green tea. It's like the Pavlovian reaction. I can't drink green tea without like this pain going up and down my knees. Anyway, so that was a really good experience. So I, you know, I'm, by this time I'd been there two years in exchange student because I extended a year. And Sophia University, which is called Jochi Daigaku there, is really respected. So I just transferred. And I was like, you know, this Japan is such a weird – it is a weird country. I mean if you come from the United States, it's such a different culture.

That's like I'm staying. Did people start to respect you though? Like you mentioned, it's like a little xenophobic towards people that aren't from there. Like did they start to respect you as you were taking parts in the customs and really learning the language and they're like, oh, he's cool? Sure. In your own little community, you can be accepted. And people may forget that you're a foreigner and they don't remind you about it and they treat you like as good or bad as anybody else. I think that some people get this disillusion because they'd expect that to happen wherever you go.

But, I mean, is there any country in the world where you can just walk into a neighborhood and people greet you? I mean, if you're from New Jersey and you've got a New Jersey accent and you move to Manhattan and you're talking in a New Jersey accent and you think everyone's going to treat you like – I mean, it's close enough. We'll be all right. We'll be all right. I mean – but, right. But are you fully accepted, right? Yeah, I see what you're saying.

I mean if you're a redneck and you go to Harvard, you think there's still not sort of kind of like – That's a good example. Yeah. I mean there is – so in Japan, if you learn the language and the customs – and also because I'm living in a Zen Buddhist temple, so I have to behave myself. I have like – I have the same haircut now for like 35 years. It looks good. So I look very clean cut, right? Yeah.

No hipster beard. Most of the time I was wearing a suit and tie because I was teaching English on the side and you had to do that. Oh, you had to wear a suit and tie. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was expected. I mean, if you ask me what has changed the most

about Japan since I arrived there in like 1988 is it used to be just you saw a sea, a flood of Japanese men in like dark blue, navy blue suits and ties. And that was the norm. And now they wear Tommy Bahama pineapples. Yeah, true, because it's global warming. But actually, it is acceptable. I don't know if this is Tommy Bahama. I was giving you credit.

Tommy Bahama is legit. It is rayon. So, you know, quality material. Thank you. It looks good. It's a good vibe for camera too. I feel like that would be good for the thumbnail. So people will like that.

They'll click that. So you get somewhat ingrained in the culture. And then after you finish university, you decide to stay there though. So Japan is a, you know, Japan has a kind of weird system for hiring people. Most people get their jobs before they graduate from college. So you sort of secretly have this job hunting season. There's an official hunting seat jobs, the hunting season, and there's the unofficial job hunting season. And you go to these interviews with various corporations and you hope that they offer you a job. And then if they do, then your last year of school,

you're just killing time. So in my case, I got a job offer from Sony Music Entertainment, which is our Sony computer music entertainment. I forget what the name was. So I had like a year of school left and I was like, okay, I am like everyone else in the world. I am lazy. And if I don't apply myself, I'm not going to have the level of Japanese that I want because I feel like at the job I'm going to be doing for Sony, I'm going to be using English more than I'm using Japanese. So I was writing for the school newspaper in Japanese just to sort of just improve my Japanese. I feel very sorry for my editor, Inukai-san, who had to correct my terrible Japanese, but I mean, they get better. And, you know, they were all going like, yeah,

we're going to, you know, get a job as reporters. And I'm like, well, how do you do that? And they say, well, every newspaper has these newspaper examinations, like an SAT. It's kind of standardized, different depending upon where you're applying. And, you know, if you prep for them and you do well, then you go on to the interviews. And if you do well in the interviews, then they offer you a job. And I was like, well, that sounds like, that sounds interesting to me. So I enrolled in a couple of classes, like at the community center and bought a couple of textbooks and I prepared for the examinations. And I took one for the Omidish Shimbun, which is this conservative newspaper, but it was at the time the largest newspaper in the world.

In the world? In the world? In the world. 10 million readers a day. Whoa. That's, you know, suck on that, New York Times. Now, the joke was there are 10 million copies published a day. It's not necessarily 10 million copies read a day, but there were 10 million copies printed a day. And went through that whole interview process. And it very much like is in the TV show. That's very realistic.

Your HBO show. The HBO show. And they offered me a job. And I was like, yeah. I was like, I'm thinking, like Sony's job is not interesting. This is interesting. And the first thing, and when they hired me, they said, okay, everybody starts on the police beat and you are no exception. So we are going to send you to Saitama,

which is just outside of Tokyo. It is sometimes called the New Jersey of Japan. No offense to New Jersey. Yeah. What's the connotation here? I don't like that. The connotation is that it's like, you know, that if Tokyo is cool, that Saitama isn't so cool. It's on the outside. I am not the one saying it. I'm just telling you. It's like the Rhode Island. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the Rhode Island. Or Connecticut. Or Connecticut. Okay. But there's a lot of crime there and a lot of organized crime. Connecticut, yeah. Yeah. And so they sent me there.

And the first year we're on, I'm, I didn't, I'm like, I think people have this idea that like, I'm really into the, cause they're like, like, I'm fascinated in them. And that's kind of the TV show vibe, but no, I mean, I didn't know anything about them. It wasn't part of my life. You didn't know anything about the Yakuza? I mean, I mean, I'm like what I would see in a newspaper article, right? I mean, I had a very surface understanding.

Of course they exist, right? Of course, you know, that if you watch the news, they come up a lot. For people who aren't familiar with them and haven't seen the stories on them over the years, can you just give a brief history of when they started and what they're all about? Sure. So we'll work our way backwards because it's easier to understand. Yep. When you talk about the Yakuza, you're talking about 24 different groups located in Tokyo that have turf and territory all over Japan. They make their money through extortion, finance, fraud, drugs, and legitimate companies as well. They all claim to be humanitarian organizations. Because they are legal groups in japan you can look up

the address of their headquarters on the national police agency web page and they were so legitimate that they used to have business cards and until 2018 there was a monthly fan magazine now there are weekly magazines that are kind of kind of like sleazy tabloids that still have like you know five or six pages of yakuza news in them every week, but you don't have these glossy giant 200 page. This is legit. Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, full of information.

Historically, they were two groups. They called them the Bakuto, which were federations of gamblers, and there were the tekiya, which were federations of street merchants. So like wandering street peddlers and wandering gamblers. And they would set up little gambling – little casinos kind of like in the local communities and people would pay the money and sometimes they would pay them protection money. Then after the Second World War, they really – there was a period of time in Japan where the police were not empowered to arrest or deal with third-party nationals. Let me explain this easy. Japan was an imperial nightmare. So they colonized Korea, colonized Taiwan, colonized China. They brought a lot of those people over to Japan as slave labor.

And then when the war ended, GHQ, the Americans were like, you can't arrest these people. You leave them alone for the time being. And so they were like, hey, Japan, payback time. So they started running the black markets. They started creating gangs. Police couldn't touch them. So these Yakuza who came back, especially in Tokyo and Kobe, sort of formed the sort of vigilante groups and sort of took back power. A year passed, the police were empowered to deal with the foreigners. And they stayed, you know, running. And the police were like, okay,

you know, we owe you one. And also the thing that they did was very smart. They went to these Korean gangs and Taiwanese gangs, and they said, you know, you guys are good businessmen. Why don't you work with us? Why don't we work together? I mean, you don't, you know, the police can come down on you like a load of bricks, but we recognize your power. It's a meritocracy. If you'll pledge your loyalty to the Oyabun, which is like the father figure, you but we recognize your power. It's a meritocracy. If you'll pledge your loyalty to the Oyabun, which is like the father figure, you're welcome. So there was lots of

mergers and acquisitions, which is why actually these days, 30% of the Yakuza are Korean Japanese. There's another 30% that belong to what were called the Burakumin. So Japan used to have an outcast class. Japan sort of had a caste system. And the people who worked in dealing with slaughtering animals or leatherworks or unclean jobs were considered untouchables. And, you know, the Yakuza never don't discriminate. So that also became a place where they were welcome. I mean, I think that's, you know, a pretty standard where all the world, a lot of organized crime groups began because you have a marginalized community.

That's right. And they welcome them and let them rise up according to their power. Yeah. And they start out of some, like oral crime, they start out of some sort of economic disadvantage. Yeah. Right? start out of some like all crime they start out of some sort of economic disadvantage yeah right so you look at the italian american mafia here and the jewish mob and the irish mob like they started because they were packed like sardines in these little neighborhoods right here and everyone shunned them in america and so they did this i have an uncle who uh was allegedly meyerlansky's right-hand man who was your uncle we just don't talk about it in the family.

Well, we talk about it now. No, we're not talking about it here. Well, you can't just bring that up on the podcast. I can, I can, I can, I can. That's like saying he was the right hand of like the god of organized crime. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. Like Meyer Lansky was allegedly ahead of the Jewish mob. Allegedly ahead of the Jewish mob.

People have said many things about my uncle. He's just a nice guy. Okay. All right. Okay. Can we Google that? Jake Adelstein's uncle, Meyer Lansky. But keep going.

Okay. So the Yamaguchi Gumi, which is easiest to explain because it's the biggest. I mean, it's been the biggest for a long time. At one time, they had 40,000 members. That was founded in 1915 so it's been around for over 100 years it started as a kind of labor union on the kobe docks and then moved to extortion protection loan sharking um and then when the war ended tau kukazu who is called the godfather of godfathers, was like, okay, we've kept the peace here. We have all these young people just out of, you know, all these soldiers who are just back from the war. Let's go into business.

Like, you know, let's – and he told his people, you know, he told his members, we're going, you know, of course we're going to run the black markets. And of course we're going to engage in illegal things and collect protection money. But it's also important for us to have legitimate business. So the Yamaguchi Gumi is actually a corporation. They have this huge chunk of real estate in Kobe. And you can get the real estate deed for that. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning.

You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. Property and it's owned by a corporation with the members of the organized crime group on

there as listed. And they are supposedly running parking lots and golf club management and other assorted activities. Which they might actually be doing that. They might actually be doing. But it's all the stuff behind it. They ran one of Japan's largest talent agencies for many years, Kobe Ginosha. In addition to that, they had construction companies and other companies. The Korean group that they took over, the Yanagawa Gumi in Osaka, set up not only construction companies and entertainment companies. They took a chunk from every single business in the area, including people who were selling meat skewers on the street.

Oh, they're going after everybody. Everybody. Everybody paid. That's, you know, and that was kind of their business model. I mean, it got so, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, which has been ruling Japan since the 50s,

almost uninterrupted for about, from maybe a period of 2009 to 2012, they were out of power. That was also funded by a Yakuza associate, Kodama Yoshio, and Abe's grandfather, who was a war criminal, Kishinobosuke, who also was heavily in debt to the Yakuza. I mean, so when you have your leading political party founded by the Yakuza, you can see why they are sort of tolerated for many years. Tied and tied.

Tied and tied. Tied and tied. Absolutely. So you get onto this beat now, post-World War II, you're on this 50 years later. So they are very well entrenched. So they're very well entrenched. But I started as a reporter in 1993. 1992 was the first time that Japan actually put anti-organized criminal laws on the books. They were called the Boryokudan Taisakuho. What precipitated that? Like what made them finally do it?

After the bubble economy collapsed and the banks went to start collecting the bad debts and the Yakus were heavily involved in that real estate boom, a couple of bankers got killed. And the police were like, you know, this is a bad optic. Yeah. Like the live and let live days, maybe not so good. And around this time, Itami Juzo, who's a really great film director, he makes really dark comic films, he made a movie called Minbona Ona, which is the gentle, the English title, the gentle Japanese art of extortion. Oh. Japanese art of extortion. And it was a sort of how-to manual of how to deal with the Yakuza when they try and pilfer you and rob you and cheat you and make your life hard. Just say no.

No, it was more like this. It was more like how to tape their conversations, how to use the law on your behalf to put them out of business. And then the message of the movie was if you fight against the Yakuza, you can win. And you shouldn't be paying them off. Was that good advice? Well, Goto Gumi, which was Lampoon in the film. Toothpick guy. Toothpick guy.

Is that the one that put the hit on you? Yeah. So five of his guys, of course on their own, right? No orders, right? Yeah, they would never talk to each other. Because I'm sure all – because Goto always claimed – He's a legitimate businessman. He's a legitimate businessman. He's a legitimate businessman.

In his biography, he said, you know, I never asked him to do it. But, of course, I was glad they did it because he was an unpleasant man who made fun of us. Right. So they went to his house and as he was coming out of his house, they grabbed him and they cut up his face very slowly so it would leave scars. And the message that they were trying to say was, yeah, like, guess what? You know, if you try and resist us, it's not going to go so smoothly. Let's put a smile on that face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a very good impression. They weren't so creative with the carving. But, you know, so that made the police be like okay now we really have to cramp clamp down on you guys so when i started they were beginning to enforce these very weak laws um my first year i wasn't actually assigned to organized crime i was sort of a general police reporter but we were doing this bizarre case of a husband and wife serial killer second again and his wife Hiroko, who were running a very like a boutique pet shop that specialized in exotic pets. And they were selling like pets for

like $50,000, rare breeds. Like actual pets? Yeah, like an Alaskan Malamute or an Ocelot or some weird pet. I thought this was more sinister, but go ahead. But sometimes they would cheat their customers. And so when the customer would claim, when the customer would say, I'm going to go to the police, you know, because you sold me a dog that can't produce offspring or whatever, they'd kill them. Oh. They'd kill them and they'd chop off the meat, which they'd probably fed to the animals, and then they'd burn the bones and they would disappear. So the Saitama police noticed that, you know, around these two people, 10 people had disappeared

over the last 10 years. And now there were like four people missing. So they were launching an investigation. We knew that they were investigating. And my boss, Yamamoto-san said, you know, okay, you know, Jake, everybody's getting assigned a victim to do a profile of them and a background to gather information. So when the police bust this case open, we're ready to roll. And he's like, you are in charge of this Yakuza boss who was an associate of Sekine Gen named Endo and his driver Wakui who disappeared. So you need to find out everything about them. What was their last day on earth like? Why would Sekine want them dead? That's your job. And so I tried knocking on the door of the office

because it's not hard to find the office. But some very angry young yakuza came and chased me out. There was a taxi park nearby, so I just hopped back in the taxi. It's very hard to run in a suit, especially shiny shoes. Yeah. I started wearing sneakers after that most of the time. There you go. Air Jordans? No, whatever was available.

Got it. You didn't get paid so well as a reporter. And, you know, and I made friends with a –, so there was the homicide squad was investigating this, but there's, they suck at dealing with Yakuza issues. So they had someone from the organized crime task force sent over. Um, that was Sekiguchi Chiaki. It's, you know, this really hot, really great detective, really good at interrogating Yakuza. Sent him over to be part of the force. And, um. so they're just sitting up outside the pet store every day no no no they're they're you know like you know they're

trying to find some other separate easier charge to arrest him on because this is like i mean japanese police investigations the homicide are almost always begin with the arrest for something that is not homicide. Let me explain why that is. I mean, we're on a tangent, but might as well. No, this is good. Go for it. If you are arrested in Japan, you can be held for 23 days before you're indicted, and during which time you do not have access to your lawyer. Oh, boy. So if you want to get someone to confess to a crime or you want to browbeat them, you need something to grab them for, and a small criminal charge, even a traffic violation, minor fraud. The classic one is you arrest them first for improper disposal of the body.

You interrogate them for 23 days. Then you get them to confess to the murder, then you... Improper disposal, you're talking about like if they were eating the dogs or something, or the humans they were killing? Or like you left a body somewhere, like you diced up a body, like, okay.

But that would mean they killed them, right? No, no, doesn't necessarily mean they killed them. The initial charge is almost always shitaiki, which is throwing away a body, or improper disposal of a body, which is a crime. And they hold you for that 23 days and they hope that you confess because Japan does have

a 99% conviction rate. Oh, that sounds very democratic. Well, but the trick to that is the prosecutors drop 50% of almost every case they get. So they will only take a slam dunk case, even in murders. So if you don't confess, and then the prosecutor has to go, like, oh, my God, I might actually lose this case. Like, I could be one of the 1%. Right.

One of the 1% of losers, they may drop it. So they want that confession. They want that confession. They want the 23 days to get you to fess up. So then they re-arrest you for murder this time and another 23 days go by. So your boy was called in or a guy you know was called in to be on this task force. So he's like, you're going to talk to the Yakuza. You're going to find out what's happened to this guy where he disappeared, why Sekine might have killed him.

And so another reporter knew his address. So they gave me the address and I went to the house many times trying to talk to him. Like a lot of being a police reporter is, what is the term we used to use? Otoko geisha. It's like being a male geisha. Like you're trying to get in the good graces of these cops, hoping that they will leak you some kind of information so you will have a scoop, right? What was – there was a movie called like Memoirs of a Geisha. What was the concept there again? Like what's a geisha? A geisha is just an entertainer that, you know, highly skilled in the arts –

No, no, not a geisha. Most of the time. Conversationalist, entertainer, you know, makes people feel good about themselves. Skilled in the Japanese arts. Right. Okay. Now I get so yeah so when they call you like a male geisha right you know you're you're chumming up with the cops you're you're kind of bribing them with like the yomori shimbun owned a baseball team so it's like hey would you like some tickets to the game this weekend i just happen to have a couple on me. Gotcha. And I was making no headway.

And then I showed up once in the summer. And I had brought some ice cream because his little girls kept coming to the door even though his wife was lying to me and said he wasn't home. And I was like, okay, look. I got this ice cream. It's going to melt. You guys eat it. And I left it there. And then he came out.

He's like, OK, come in. Just come in. And I think this is also in the TV series. He didn't call me by my name at first. He just called me Yomi-san, like the name of my newspaper. People do that in Japan. They refer to you as like your job position and not your name. Got it.

Wow. position and not your name got it wow i mean so i had like a like a boss above me like uh you know um i guess it would be like a junior executive or senior executive or something we just called him like senior executive right it's pretty weird but it'd be like oh senior executive right and so he would call me as like yomi-san like sort of slang for my newspaper. But from him, you know, from him as we were looking at this case and trying to figure out what happened to Endo, I mean, I spent so much time like looking into this guy's life and his friends and associates. That's the Yakuza guy? The Yakuza guy.

He had a wife, of course, and he also had a mistress who was working at a hostess bar. Nice. I ended up dating his mistress. I think in the book, I didn't say it was the mistress directly because there were circumstances at the time the book was released that I was like, you know, this could put her in a tough spot. She went from a Yakuza boss to a reporter. Well, I mean, he was clearly dead. Yeah. I did have this confrontation with someone in his organization who knocked on the door.

Like, we went where we were banging once. And he was like, he's like, what are you doing? You know, like, you're screwing, you know, you're screwing, like, you know, the boss's girl, you know, we should kill you. I mean, he didn't say we'd kill you. He was very angry. And I was like, and I was like, and I was absolutely defiant. And I was like, and I was like, and I was absolutely defiant. I was like, excuse me. Like, your boss, your underboss is dead.

He's been killed by second again. It's an absolute certainty. He's never coming back. And I am taking care of his woman. You should thank me. He had a two-inch cock. No, apparently he had a huge cock. That's what she said.

Oh, we're getting canceled for this one. We can't get canceled for it. That's all right. You know, that was a fun and exciting relationship until I realized that she was dissolving meth in her lubricant to make the sex better. And I was like... She was doing, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Meth is a big deal in people working in the sex industry, right? Uh-huh.

She would dissolve meth in her lubricant. So we're having sex because, I mean, it's probably not the best way to ingest meth, but I imagine through vaginal tissues, it's pretty quickly absorbed. That's a thing. That's a thing. Oh my God. Now, I mean, you know, this is a disputed thing. People say, you're full of shit. I'm like, no, you know, look it up, man. It's a real thing. So she was putting meth in the lube. Meth in the lube. I was getting like a contact high. And then when I saw her doing it once, like, what is that shit you're putting in the lube? And she explained what it was. And I was like, you know, that is unacceptable um you know i was like i was like kind of kind of like a baby it's you know baby it's me or the meth and it's like that's the meth

she chose the meth she also was you know uh had hooked up with another yakuza boss who made a lot more money than i did i mean i don't think this was true love. Right. Yeah, I wasn't getting that sense. But, you know, it was a relationship of convenience at the time. So this guy had that mistress and the wife, and you were learning everything about him, apparently working overtime. I mean, his mailbox became very overstuffed,

and sometimes mail would fall on the floor, and I would pick that up because once it's on the street, it's fair game. It's fair game. It's fair game. Really? Yeah. It's legal. It's legal. In Japan, that's legal.

If it's on the street, it's anybody's property. What kinds of things would you find? I find like angry postcards from people and debts that he owed and letters like, dude, where are you kind of stuff. Interesting. Companies that he owed and letters like, dude, where are you? Kind of stuff. Interesting. Companies that he owned. Because most – because he's successful, yeah, because he has like front companies. Front companies, sometimes legitimate companies, sometimes not legitimate companies. Actually, it was nothing that was very useful.

And you're trying to figure out if dog store owner is – It's killing this guy, right? Yeah. And meanwhile, I'm getting to know this weird cast of characters involved in this. And at one point I figured out, my guess is that Endo figured out that Sekine had killed a couple of his customers and was blackmailing him. And that seemed to be the reason that he was killed. But meanwhile, as I'm trying to see what's happening with this investigation, Seki Gutsan, who took a liking to me, and I mean, he's a very, you know, very down-to-earth cop, sort of worked his way up to the top. I show up in my suit and he and his like family would be in matching track suits and like, we're going for a run, you know, up in the hills, come with us. And I'd be like, okay. So he's like, you know, he's like, okay,

you're a reporter. And he started kind of teaching me the ropes of like, okay, here's how you talk to people. Here's how you get people to confess. Here's how organized crime works. Here are the groups. You know, he's like, you need to know the structure, like, you know, the three tiers. How good is your Japanese at this point? It's not bad. I mean, I was, because the written language is such a nightmare. I mean, look at this, you know. Yeah, it's right to left reading. That throws me off.

Japan has two syllabaries, different from an alphabet, because the sound is the symbol. And then it has these kanji, which they took from Chinese, but they have Japanese readings and they have Chinese readings. So sometimes one kanji can be read many different ways depending upon what's before and after it. So I was – because as a newspaper reporter, you have to be able to read and write, of course. I was so focused on that, my listening and my speaking weren't very good you know so i'm you know it's a little bit like being sort of deaf mute because the first year they'd you know there'll be a press conference i'm like

i don't understand what's going on i need to stall until they give me the press release and then i'll be sure that i'm doing the right thing um so it was a great education in the yakuza and how the police and the yakuza have this sort of adversarial but almost friendly relationship. So, you know, the year goes by, the case breaks, Sekine is arrested. After the first year, most people in the, you know, are sent to like little mini offices to cover local news, to cover a wide variety of things. And Yamamoto-san, my boss, came to me and said like, okay, you're moving to the police beat proper. You're going to be covering the prefectural police

and you're going to be covering organized crime task force one and two, theft, and public security. Are you thinking about like how dangerous though at this point? Because now you know about the Yakuza, how dangerous it could be to potentially… Because I'm thinking, no, at this at this point right my interaction with them is like okay i got chased by them once right but i'm just talking to the cops i'm not talking to these people um it wasn't until my second year our our um our like way into my first year that i actually had a sit down with an actual yakuza boss. And then I realized like, okay,

now we're getting a little more involved than most reporters do. I know reporters who've recovered the Organized Crime Task Force for years who probably never sat down with a Yakuza in their entire lives. They just write what the police feed them. But you could still end up dead doing that

if you'd write the wrong thing that they don't like. Well, the Japanese mafia, they're not like the mexican mafia so they're not going to kill a reporter that brings on too much heat really okay i mean you really have to piss them off to do that for that to do that i know one or two reporters who have have have managed to do that when you you got a hit put on you well and and i have had a couple dust-ups um the worst was with this guy it's i wrote it up in tokyo noir with one of my sources who was in the middle of a meth psychosis and i said something that set him off and it just turned into this nasty nasty uncivilized undignified brawl um like american style or more like no nothing no that would be that would be cuddly

it's like it's like oh i'm you know what's on the table here's a here's an ashtray i'm gonna hit you in the head with the ashtray oh wow um you went straight back to fucking high school again yeah i mean you know it's it would be nice if i saw it coming but i didn't see it coming and oh he hit you with an ashtray i know, he just punched me first. And then I think it was on the floor and he kicked me in the head. And then I'm grabbing, I mean, I threw things at him. And he's on meth. He's on meth. Wow.

And so, you know, I think at some point I realized that if I kept hitting his knee, he would only have one leg. And then, you know, then he would have limited mobility. And then I could hurt him enough that I could walk away, which is how it ended. Wow. But, you know. Don't get into a dust up with this guy. Shit.

No, I mean, it was, I mean, it sounds better than it was. We were both horribly injured. But I mean, but I think, you know, but I was the one that left on my own two feet. So that's better, right? There you go. Yeah. But the ironic two feet. So that's better, right? There you go. Yeah. But the ironic thing is that this is my source, right? I mean, this is a guy who's given me some great info and intel.

And it's not like it's personal. It's like he's crazy because he's on so much meth that he thinks the world is out to get him. That's right. So, you know, and if I turned him in, then not only have I betrayed a source. Yeah, you can't turn him in. I can't turn him in. You beat him too. Yeah.

That's enough. You know, so we eventually made peace over that. You know, I, as the years go by and I get older, you know, like Wolverine and Logan. I heal as quickly. I definitely avoid any possibility of a violent encounter with these guys. And I got one friend who's – we went to college together. And, I mean, his story is incredible. That would be a great show.

But he's basically went to work for a really big Japanese company and got recruited by the Yakuza to run one of their front companies. Oh shit. And they were kind of like, you, you're really smart. Like, you know,

we need you. Like, look at you. You know, we can, we can tell, you know, when we take,

when you know, when you go out with the drinking and stuff, do you like the, you like the good life? You'd like the, you like the women in the cars. It's like, come work for us.

Well, you know what? You're in a company. And he knew what it was. And he knew what it was. And he took it. He took it. And then he, come work for us. We'll let you're in a company. And he knew what it was. And he knew what it was. And he took it. He took it. And then the company went legit.

Disney bought the company. I'm not making this up. Disney bought the company. So he's working for Disney. And his boss was like, more power to you. You go on. I'm proud of you. Good work.

And he gave me a car to let me get into Disneyland for free for a year. I was like, thanks, dude. Courtesy of the Yakuza. Well, I mean, he wasn't in the Yakuza anymore. Right. Somebody ratted him out. So he went back to the organization. Oh, they ratted him out?

Yeah. Someone was like, yeah, this guy used to be in the Yakuza. Whoa. I mean, and you know. What a story. I mean, he still kind of every now and then shows up in the newspaper in a really strange place. I'm like, dude, man, that's you, right? And he's like, oh, yeah.

Don't worry about it. But, you know, we went out to, we had dinner at the Foreign Correspondents Club a couple months ago. Because my girlfriend, Jessie, was like, and Jessie's a tough woman. I mean, she's black belt in Kyokokushin karate and she's like 180 centimeters. So she's like six feet tall, taller than me. I wouldn't tangle with her. But she's – Is she Japanese?

Japanese-Brazilian. Oh, what a combo. Yeah. Whoa. Lovely combo. She's a lovely, wonderful woman and very strong. And she's like, you're not having any yakas over at the house. Absolutely not.

I don't care if you went to school with them, you're friends with them. It's like, do not bring that trouble here. I feel like she'll just beat the shit out of them. Well, she might. But she's also like, you know, you have avoided that stuff for like three years now. Stay out. I'm like, okay. So we had dinner.

And he's like, man, my oyabun he's gonna be like the number two i could set up an interview with you man because his boss is rising in the organization and i was like no thank you and he's like what do you mean no thank you i was like this is a big guy like you know you'd have an exclusive interview with this big Yakuza boss. And I'm like, and I'm like, I said, you know, there's no plus for me in this. And I have interviewed a lot of Yakuza bosses. I have written a book about the history of the Yakuza where, you know, it's interviews and the stories of Yakuza bosses of the last Yakuza. And I said, you know, he's not going to tell me exactly what, how they really make the money. And he's not going to be straight up with me because he can't.

And if anything goes wrong or the higher-ups don't like it, then I got a world of aggravation and anger to deal with. There's no plus side. I've done it before. And I'm like, thank you. It's a generous offer, but I'm not interested. And then he was like, well, when are you going to have me over to the house, man, to meet your chick? And I'm like, I'm never having you over to the house. When you retire from the organization, which you should because you're like 56, dude,

and, you know, the future is not good. You know, like you were in prison for like 23 days. You're lucky they dropped the charges. When you leave, you know, I'd love to have you over to the house. You have a fascinating story. We could write it up. But until then, you and I are, you know, we're going to meet in public places if we meet at all. And not going to interview your boss and not even writing about the Yakuza anymore unless it's something that's very public that everybody already knows.

Yeah. What year is this approximately? This conversation we had? Yeah, yeah. Like the last year or so? This year. This year. This year.

All right. So very recently. So we had left off though when it was after the pet store owners got arrested and everything and you got put on the beat basically covering this full time. Not in the Connecticut of Japan though anymore, right? No. Still in the Connecticut of Japan. Still in the Connecticut of Japan.

Still in the Connecticut of Japan. And my boss was like – and I was like, like you know i kind of wanted to cover homicide or and or maybe white collar crimes because those were kind of like you know you made your career at the newspaper if you cover those areas and you had some scoops and he was like he's like adelstein first of all you suck at numbers white collar crimes out of the question. It's like the homicide guys, xenophobic, don't like you. And he said, but organized crime members, 30% of them, they're gaijin like you. So you know them.

They'll get along with you. And the cops, because you're an oddball, and the cops in the organized crime group are almost imperceptible from the actual yakuza that they deal with. They're weird. And you're weird. So it's a perfect match. You'll be like a fish in water. And he was right. I mean, it was unprecedented to leave the police beat and still be in charge of

one police division. Whoa. And so how long were you on that? I was on that for four years. Then they put me on prefectural politics. What does that mean? So prefectures like a state. So I covered state politics. And guess what happened when I went to cover state politics? Corruption scandal involving the Yakuza. So what did I cover? There you go. Same thing.

Same thing. Keeps coming back to it. Keeps coming back. 99, I got transferred to the head office in Tokyo. They put me in charge of the fourth district, which is Kabukicho, the red light district, full of Yakuza. I did that for two years. I had some time as a features reporter doing various investigations. Then 2002 to 2005, back on the Metropolitan Police Department covering.

Basically. But covering organized crime and vice. So what do you mean by vice? Vice isn't always run by organized crime. And Japan has very gray laws about the sex industry. I'll simplify it for you. In Japan, any sexual service other than vaginal penetration can be openly bought and sold. It's not a crime.

Yeah, I was looking in this magazine. It looks like it. So that means anal sex, fraudage, hand jobs, blow jobs, all that stuff is legal. The only thing that you cannot buy and sell is vaginal penetration. And because the anti-prostitution laws were actually designed to prevent women from being sold into sexual slavery or being trafficked, there's no punishment for the male customer or the female prostitute as long as she's not openly soliciting on the street. The only people that can be punished are the brothel owner or the pimp.

Whoa. Whoa. Okay. So you're covering this for like four years. Yeah. And you're still covering Yakuza 2. Yeah. But this is another side. Yeah.

I think Vice and Organized Crime was two and a half years on the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. That was interesting because I also would cover for public security, which is kind of like spies and that things as well. So when Nakamaru-kun would be on vacation, I would have to cover public security section. And when I would go to their press conferences, because I'm a foreigner, as soon as I walked in, everyone would turn over everything on their desk

because we could be a spy because it's not Japanese. It was so awkward. Oh, man. So you never really get fully ingrained over there. There's still, you're always going to run into some form of a place where it's like you're a total outsider. Yeah.

I would say that with the Organized Crime Task Force in Saitama, I mean, I got along with those guys. So I got along with so well that like, you know, I would be invited to farewell parties and stuff. Oh, wow. It was nice. Yeah. Good for you. Now, this has now been effectively over a decade, well over a decade at this point of you being in Japan. Was there ever a thought during that time of like, oh, I'd like to come back to America or leave here?

Or were you just going with the flow? Well, I mean, got married. That wasn't – didn't work out so well. But we had two lovely kids and I realized at some point that they didn't speak any English. Oh, none. I mean, I barely spoke English because I'm never home. I mean, the Japanese work week for a reporter on the police beat, I was working 80, 90 hour weeks. Oh, wow. Um, you know, I mean, I, I mean, honest to God, when I started, uh, when I, you know, started a job that wasn't being a police reporter and I was

like, you know, I'm not working for, you know, 80 hours a week. I was just like, nothing seems hard in comparison. Yeah. Um, that's crazy though, that your kids didn't speak like any of it. So we decided to go to law school. My parents were like, we'd love to have you back, son. We'll help put you through law school. I had paid off a house in the United States. What year was this? 2005.

Okay. And I was having health issues because the work environment at the newspaper was tough. One of my colleagues had committed suicide. Also – What happened there? She was a really good reporter who was critical of the way we were handling coverage of – the way we were covering mental health issues, like mental health people were a danger to society based on one case.

And she got demoted, and then they told her that she would never work again as a reporter, and she killed herself. Oh, my God. That's horrible. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, it's, I mean, I am very grateful to the Omri Shimbun for giving me a job, but there were problems with that company. And another thing as I could see is that the National News Department had always sort of had a certain amount of independence because the newspaper is very, very right-wing. I mean it's the newspaper equivalent of Fox News.

I mean there's no doubt that we are on the side of the ruling party. Yeah. But I could also see that there was a huge clamp down on our ability to report independently. And honestly, if you've done 12 years in a newspaper and most of that has been on the police beat, it's just like the same story with different people. Yeah. I mean, it's – It wears on you. Yeah.

Well, and it wears on you and there's not that much to learn. I mean, maybe you get faster or write better, but it's not like, you know, not a huge change. So I went back and I was applying to law school and I got into a good law school. And then like, you know, as these things do at the same time, someone reached out to me from the U.S. State Department and they were like, you know, when you were a reporter, your reporting on human trafficking issues was great. You know, your contributions to the white, you know, the annual trafficking person's report were really appreciated because, I mean, I sort of did that on the side. I'd be like, okay, the Japanese government, you know, and the National Police Agency is telling you this, but this is how it really works on the streets. Oh, wow.

Guys, if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, please take two seconds and go hit it right now. Thank you. And they said, you know, we have funding for a major study of human trafficking in Japan and we'd like you to head it up. The State Department is taking you to this? Yeah, yeah. And they said, but in order for this to work, we have to have some plausible designability because you and I both know what's the fastest way to get information about organized crime. And I'm like, I see what you're talking about. And they explained to me, we're going to fund this project through a nonprofit organization. They're going to hire this firm in DC, which is going to hire you.

Whoa. And I was like, I mean, you can find the report on, on online shared hope international demand is the name of the report. And so I did that. I mean, because, because I was like, cause you know, they gave me the spiel like, you know, there will always be law school, but you know, you have a chance to really, you know, they gave me the spiel. Like, you know, there will always be law school. But, you know, you have a chance to really, you know, follow up on the reporting work you've done. You have no restrictions on how you do it. And it could make a very, you know, positive impact in an area where you clearly feel is important and benefit many people. And I was like, and the money is great.

I'm like, and I was like, I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. And while I was working on that story and writing that report, around 2007, there was this police officer at the Kitazawa Police Station who was downloading porn onto his computer through a shared file service called Winnie. Kind of like Napster. Do you remember Napster? I know it from the movie The Social Network. Okay. So you share a file, you upload a file, and you download a file.

So that was Japan's own homegrown Napster. So this cop, who's not a bad guy. It was just regular porn. Some tentacle porn, but I mean... Tentacle? What is that? Like people have squids and stuff on them. What? Look it up. Is that like only Japanese?

You know what? Look up tentacle porn. Like anime? No? You know, but... Like furry kind of stuff, but it's not the push? Slimy kind of, yeah, kind of stuff. Oh, my God. They're taking the sushi a little too serious over there and some anime stuff but some live action stuff as well i don't

he didn't have live action okay um but he accidentally uploads the entire organized crime database for like our our huge chunk of it on the yamaguchi gumi that the tokyo metropolitan police department had and in those files where did he upload it onto the Yamaguchi Gumi that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had. And in those files- Where did he upload it? Onto the network. Oh my God. He got fired. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll say. But, you know, and I'm not very good with computers, but I had covered hacking. So I called up this guy, I'm like, look, dude, I need you to download everything that's on that file server. He's like, done. So I have like four gigabytes of information about organized crime organizations, the front companies, their actual addresses, their phone numbers. Oh, my God.

And in there, go to Tatamasa, who I was pretty sure had gotten liver transplant at UCLA because I'd heard the rumors. This guy. Yeah. His whole organization, everyone in his organization, including a list of his mistresses and his passport numbers and his family's passport numbers. They were all in that file. And you're like, Doc City, bitch, let's go.

And I'm like, let's see. Let's see how you got that liver transplant. And so I put it all together. And I put it all together. And then I put it all together. And I'm like, okay, I'm working on the first draft of Tokyo Mice. I turned it into this Japanese publisher. And I was like, look, listen, we are going to keep this part under wraps of the book on the web, which basically spelled out everything that I knew.

Oh, yeah. Not great. And when that got out – He's not happy. He was not happy because, I mean, you know, Yakuza may not read English overall, but they have people who monitor everything. Oh, yeah. Yamaguchi is – I mean, it's a huge organization. I wrote an article once about this guy being sued for the death of a real estate broker

that his men killed. This happens in Japan. You may not be able to arrest a yakuza boss for murder, but you can sue him if his underlings kill your people. So you can't, he can't't get arrested but you can sue him you can sue him kind of like oj like he was yeah yeah yeah like employer the term is employer liability right um and i wrote an article on it and uh you know and um i explained in the article that you know suing go to tatamasa for the murder of this real estate broker, Nozaki, made sense.

But suing his boss, Scottsda Shinobu, this guy here, didn't make sense because at the time that these murders took place, he was in Nagoya in solitary confinement. And I was like- Oh, the older guy. The older guy, like the boss of the bosses. I'm like, you know, it's not really fair because obviously he can't give the orders or approve of it because he's in solitary right so maybe technically but really it's kind of a stretch and and i was like you know and compared to this guy had to be the toothpick and i'm paired with this guy you know toothpick guy and it's gosh you know it was a good you know a good yakuza is yakuza go so i mean like you know i'm writing it

for the the atlantic wire so it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek yeah um i think it was like the high pro the high price of killing someone is the yakuza boss now um and then i also knew someone who who was close to godo and i'm like hey you, what is Godot saying about the lawsuit? And he's like, oh yeah, Godot's bitching that, you know, like the old man says he shouldn't have to pay anything. He got kicked out of the Yakuza and Tsukasa Shinobu, his boss, when he went to jail, Godot put up 10 million for his bail and he never got paid back. So he should just pay the family the damages from what he owes Godot. Leave him out of it. Oh, whoa.

So I put this up on the Atlantic Wire. Six, seven hours go by. I get a call from someone at the top of the Yamaguchi Yuminok. And they're basically like, we read your article. Or like, we read a translation of your article. And they're like, thank you very much for pointing out that the big boss couldn't have been part of the hit and would never have condoned it. And it must have been Godot. Whoa. And I'm like, well, you know, it's just the truth. And he's like, this part where you have quote Godot saying like the old man should pay because he owes Godot his bail money. Like,

is that real? And I'm like, yeah, that's real. And I'm like, did you hear it owes Godot his bail money? Like, is that real? And I'm like, yeah, that's real. And I'm like, did you hear it from Godot himself? No, I heard it from a reliable source. Like, who's the reliable source? And I'm like, I'm not telling you. And then this guy who I had a fairly cordial relationship with, he was like, can you translate that into Japanese and put it on your shitty blog? Fuck you, shitty.

I was like, well, he said, kudaranai blog. And kudaranai means like shitty or not so good. And I was like, sure, absolutely. And so I did it. I called him up and I said, okay, it's on the blog. You know, I can send you the link. And he's like, no, why don't you print it out and we'll go pick it up. And I'm like, okay, because some of these guys are really analog.

Yeah, real old school. And I'm like, you know, you can print that out anywhere. It's on the web. And they're like, things disappear from the web. Why don't you just print it out? Oh, my God. And I'm like, okay, let me tell you my address i'm like oh no we we know where you live and i'm like okay um you know the there's like i'm sort of under police protection so could you be a little subtle and i'm like could you please not show up in like mercedes-benz in front

of the house because this would intimidate the neighbors so you were already under police protection okay and they were like sure like where is there a place to park nearby and i'm like yeah front of the house because this would intimidate the neighbors. So you were already under police protection? I was under police protection. Okay. And they were like, sure. Like, where, is there a place to park nearby? And I'm like, yeah, you just go down the hill. Okay. So I came up, had a, and I gave him a copy to print out.

And then he had like a little portable printer with him and he printed it out again. I don't know why we went through this rigor remol. He read it out loud to his boss and he said, you know, thank you very much. And then called his boss and put his on the phone with his boss. And the boss was kind of like, you know, thank you for writing this. I understand that he has been a problem in your life. And, you know, we appreciate the article and the way you spell things out here. And we can assure you that he's probably not going to be a problem for you anymore. And I'm like, that's great.

Thank you very much. I don't need to know anymore. And shortly after that, he moved to Cambodia. And I had a discussion with the local police. And I said, I appreciate these years of police protection, but I think I'm ready to be on my own. Wait, so how did you initially end up under police protection? Like what precipitated that at the beginning of this? It sounds like that was around like –

Oh, that was 2008. Basically after the contents of the books were released, I heard murmurings that the old man wasn't pleased, kind of figured out what was going on. And then I was told to come into the National Police Agency and they said, you know, it appears that there is a contract out on you, so to speak. I don't think they use the word contract. But they said, we're going to put you under police protection. Could you tell us exactly what's going on? And I said, well, us exactly what's going on and i said well you know what's going on i i'm i was trying to write about him getting a liver transplant at ucla um and they're like oh yes the the one that the fbi did under our nose yeah we weren't very happy about

that the fbi um yeah sorry spoiler alert for people who haven't read Tokyo Vice yet. Goro Tanimasa had a bad liver like many Yakuza because they have bad livers because they get these tattoos that are hard on the body. A lot of them use drugs intravenously when they're young because they do meth. Your liver problems are pretty dynamic. He had a terrible liver. He was dying. And Japan doesn't do any transplants, organ transplants at all, especially around 2000. No, because there's been this resistance to doing it. Why resistance?

It's sort of superstition about body cleanliness and you're not wanting to have your – not making it easy for people to donate organs or the fear that you would have trafficking in organs or other things. Japan is just resistant to change. But anyway, so he's dying and he's dying and he basically approached the USFBC and he said, I know you have problems getting information on the Yakuza. And if you will get me into the United States and get me a visa, I will give you all the information about the Yakuza that you could want or the major groups. Godo's telling them this. Yeah, Godo's telling them this. Through an emissary politically connected to the U.S. Embassy. And here's the deal.

This is why this is attractive to the FBI. I understand why they made this deal, at least with him. The National Police Agency at the time would not share information on Yakuza bosses and their names or their dates of birth because of personal privacy issues. Oh, that's rich. But what this means is if you want to track the Yakuza in your country, it's not enough to just know their name because there's so many Japanese names that are similar.

You have to know the kanji. The what? The kanji, the Japanese characters, the Chinese characters. You could write go to Tadamasa like seven different ways. Oh, I understand now. Because there's a lot of homonyms in Japanese. So you need to know the kanji. You need to know the date of birth.

Ideally, you want a photo. Now, all that information is contained by the National Police Agency, but the FBI doesn't have it. So they can't track these guys coming in and out of the country, and they want to because they don't want the Yakuza operating businesses in their place. And it's been a point of contention between the U.S. and Japan for years at this point. Wow.

So Godo is coming in and he's like, look, I have everything already set up at UCLA. I need to get there because I have to get a liver transplant um all i need is a visa i don't want to be stopped at the border and and there was another yakuza boss named takami takumi masaru who had liver problems and he was going to get a liver transplant in france and he got turned away at the border oh shit so he knows that this can happen and he knows he's blacklisted because he's an infamous Yakuza. So he makes that deal with the FBI, and he rats out a certain percentage of his people, but he only gives the FBI like a 20% of what they want before he crosses over. And once he gets his liver transplant, he fucks them over. I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at the FBI, but once he gets his liver plants out,

he disappears in the middle of the night back to Japan. So he never gives them what they wanted. No. So as Jim Stern, one of my favorite special agents said, you know, get the information first. That is informant 101.

He said they should have dangled the fucking liver in front of him and says, you want this liver? Then you tell us everything now. That's insane. The oversight right there. Yeah. I can't believe they let that happen. So, but you know, meanwhile, the National Police Agency was just always keeping track of this guy, right? I mean, they wrote a stunning report of how he operates and his connections, his methods, his modus operandi. It's like a 67-page report. I have it.

I mean, when I was writing about this guy and researching him, it was in addition to the leaked files from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. I feel like I probably know this guy better than I know some of my own relatives. Anyway, when he left and went to the airport and he gets on a plane to the united states and and he doesn't get stopped i mean they were like what the hell is going on and of course because he made that deal so i think when the national police agency called me and said you know uh we're putting you under police protection i think that they were also like hoping like please write this up um and i remember because you had police protection. I think that they were also like hoping, like, please write this up.

And I remember – Because you had that story. And I had that story. I could not get it published in Japan. I had a Japanese weekly magazine that I was sitting in a hotel room waiting for them to publish it. A little bit after midnight, the editor comes back and he says, I'm sorry. We're not running it. We've just pulped the first printing and we're taking your story out. Why? Because people were afraid of him because he was like a Balkan gangster. He killed people. I mean, or he didn't kill them

themselves, you know? Yeah, he'd hand it off. Hand it off. And, and everyone was afraid of him. How did you initially find out about the FBI angle to it again? When you look at all the files that have been leaked and his passport numbers and when he traveled back and forth, there was one thing in there, and I can't go into details about that one thing other than the passport numbers because it would blow my source, who still is involved with federal law enforcement to some extent. I was like, okay, now I understand what's happened. The only way this could have happened is that the US gave him permission to go. And then I knew the person to talk to. And then you hunted that down and figured out. I hunted it down, wrote it up, waited to put it on the book. And then I didn't think it would leak out because – I wouldn't say my publisher was stupid, but they weren't prudent.

Sometimes you tell people something and you don't weigh the information so they don't realize that like – you can't even hint that that's in the book. Yeah. So you get the police protection when they put the English write-up of what to expect. Yeah. And then someone – and I had friends in the police force because I got along with these guys. And they came in and they didn't give me many details. And we had a kind of a problem because they wanted to know exactly what was going on and what I knew. And I was kind of like, I can't tell you everything I know because I'll blow a sore. Yeah. And I was kind of like, you know, I can't tell you everything I know because I'll blow a sore. So I'm sitting there having a cup of coffee, filling out some paperwork in the National Police Agency. This guy from Saitama who, you know, occasionally people from the regional areas get transferred up to the National Police Agency.

Because the National Police Agency is kind of like the FBI, but they don't really have the power to arrest people. That would require a lot more explanation. So I see this guy and he's like, hey, you know, he's like, Jake's on. Like, I heard what's going on. And he's like, you know, he's like, listen, you know, maybe you know this or maybe you don't, but let me explain this to you. The only reason this guy has a reason to want you dead is because he thinks he can stop the story. But once you get it out, then you're a secondary issue. As a matter of fact, then he doesn't want anything to happen to you because it's probably going to be connected back to him. He says, you know, you're a writer. You need to write. And he said, and he said,

also, if you think you're going to, you know, you can outrun this and go home. Like you just take the trouble back to your family. You need to stay here and solve this, get it published somewhere, anywhere, somewhere credible. He said, then it's not, then it's not your problem anymore. Then it's his problem. And so I tried the Japanese press fail. Like I went, okay, clearly they don't have the balls to write this story up. And so Howard Rosenberg, who passed away recently, who was at 60 Minutes, knew my father from a story that he'd done years ago. And my father talked to Howard, and Howard's like, this is a fascinating story. I'll put you in touch with an editor to the Washington Post. So I wrote it up for the Washington Post. And as I was writing it for the Washington Post, someone from the LA Times got a – sort of got a sense of what the story was about.

So – and I was like, okay, I'll keep the hospital name out of the Washington Post article in exchange and we'll – but, you know, so we'll write it up for the LA Times. And I want to be credited. And they're like, we can't credit you. write it up for the LA Times. And I want to be credited. And they're like, we can't credit you. We can mention you in the article. And I'm like, that's fine. So Washington Post article came out. I got a lot of calls from friends in the Japanese press who were like, is there going to be a follow-up?

And I'm like, there might be. And they're like, well, you know, it's a very sensitive issue. And I'm like, I can guess that. So you're not going to write about it. But then the LA Times wrote it up. And in two parts, including the fact that Godot had donated $100,000 to UCLA after getting his liver transplant. Oh, very nice of him. Very nice of him, right? Yeah.

And I mean, I knew this too. There were three other Yakuza who had gotten liver transplants at UCLA. And they'd all suddenly, you know, within weeks of arriving there, managed to get to the top of the list. Because, you know, there were livers that nobody else wanted. That's right. You know, it wasn't like Americans were being thrown under the bus. Never. They were waiting for a liver.

We would never do that. It's not like, you know, money changed hands so these guys got to the top of the list, right? Yeah. For money, we wouldn't do that. No. Not in our nonprofit medical service, right? That's right. Right.

And one – I think it was one wire service did an article. It went like this. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, one of our most notorious gangsters made a deal with the FBI and got a liver transplant at UCLA, and so did these three other gangsters. And I was like, wow, I know the Japanese media can be gutless, but I never thought they would be that gutless. But that began the wheels of change that got him kicked out of the Yakuza. And once he was kicked out of the Yakuza, at some point, whatever offer there was to get me disappeared.

So he got kicked out. Now, how does that go down? Goes down like this. The article comes out. He denies it. A couple months go later, there's an article written about him going to – having a lavish birthday party with celebrities instead of going to the monthly meeting of the Amiguchigumi, which is a diss to the boss. It is a diss. It is a diss. Can't miss that. It is possible that the person who wrote that article in Shukan Shinchō might be someone I know very well, but that's always been remained mystery. So- Not anymore, but okay.

But then a book came out about like the taboo stories of 2008, which had a detailed description of which Yakuza had gotten liver transplants and what Goto had offered up to get that liver transplant. And I was told that around October 14th, he was summoned to headquarters and they told him, you know, you have embarrassed the organization by, you know, causing so much trouble to these celebrities. You've been insolent and holding a copy of this book, which had all the details of his interactions with the FBI, the number two hit him on the head with the book and said, whether this is true or not, the fact that this is being written about you is a failure. You're out.

Oh, my God. And they kicked him out. But they didn't kill him. They didn't kill him. He's too powerful to kill. But he's not powerful enough to not get kicked out? You know, they were worried. He had such a following and so much power and so much money.

I feel like it's the same thing. No, they were like, the best thing to do is banish him. So now he can be alive and plot his comeback with all his people. Well, interestingly enough, after he got kicked out, there were a bunch of other bosses in the top 100 who sort of wrote a protest letter. And the response of the management, the top management, was to kick all of them out.

Management. Yeah. It's an executive structure. The management kicked out the other guys. And this is, and it was such a revolution, sort of this chain reaction of him getting fired and these other big Yakuza bosses getting fired that they called it the Goto Shock.

Like in Japan, the collapse of Lehman Brothers is referred to the Lehman Shock, like the financial crisis. So in the Yakuza world, it's referred to as the Goto shock. But they fire or get rid of all these people who are loyal to him. How does this not cause a gang war? Because they were very, very organized. I think actually around a year later. Wait, so those people just stopped their rackets and they're like, oh, okay.

The rackets got taken over. Some of them got a retirement payment. Some, so those people just stopped their rackets and they're like, oh, okay. The rackets got taken over. Some of them got a retirement payment. Some of them were suspended. They were allowed to take some funds with them, keep their houses and stuff. Okay. I mean, the Yamaguchi Gumi, one of the things that has made this organization

successful, there was a major split in the organization in the 90s between the Hamaguchi Gumi and the Ichiwakai. They split into two factions because basically there was a succession war of who should be the fourth generation leader. I know this sounds like inside baseball, but you know, it's a split. It's a split. Takenaka, who was Takenaka-san, who was the leader of the fourth generation leader, was assassinated coming out of his mistress's home. There was this huge period of sort of flux with no one in charge except the widow of the third generation leader.

And as this gang war went on, the Yamaguchi-gumi decided that the best way to consolidate power and get people to come back was create a pension plan. So they created a pension plan. A gangster pension plan. Yeah. So if you, up until 2012, 2014, if you served out your time in the Yamaguchi Gumi, you got a pension when you left of anywhere between $200,000 to $500,000. That's a nice fucking pension. And one lump sum.

Oh, only once. Yeah, only once. All right. That's not that crazy. Yeah, but I mean 500,000 could go a long way. In Japan maybe, right? Ten years ago. Yeah, okay.

All right. It's something. So they're good at preserving the peace. All right. peace all right so that just doesn't compute to me though just because like i'm still thinking of it in levels of like how they would work here you know in the mob they wouldn't be like all right you're going to florida vinnie well be like oh oh vinnie let's get dinner and he doesn't come back with his head if you kill him you make him a martyr yeah and you risk having the gang war that they don't want because then you have justification

so they let him live i mean he's not dumb so you know he's like okay what can i do to not get killed so come around like 2010 very publicly he announces i'm going to become a buddhist priest and he invites all the press is going to become a buddhist he becomes a shingon buddhist priest different sect yes he did uh i interviewed the i interviewed his his master so to speak so he becomes a shingon buddhist priest uh he has a very you know suddenly he's a buddhist monk now you can't kill him right even in japan it's not very religious it's a bad thing to kill us yeah you can't kill a monk and he's like i know like now he's a good guy to kill a monk. Yeah, you can't kill a monk. And he's like, I know. Now he's a good guy, right? Did he shave his head and everything? Yeah.

He's forsaken his evil ways and that cheesy mustache. Do we have a picture of this? Look up. Goto monk, G-O-T-O monk. You have to probably look up Goto Tatamasa. G-O-T-O-T-A-D-A-M-A-S-A, and then Monk. I don't know if it'll come up. On the cover of his biography, which became a bestseller.

When was this? Also published in 2010. Oh, he didn't waste any time. Rebrand, baby. So I talk about this in Tokyo Noir, which is the latest book. So he publishes a book, a tell-all autobiography around 2010 in which – Oh, my god. That's him.

There he is. Bald Buddhist monk. Yeah, that may be him. Wow. OK. Go ahead. I'm not sure because I can't tell from here. But anyway, he becomes a monk, sort sort of buys him. He's basically buying

bulletproof vests in the forms of Buddhist robes. He writes this tell-all book called Habakkari Nagara, which is like Japanese for like, pardon me, but pardon me, but fuck you. I mean, it's very polite Japanese. Habakkari Nagara. Not very monk of him. you're doing a koto wa machigatte masu. It's on the surface level. It's very polite. And in the book, he basically makes a death threat to me because he refers to me in the same terms

that he refers to the director that got sliced up, like the unpleasant director, the unpleasant reporter. I will not comment on what he wrote about me and my dealings with the FBI. But if I ever met him, you know, he wouldn't be alive for very long, that kind of thing. Ha ha ha at the end. So this was a little disturbing to the police and me. So I hired my lawyer to not sue him, but to talk to the publisher and ask for a retraction and a correction. And since it was a very one-sided thing, I'm like, you know, it defames my reputation to be referred to as, you know, this unreliable bullshit reporter in his book. You know, it's where it's clearly obviously me. And also the implied threat isn't great either. So I hired Igari Toshiro, who was an ex-prosecutor, to be my lawyer.

He was on vacation. He came back to Narita Airport. He came back from the airport to meet with me. And then we signed a contract and he was going to represent me. And then three weeks later, he was dead. Whoa. Yeah. How?

They found him in the Philippines, cause of death unknown. There was a rumor circulated that he had committed suicide, but I got a hold of the Philippine police report and there was no evidence of suicide. Yeah, so did Epstein. Yeah, yeah. And then that was very sad I don't I mean he was a very interesting fellow I he made a lot of enemies

but I didn't have any legal representation for years after that you can see why oh yeah because people don't want to have a have a part of that puts a target on them now where are you though at this point where are you personally like with your family and stuff well like aren't you worried about

not just your safety but everyone's no i i think in 2012 when he got sued the the uh the the aftermath of that um was i feel uh yeah when he got sued for the murder. He paid $1.5 million to the family. Godot did. Yeah. Never – didn't admit to it. It's like, okay, my men did it. I'm terribly sorry. Here's $1.5 million.

And the cause of death is still unknown. Well, I mean, Nozaki was definitely murdered, not for the lawyer. Oh, no doubt about it. because this is clearly a guy that got away with murder. But you know- A lot of times. A lot of people get away with murder. Sadly, you're right. Were there other people, is there something else I want to come back to, but before we do, were there other major leaders along the way

that maybe not on that level, but in light of your reporting, you got on your bad side? Maybe they didn't put a hit out on you, but they're like, yo, fuck this guy. You know, I didn't. I wrote an article about Saitama Shogun, which was a sort of Korean savings loan for, in Saitama that went bankrupt. And after I wrote it, I got a bunch of death threats, which is one of the reasons they moved me out to Saitama, because I was writing about

how they had been looted by one faction of the Yamaguchi group by the Inigawa Kai. So yeah, I had some bad with that, but I've been really careful otherwise. You know, no one wants to make an enemy out of any of everyone. And you know, what Sekiguchi-san taught me is really true. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, so you know i've been very good about playing yakuza politics the the last time i had a sort of tense situation with any organized crime it was about 2015 um i obtained a photo of the vice chairman of japan's olympic committee with the head of the amaguchi gumi together and the head of, and the vice chairman also with two other powerful Yakuza members. Whoa. How'd you get that photo?

Through the enemy of the enemy principle. Got it. The photo had been circulating. It was sent to a couple of magazines at the same time. I'm not sure who sent it out. I can think of many reasons. There was a reporter before me who tried to write it up, and they had their knees broken on the way home. So I knew that the photo existed. I got a copy of the photo, and I wanted to write it up. And I told my editor at Vice News at the time. By the way, Vice News still owes me $9,000.

I would like that. They owe a lot of people a lot of money. I know, I News still owes me $9,000. I would like that. They owe a lot of people a lot of money. I know, I know. That's wild. I know. So many of you got boned by them. Yeah. Kai Henderson was a great editor, and I liked writing for Vice News. But I was like, okay, Kai, we're going to write this up. I have the photos. I've authenticated them. We have three. I don't know what the connection is between the Yakuza boss and the vice chairman of the Olympic Committee, but it's bad optics. And especially with so much money in stake at the Olympics, you know, they have easy access to information about contracts and things that would give them a competitive advantage. It's a good story. And I said, but the problem is once I ask the university, because he was also the president

of the university, for a comment, then I'm in a world of, you know, in a world of trouble because I don't want my knees broken. So I have to have a promise from you that when I ask that we publish this within 24 hours, I'm going to hide about for 24 hours. And he's like, OK, done deal. So we did it. We had it ready to go. And about three or four hours before it went up, I called up the person in the Yamaguchi Gumi, you know, in a senior position who I trusted. And I said, look, you know that there is this photo circulating of your boss with the vice chairman of the Olympic Committee with Tanaka, and we are going to publish it. And I am not asking you for

confirmation, and I'm not asking you for comment, but as a professional courtesy, I am telling you that it's coming out. So you're not caught, you know, unawaresares and that's the best i can do and there was this kind of long silence i mean because i i mean maybe he felt a little bit like you you know like like you ungrateful son of a bitch like you know like like you know in a sense i've been protecting you all this time but i also made the case that look this is going to come out eventually wouldn't you rather have me write about it like remember i'm the guy that wrote about how you and your crew helped out after the natural disaster in 2011, and you're not always scum. Sometimes you actually do humanitarian work. I mean, because it's true, I did. I'm saying, look, you know- The good side of the Yakuza.

The good side of the Yakuza, they have a good side. And so it's kind of this long pause, and he's like, okay, I get it. I get it. He's like, but could you do one thing? It's like, could you trim the photo so we don't see the missing finger? Because he's really sensitive about that. Oh my God. And I was like, look, I cannot touch the photos in any way. It goes exactly as I receive them because I don't want to be accused of like, of doctoring the photos. I'm like I am terribly sorry. What I can say is that your boss is one of the greatest, most honorable Yakuza leaders. I can throw in a line there.

Oh, you're going to throw in that he's honorable? Yeah, because I think he is fairly honorable as they go. How do you define honorable as a Yakuza leader? Hesitant to kill civilians. Oh. Oh, civilians, not even gangsters. I mean – you know... Low bar.

Well, this is such a dark joke, but I do really like it. This was told to me by a police officer I like hot. What crime is it when a Yakuza kills another Yakuza? I don't know.

Destruction of property. That's good. That's good. All right. Well, but again, you're still talking about someone being referred to as honorable when the bar is not other Yakuza. Okay, so here is the bar of honor. It's like, thanks for letting Joe at Taco Bell live.

The honorable is that he doesn't allow the organization to sell and use drugs. A banana of him. Well, he doesn't allow theft. He doesn't allow robbery. A member commits sexual assault, they get kicked out. And generally not bothering of civilians, also part of the rule. So in the very low bar sense that he is strict about,

here's the things you can't do in this organization, he was good about enforcing that. Did you put a footnote at the bottom and said, honorable means this? No, I didn't put a footnote. I didn't put a footnote. I would have done that. If, you know, considering that space on the internet is sort of unlimited i could have put a footnote in there yeah like honorable defined by these low bar terms but i did i did i

did you know i think if you purse the purse the article there's a sort of faint amount of praise for him even as i'm talking what was this guy's name skasa shinobu his his real shinobu his real name is actually kenichi shinoda but like yeah because i like i have kind of stage names oh they do yeah yeah so his stage name skasa shinobu means to rule over and endure shinobu is like a badass name it is a badass name yeah i mean it's a lot better than it's not a lot better it is uh it rings a little bit better than shinoda kenichi-san which isn't particularly you know yeah i don't know what the fuck you just said yeah that's just a name right yeah right the first one i did okay so you so you published this and that didn't get too much but even though you showed his

his lack of a finger yeah you were okay i I was okay because I was courteous. I mean, there's this Japanese saying, even amongst the closest of friends, there must be decorum. So decorum and politeness and reciprocity gets you a long way with these people. I mean, they're businessmen in a sense, right? They've got a public image to maintain. You have a job to do. There's an understanding that sometimes we're going to be in a conflict. Um, and I realized this is a dangerous

article, right? There's already been somebody who's been severely injured for writing it. But after that one, I don't think I've written anything that has really, that I felt like, oh, I'm putting myself in danger. I'm putting myself in danger i'm putting anyone in danger because you know you you know it's okay to do that a couple times but i'm not stupid yeah i understand you keep referring to the the japanese like cultural customs and and philosophies if you will and i think a lot of us constantly hear about how culturally sensitive that that country is and the people there are. Like there's a certain way of doing things. I remember like even in college, like when we'd study – I was in the business school. So we'd study like international business and stuff.

They would talk about Japan and a couple of other countries with all kinds of like very – to us like why does that even matter type customs but things that to them were extremely, extremely important. You know, at what point though did you – was that something that at the very beginning you – coming from America where we don't really have stuff like that, you fully accepted or was there a real learning curve with like, oh, I got to get with this? You know, I mean I was really lucky to be living like in a Zen Buddhist temple where it's kind of like master-disciple relationship. And also I had done karate, right? And it's very clear that there's a hierarchy there. There's a point in time when I just, like an epiphany, like, okay, you know what? In Japan, we're not equal. We're not even going to pretend that we're equal. There's a hierarchy here, and that is going to determine

which honorific I use with you, whether I end my sentences in a polite tense, which words I use for you, me. There's many pronouns, different versions of them, depending upon who you're addressing. And I was like, you know, that is just the way it is. You have to accept the Japanese worldview to speak the Japanese language. You could make it egalitarian if you want. It just doesn't sound natural. Yeah. Yeah.

So it changes. So I want to go back to the 2006, 2007, 2008 area when you got asked by the State Department to run this – the reporting on human trafficking in Japan. What – they obviously had seen a lot of your journalism on this, so you had done reporting on it, but what was the story with the human trafficking in Japan? Was it all like the actual Yakuza doing it or was it this international operation going on? What was the basis of it? of Yakuza and exploiters that would bring in foreign labor, often working at sex clubs. But the Zen Green was a powerful lobby, registered organization. They would have their annual meeting at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters. Prime Minister Abe, when he was prime minister, gave one of the opening speeches to this group. So they were about

ensuring the right that, you know, that they could get these entertainment visas to bring women in and basically put them in sexual slavery. So that's a huge operation, right? With lots of members. That's very organized. You had, Godot had a company that was basically supposed to be an, you know, an international cooperation friendship organization that was bringing in women and trafficking them. You had smaller operators that were recruiting people through job ads overseas. And girls would show up. They'd put them in an apartment. They'd take away their passport.

Oh, wow. And they would basically guard them 24 hours a day. And they'd sleep with a certain amount of customers. and they'd give them, you know, a subsistence living. All kinds. One of the things that the State Department really hated was because, you know, my job is to write the truth, right? So I was looking at one organization that was recruiting women from Europe, and they were absolutely upfront with these girls. Like, you're going to come to Japan. You're going to be working in the sex industry.

Your cover will be that you're going to Japanese school. You will have to go to Japanese school. You will have to do well at your classes. If you do not have your homework done, you don't go out for the evening. You will have an escort. If there's any trouble, you call the person. And they were treated absolutely well. I mean, like, you know, they knew what they were doing, that if the customers got unruly, the guards

came to care of them. They really made the girls go to Japanese school. And, you know, one of the, a couple of them actually ended up like finishing their term and then getting jobs in Japan is not in the sex industry. And I was like, and they were like, you know, you can't write this. You're saying that, you know, this is human trafficking. I was like, this isn't human trafficking because they're not being coerced. Yeah, they're volunteering for it. Not only they're not being coerced, they're being treated really well.

Yeah. And I'm like, you know, your definition of human trafficking doesn't allow for women to work as sex workers of their own fruition and if they're not exploited i can't call that human trafficking um so we had some conflicts on issues like that um and then there was like a corrupt uh the nagoya immigration office was just completely uh most of the upper staff had been paid off by the accuser. They just turned up. It was like a revolving gate. You could bring in women from whatever country, clearly, you know, trafficked, sometimes knowingly, sometimes

unknowingly. Because human trafficking is, you know, everyone, I don't want to say likes the story. You know, the ideal is you have, you have an innocent, completely clueless woman who's brought into the country under false circumstances, passports taken away, she's coerced, she's a sexual slave. It's absolutely nightmarish. That's easy to understand. But there are also things of like you're promised – you're sort of lied to about what the job will constitute, and then you're not paid what you were offered. Is that trafficking? Do you have the ability to quit? Maybe yes, maybe no.

And then you have cases, it's like, okay, yes, you know, they've agreed to come here, they're going to work as sex workers, but they're not paid. And they're not, and they don't have freedom of movement. And they're basically blackmailed into working for nothing for their employers. That is human trafficking too. Because you know what you're getting into doesn't make it any less if you're basically enslaved. Yeah. So you covered this for many, many years and the state department comes to you and says through like the NGO or something, you're going to be hired and paid X amount so that you report your intel to us. Yeah.

So you report the intel through this group. Sometimes they interacted with them directly. And this is the Bush administration. And I don't have great things to say about the Bush administration, but they had a bee in their bonnet about human trafficking. Like, this is a terrible thing. I agreed with them. And so they took their findings and they basically went to the Japanese government and said, like, you either do something about this or we're going to rank you in the level of North Korea. And you will be shamed.

You will be shamed. Like, all the G7 nations will look at you like scumbags. How bad was it relative to other G7 nations like Japan? Japan was the worst because they didn't give a shit. And part of the reason they didn't give a shit is because, you know, you have so many people working legitimately in the sex industry in Japan because it's a legitimate industry, right? It's not illegal. So they don't understand that the difference between, say, a foreign woman and a Japanese woman is that the foreign woman, by nature of working in the sex industry, is already working illegally. So her employer can use that as leverage, like, you know, you are an illegal worker.

So if we turn you in or you go to the police, you get you get deported you still owe us the money and we know where your family is so they didn't understand the coercive act aspects of that because it just was kind of because you know it's like you know it's kind of like oh you know everybody who does this does it out of their own free will but you're when you're doing this reporting you're still working as a journalist no no i no, I wasn't. It was full-time just doing this. No, I left the newspaper. I'd come back to Japan. I told people I was working as an insurance investigator, different business card.

Oh, wow. Because this wasn't a report for the public. This was a report for the State Department and an organization. But I'm almost surprised they didn't want you keeping your cover, seeing as they were also paying you through a third party, like trying to keep it under wraps. Look, you know, and I told him, look, I can't do this as a journalist because I'm going to pay Yakuza for information. I'm going to pay him.

I'm like, look, you know, this is like the, who is the scummiest of the scum? So you can go to a Yakuza guy and like, you know, hey, I hear there's this guy in your group who's like bringing in like young girls and, you know, basically putting them in sexual slavery. That just sounds so fucking sick. And they're like, you're right. That's fucking sick. That's like, that's not something we should be doing. And it's like, you know, I would really like to know more about who's responsible in their organization, where they're headquartered, what are their front companies? Can you give me that information? And I would be very grateful and slip them, you know them a wad of cash and then they give you the information. So you would do this often?

Not often, but a couple of times. It's faster. Yeah. I mean, you can't do that as a reporter. I mean, maybe the reporters do it. I can't give money to criminals. But if I'm collecting intelligence, I can. Gray area.

It's a gray area. Yeah. So that wouldn't, that type of thing though, wouldn't be necessarily kosher with the US government as your employer. Well, I sure as hell didn't tell them. And I think that we had an understanding. I wouldn't tell them. I was like, I was like, I was, I, I, one time I was told by my boss,

like turn in your receipts. There is no need to explain what they are for. And I was like, okay. And you did this for like two years? Two years. Did you see success based on the reporting? I did. Japan, first of all, the Zen-gei-ren dissolved.

This sort of lobby of human traffickers dissolved. The Japanese police made some raids. They strengthened their laws. And, you know, there were definitely results. And, you know, I'm hearing this second half from the State Department is like, you know, there was an understanding like, okay, you know, you've got us, you know, we look really bad, we will improve. And they did. The unintended and the sort of sad aspect of Japan clamping down on international human trafficking is you had a growth in domestic trafficking. And this is how the domestic trafficking angle works. This is a foreign concept probably to many people outside of Japan. In Japan, there are many clubs where you pay for hospitality.

A hostess club is basically you're a wealthy Japanese man or maybe not even so wealthy. You go in, you pay for a woman to pour you drinks and compliment you and talk to you for a couple hours. There is a version of that for women called host clubs. They're all over Kabukicho where these, you know, well-dressed, attractive, I mean, by Japanese women's standards, attractive men wine and dine you and dance with you and get you to buy them champagne and give you a good time for the night and sort of give you this boyfriend experience. And it's very expensive.

And once they no longer had access to foreign women to exploit, what they would do is they would let these women, you know, young girls, college students, hostesses, drink at these host clubs and, you know, create a huge tab. So there are thousands of dollars in debt. And at first, then they would say okay you owe me so much money you know like hey baby if i don't pay this they're going to break my legs um and they would introduce the girl to a sex parlor and she would work off her debt oh like indentured servitude indentured servitude but then the police busted a couple of those uh people on human trafficking charges, right? And it was like human trafficking, which you thought was only going to be used in international cases, like suddenly being used domestically.

So then the host clubs and the people backing them got smarter. So the process began. The host introduces you to a loan shark. The loan shark loans you the money, and then he introduces you to a sex club. So there's like a degree of separation there. So they got smart about how to do that. They got smart about it. I love how they didn't think that domestically they'd have a problem.

They're like, oh, no, human trafficking is just international. We're good. Human trafficking is human trafficking. Yes, it is. People do things against their will that involves their body or their freedom or sanctity or where they're going to be. Like, I don't know why this is so hard. Yeah. But like things, it takes a revolution in the – the cops are 90 percent male or 80 percent male.

So it takes a sort of revolution in cop thinking to go like, okay, you know what? This is an exploitive enterprise. One of the things that has been amusing to me is, okay, so Tokyo Vice, uh, came out in Japan. We had the cooperation of the Tokyo government. And part of the plot line in the season one is that, uh, basically you have one of the characters become a sort of indentured servant to a host club. And when the governor of Tokyo saw it, she was so horrified that she asked, like, does this really happen? And they're like, yes, it does. And that prompted a crackdown on the host clubs. Wow. So the show caused that.

The show, I mean, you know, there was awareness and there'd been stuff before, but when the governor of Tokyo is watching this and it's just not on her radar and she's like, does this stuff really happen? Like, oh yeah, it's been happening for years. She's like, well, that's not acceptable. What made you stop working for the state department? Complete burnout. It is depressing to see the worst of human beings. And it was a limited contract. And, you know, once I turned in the report, I was like, I still worked with a nonprofit group called Polaris Project Japan later called Lighthouse. Um, so I still continued working with them and I was a liaison for the police for a while. Um, and I think the, well,

the organization actually dissolved during the pandemic just because there wasn't enough manpower for it. But, you know, contract ended. And also I felt by the time you get around to 2009, Japan was, you know, hadn't stamped out international human trafficking, but it did a hell of a job. Wow. Got to give them credit where credit is due. Turned it around. Turned it around. Turned it around. Big time.

And how did this – so you go back, you get onto the beat with working the Yakuza cases again, like we talked about. But how did this end up translating through as you're writing the books to getting to a TV show? Ah, well, I'll go through a little bit more transition there. At the same time I was ending my study of the human trafficking thing and also at the same time, the Japanese Yakuza had moved so much into the financial markets of Japan that the Japanese police in 2006 issued a white paper that said the Yakuza threatened the very economic foundations of the

country. And there were listed companies that had been infiltrated by the Yakuza, including one company called Suriga Corporation that had made $300 million in fiscal 2007 and was, you know, and shares were owned by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, like with foreign investors. But they had made that money by paying $100 million to the Yakuza to evict people from properties that they wanted to turn over. And, you know, around this time, I got approached by a couple investment banks that sensed that the Japanese government was going to come down hard on them and said, like, we basically need you to clear out our Rolodex.

We need to know who we're investing in that is dark money. And up until the financial crisis, and even after the financial crisis, I did that for like two or three years. And I wasn't doing journalism, so I was kind of like completely out of journalism. Like writing a human trafficking report, doing corporate due diligence.

And I don't think I really went back to journalism in 2011 when there was a nuclear disaster. What happened there? In 2011, Japan got hit by this tsunami and an earthquake. You know, 100,000 people died. And in Fukushima, where Tokyo Electric Power Company had their nuclear power plant, three of the reactors melted down. One of the worst nuclear accidents ever. And that was also, you know, on a personal level, that was a really bizarre, horrible year. I did some reporting on the disaster, but my reporting on the disaster, the first thing I wrote for the Daily Beast was about how Yakuza were actually going to the damaged areas faster than the Red Cross, faster than the Japanese government in delivering supplies and things to people who needed it there, which was true. Yeah.

Because they have no overhead. They have no safety standards. They do what their boss tells them to do. Venerable gangster. And if you're a humanitarian organization, if you're claiming to be one, then you have to do those things. But at the same time, since I'm also doing this corporate due diligence gig, I went to one of my clients and they were like, so here's Tokyo Electric Power Company. It has a monopoly on energy in the Kanto area. They've just had one of the worst nuclear reactor disasters

in history. The question comes, is this company going to go under? Is the Japanese government going to nationalize them? Are they liable for damages, right? Is this unprecedented? Is this unforeseen? Could they have known this was happening? And I said, I would love to investigate this, but I want to write about it. Like, I want you to finance it. I will give you your report. But two months after it's out, or three months after it's out, I want to be able to write it up because it's an important story. And so I negotiated with my client and they were like, okay, you give us the report. We'll use it to make some business decisions. Two months later, whatever you've gained in that thing, you can write about it. So that was kind of my return to investigative journalism powered by corporate money. Through the back door.

Through the back door. Through the back door. But it took a lot of money and time to do that investigative journalism. So I thought, well, you know, this works out well for all of us. Yeah. Right back full circle. Right back full circle. And so that you do end up on like doing a lot of the Yakuza coverage again. I did a lot of the Yakuza coverage, but then I really started to shift towards Japanese politics and covering corporate malfeasance and covering this nuclear disaster for, you know, for years, you know, it was very apparent that

they knew they could have prevented it. And that they had also paid off the Yakuza in the Fukushima area not to write about the problems at the nuclear power plant. Wait, they paid off the Yakuza not to write about it? Yeah. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was riddled with problems because it's an old reactor. It was like over 30 years old. And the gangsters are going to write about it? Yeah, the gangsters. This is what gangsters do. Sometimes they magazines they publish that's right i have one

sitting right in front of me duh they publish magazines with scandalous information that can doom your business and tepco is like you know what can we get you to to do to not write about that i mean the funniest conversation i've ever had with the first time I ever had a real conversation with the Yakuza boss was Kaneko Naoya at the Sumiyoshi Kai. And so I started sitting in his office. He wanted me to do a favor for him. And I did the favor because – You did the favor? I did the favor, but I did the favor –

It didn't involve you getting on your knees, did it? No, no. It didn't involve me getting on the knees. Make it short. No, it wasn't that one of the favors. It was a favor that would save his ass and required me talking to the cops and asking the questions. And the cops were like, oh, you – please give him this information because the cops were kind of like, we want him alive. Like he's easy to work with. The person who's trying to – the person in his organization who's plotting to get rid of him.

Like we – you know, he's an asshole. Right. But so, you know, you can read Tokyo Vice. You want all the details. But so we're sitting in his office and, you know, he's explaining his whole business operations. Like, okay, we have this construction company. I have this political organization that shakes down, you know, shakes down people for donations, you know. I mean, he's dead now, so it's not like I'm violating any trust. You're just like felony, felony, felony.

And he's, you know, like, you know, he's like, you know, like you walk through the red light district, everybody pays us a cut, you know, just to stay in business. Good business. This is how we make our money, you know're basically providing job you know basically providing security for the area um we have information which we use to get lucrative contracts we run legitimate businesses we run illegitimate businesses and he said and he's like you know and and he sort of gave me the spiel it's like you know one of the reasons the yakas are tolerated in Japan is because there are things that we won't do. If you're engaged in common theft or robbery or, you know, like purse snatching or breaking and entering someone's house or, you know, sexual assault or selling and using drugs, you will get kicked out of the organization. And he said, you know, everything else is fair game.

And he said that includes extortion and blackmail. And I was like, well, why is blackmail okay? And he's like, well, if you're doing something so bad that the Yakuza can blackmail you for it, then that's social justice. Hmm. That's one way to look at it. That's one way of looking at it. Glass half full, if you will.

And he said, you know, so, so I had done him a favor and he said like, what can I do for you? Like, you know, you have, you have, you know, you have saved me from a very tight situation. And I said, well, I didn't do it because I like y'all. Cause I did it because the cop, uh, the cop that I trust told me that I should do it. Um, and he said, well, I owe you like, what can I get you what do you want and he's like pussy and I'm like no thanks and he's kind of like because he's running

the red light district right and I'm like yeah no thanks and he's like and he's like you sure and no

he's kind of looks at me and he's like guys and I'm like I'm kind of thinking I'm kind of like you know I'm like, I'm kind of thinking, I'm kind of like, you know,

I'm like, am I giving off like, am I wearing a pink shirt? I want to fuck your boss's mistress, bitch. Differing Yakuza group. And I'm like, and he's like,

and I'm like, I don't want money. I don't want, I don't want pussy. I said, I said, if you really want to give me something, I'm like, and he's like, and I'm like, I don't want money. I don't want pussy. I said, if you really want to give me something, I would like information. And I'm like, because information, you know, information helps me do my job. I like to get a scoop. It helps me rise as a newspaper reporter. He's like, that's so boring.

Fuck. No, no, no. And he was totally like, I know. I'm kidding. No, he was like, he's like, he's like boring. Fuck. No, no, no. And he was totally like, I – I'm kidding. No, he was like – he's like, I understand. He said like, you know, I will never give you information about our organization or that would disadvantage our organization because you understand how that is. But if I had information about a rival Yakuza group or political corruption or something that would be of interest to you, of course I will it with you gladly and i and i come across that kind of information all the time to this day um well i mean he passed away a long time oh that's right he was the one that gave me the scoop about

this savings and loan in saitama being looted by another yakuza group i mean that was the source when he said to me something very interesting, which, you know, he said, you and I are in the same business. We are in the information business. You make your reputation and your money by finding out things that people don't want written and then publishing them. And I make my money by finding about things that people don't want written or don't want known and making sure you don't do your job for which I get paid. And I was like, wow, that's not really true. But keep thinking that. But I can see that we are both realized power of information, especially in a society that is a

shame society where people are embarrassed about the bad things that they do. Yeah. So do you, obviously like these sources you're getting, if that guy's a source on major stories like that, these are, you know, you're still dealing with very high up criminals who may have actually definitely have motives and stuff. Did that ever worry you about when you got fed a story? Like, okay, well, maybe they're giving me something that's true, but there's a false pretense for it and we're missing the bigger picture. My feeling always was about the question is, is the information true? It's not my business to know the motivation of these people.

I do want to know because I don't want to be fed tainted information. That's not my business to know the motivation of these people. I do want to know because I don't want to be fed tainted information. But if the information is neither bad nor good, it's just information. Now, their motives for giving it to me are clearly self-serving. And that is why there's this very tricky negotiation you have whenever you deal with the Yakuza who gives you information, is you have to say this every time. It's like a mantra. Like, I want you to understand that I don't owe you for the information that you're giving me. You owe me because you wouldn't be giving me this information if there wasn't something in it for you. Either it offends your sense of fairness is offended, or it's going to hurt your rival in the organization, or it's going to hurt your rival in the organization

or it's going to hurt the rival in another organization. I know you're not giving it out of the goodness of my heart. If you think that I owe you something for this, then I'm not writing it because I don't want to owe you anything. You owe me. Do we understand each other? And that always made things much easier. you're like i i could see how these guys like look at you because you're so matter of fact about things and yet you're in these you're in these places you almost should feel out of place but you're just so used to it like the way you come across you're almost what's the word i'm looking for not not ambivalent but like blissfully ignorant to to maybe the power structure

that you're around because you're like, listen here, I'm just here to report. That's what I'm doing. However you can help me, great. If not, no problem. Have a great day. And they're almost like, damn, the bull's on this guy. I mean, my job is to tell people the things that other people don't want written, right? To serve the public, the right to know. Now, I have been fed stories that I have refused to write because when you think about it in the long shot, like Celebrity X is a homosexual who is into younger boys. Not like super young boys, but younger boys. And I'm like, that is interesting information. Take that to a gossip magazine.

That's someone's personal privacy. I don't care. It's not your lane. What some, you know, I don't care if they're famous. If they want to sleep with a young boy, it's their cause of homosexual. I don't care. It's fine. Maybe that will feed some bottom feeder reporter, but I don't want to be the one to write it. Thanks. Interesting. Trivia. So you pick your spots. I pick my spots. Not just because it could be a story doesn't mean you have to write it. And we all pick our stories. Yeah. Now, how did this end up translating into a TV show?

Because by the way, like the show isn't on air anymore, but it was an extremely respected show. Like the critics loved it. The audience loved it. It was probably like a little bit niche for an American audience but very fascinating. I think it's still on HBO Max. Yeah, yeah. It's still on there but I'm saying they're not making new seasons. Well,

it translated like this. The book came out. People were interested. It went through the usual Hollywood development hell. At one point, it was going to be a movie with me being played by Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe. Oh, he was going to play you.

Yeah, Dan's a really nice guy. Yeah, I've heard that. He may seem like a nice guy, but he is a really nice guy. He's exactly like he seems. And he studied Japanese. He was on board. The film looked like it was going good. And then one of the producers decided we

should have a Japanese partner they told me who the Japanese partner was and I said do you understand that Tata Masagoto who is the villain of this piece used to control the Japanese entertainment industry two of the most powerful agencies And this firm that you're partnered with has a very strong relationship to another one of his front companies. And when they realize that you are going to make a film that is essentially about the people that used to rule them, who everyone fears, they are going to fuck you and leave you with, well well they're going to leave you at the altar and you will be fucked um and he was like no no no no it'll be fine these guys are really into it they know what you know they know what's going on like you know it's an international hollywood production i'm like i strongly advise you find another partner so that i mean almost literally the day to come to sign, you know, for the financing to go through, they pull out. The whole thing falls apart. Wow.

And I'm like, okay. And I got an apologetic call like, yeah, you know, maybe I should have listened to you. Yeah, you were right. And I'm like, well, it's a little late now. So I forget about it. The person who had been working on the screenplays with me was J.T. Rogers. We went to high school together. So he grew up to be a very great playwright doing a lot of historical dramas, like I said, in Afghanistan or –

What's his name? J.T. Roberts? J.T. Rogers. Rogers. J.T. Rogers. Can we pull that up a little? But go ahead. So I'm just kind of like, this is never going to happen. It was a great fantasy.

At least some books got sold. There he is. This guy right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Him in the hat is really nice. I think that I actually wrote an article. So in 2017, he won a Tony Award for this play called Oslo. So I think I wrote it up in the Daily Beast when he won.

So he wins, and Oslo is this black comedy about the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Norway. You can turn this into a Tony awarding, yeah, the Oslo Accords. Oh, someone who actually knows what I'm talking about when I mention that. By the way, I'm going to Oslo for an investigative journalism symposium next year. I've been invited, which is just wonderful. So I finally get to see Oslo. Very cool. Like, you know, I've seen the play.

Now I get to see the place. The place. And so, you know, I don't really understand the Hollywood dynamic very much because it's not my world. But apparently when you win like a Tony, you're sort of like royalty. Like, oh, you have a Tony Award winning play. What would you like to do, Mr. Rogers? And he's like, I would like to do Tokyo Vice as a TV series. And, you know, by this time, because Ken Watanabe does a lot of stage acting he sort of recruited

Ken Watanabe so Watanabe is on board then they're looking for an actor Dylan O'Brien I think was one person they were considering and then Ansel Elgort was like well you know was like I want to do this role I will learn Japanese I love the. I would really like to be in this TV series, especially if Ken Watanabe is in it. And I was asked for my opinion, which doesn't happen very often with this TV show. And I was like, if Ansel really wants to do it and he's enthusiastic, then I think enthusiasm matters more than anything really, because learning Japanese is a fucking nightmare. So it's a hard language. It's one of the most difficult languages in the world. So, and he learned it. Yeah. So, so JT and Ansel actually went and did the pitches together, like the two of them, you know, off to Hollywood with Ansel in tow. And I don't know if

that's standard for a TV series for the lead actor or the potential lead actor. And then at some point, they're like, you know, John Lesher, who was one of the producers, was like, you know, should we reach out to Michael Mann? Because I know him. And I'm like, yeah, that would be amazing. I'm like, you know, Miami Vice. And I'm like, I totally stole the title of my book, you know, Tokyo Vice from Miami Vice. I was like, you know, Miami Vice. And I'm like, I totally stole the title of my book, you know, Tokyo Vice from Miami Vice. I was like, you know, I was thinking, well, you know, what is familiar to people? Tokyo Vice, an American reporter on the police beat in Japan, right? Everything you need to know about the book is in the title.

The Australian title, by the way, is Tokyo Vice, a Western reporter on the police beat in Japan because the Australians hate Americans. Oh, they do? They do. Really? Yeah. You don't want to put American reporter on the police beat in Japan because the Australians hate Americans. Oh, they do? They do. Really? Yeah. You don't want to put American reporter on there. There's so many Australians that listen to this show. I'm shocked about that.

Well, I don't think we're very well liked. My publisher was like, can I change it to Western reporter? And I'm like, be my guest. Like, I can understand. Learn something new every day. Yeah. No liking us down under. You know, they pretend to.

Okay. I mean, you know, if I could get away with being a Canadian, I would, but, you know. Anyway, so all the pieces come together. They pitch it to HBO before it was max. And they were like, we love it. Let's do a season. And their plan was definitely to do two seasons and possibly a third season. Did they film it in Japan?

We filmed it almost all in Japan. That's great. Except in season two where we go back to my hometown in Columbia, Missouri, it was filmed in Canada because of course. Hey, production class. Yeah, I was like like please film in Columbia Missouri so I can like get a free ride home no absolutely not no but they did they did two seasons of this

and and it and it concludes and was it was it did it follow your life to a tee or did they take Hollywood liberties oh they took Hollywood liberties? Oh, they took Hollywood liberties. Right. But, but, um, what made it really great is that, you know, I saw every script. So where it took Hollywood liberties, at least we kept it very realistic, you know, and we would have, you know, discussions sometimes heated, um, sometimes not so heated about not only just authenticity, but like consistency, integrity of the character.

There is a scene in season two where Ishida, who is modeled after a Yakuza boss I liked a lot, Kanazawa Nobuyuki. You liked him a lot. I did. I respected him. He used to be a professional baseball player and he was a really honorable sports-like guy. Kanazawa was as honorable as Yakuza again.

Fucking Shohei Otani over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Otani as Yakuza boss. Yeah, okay. Maybe a little more savvy about how the world works than Otani. Yeah, probably, yeah. Anyway. There was a scene so there was a scene where you know there's these gunmen break into the club uh and the writers had him ducking under a table and trying to escape and i was like

i was like this is a yakuza boss This is a guy who runs this fearsome organization. We've spent, you know, a season and a half showing who he is and his values, and you have him run under a fucking table. Like, that is not acceptable. That is not what the character he's based on would do. And that is a betrayal of the audience. I don't care if it's a more interesting decision. No, absolutely not. He takes a stand. He's a man. Like, don't let him turn into a wimp all of a sudden. People hate you. It's like jumping the shark. Absolutely not. And, you know, and it's like, and it was kind of like, at one point, like, you know, your job is not to, you know, is to historical accuracy and authenticity. And it's like, this isn't authentic. No Yakuza guy could rise to the top if he was a coward at the bottom.

He has to be someone who takes the stand there. It doesn't work any other way. So it was rewritten. Oh, so they went with it. We went with it. Oh, that's cool. So he takes a stand. He does not run.

He does not shirk. He defended your buddy. He defends little Sato-kun. There you go. And then there was another thing. So me and JT sort of have this kind of like Zen mondo. Zen mondo? A mondo is like the Zen master is like, you know, master, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Then the master slaps him across the face, all right? Like, you know, I have built an orphanage and, you know,

rebuilt this burnt down forge. What is my merit, master? None. There is no merit. You know, what if I, you know, what if I burn down the temple now? Then there would be merit. You're like, what is that? Back and forth. But it's just sort of a back and forth between two people. And whenever he would present like some, you know, whenever we would present, someone would bring up some crazy plot point. Like there was a point where they were seriously discussing have a Yakuza versus Russian mafia storyline. And I'm like, no, no. It wouldn't happen. No, there's never been a Russian mafia presence in Japan that is powerful enough to have a gang war. Never happened.

Never existed. Certainly not in Tokyo. And JT would be like, is there a world in which, you know, like a small, you know, cotillion of like, you know, Russian gangsters? I'm like, no, there's not a world where that happens. Never. Not in this world. And not unless all the Japanese in this world are green and all the Russians have tails. Because that would be another dimension.

But not in the Japan that we've set this story. So there was like a scene where Katagiri, who's the detective, comes home. There's like a Yakuza waiting for him and he pulls out his gun. I'm like, nope, stop, stop, stop. And I'm like, Japanese cops do not get to carry their weapons home. What? Japan has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. So when the cop goes into work, he can check out the gun.

And when he leaves, he checks it back in. Oh, that sucks. They get the job because they want the gun. Yeah, well, you don't get to take the gun home. That's fucked up. And not only that, when you target practice, if there's one bullet missing, one shell missing, nobody goes home until they find that shell. Every shell, every gun is meticulously accounted for. This sounds like Nazi Germany.

I disagree. this is why in 2021 or 2022 the number of gun deaths in japan for a nation of 123 million people was one one person not that's a good number that's solid solid. Yeah. I mean, I feel like Yakuza, they're packing. No, no, no. Never? The Yakuza used to pack. Like, Scott Shishinobu, right? The big boss, the head of the Yamaguchi Gumi. They're not packing heat.

His bodyguard had a gun. He got arrested for, like, being an accomplice in possession of a firearm and went to jail for 10 years. So even the – what are they carrying? Nunchucks around? They're carrying knives, baseball bats, wooden swords. Oh, they're good at baseball over there. They got Louisville. That's right.

Oh, my God. But still no gun. No gun. No one wants to have a gun. It is such a crime in Japan to use a gun. It's another crime to have a gun with a bullet that matches it. Did the scriptw writers bin this one? They had to be carrying

guns in that show. I think we had one or two scenes where people had guns, but this is 1999. In 1999, the police were kind of like, oh... A little more lax. They were. It was like, oh, yeah, because... Remember the destruction of property thing?

Oh, as long as you're just killing each other, we don't care. That's how we do it here in America. If a civilian gets in the mix, then we got a problem. Whoa. So you basically had, even if it wasn't in your byline title for it, you ended up having a real say in how the scripting went to an extent. Yeah. And we also had a sort of canary in the coal mine, and JT and I agreed to this. So Mari Yamamoto, who is a journalist who became an actor, who is currently starring

in Monarch, this Apple TV series about Godzilla, and also had a really good part in Pachinko, the first season. So she is a journalist, started as a Japanese journalist, and then we worked together at the Daily Beast for a long time. And so in between acting gigs, she does journalism. And when we were doing Tokyo Vice, I was like, I want Mari in the writer's room as the interpreter, the consultant, someone that you can go through these,

because materials are only in Japanese, so that we can keep it authentic from the ground go. So she is one of the most uncredited reasons why Tokyo Vice season one and two are really good and why it's authentic and why even the Japanese media is like, yeah, this is real like you know it feels right because she's there going like like you know like like you know russian mafia no like uh you know uh geisha in the yakuza office no you know uh cops uh you know beating up suspect no not gonna happen getting it right yeah getting it right yeah and then the the latest book

that you wrote tokyo noir with this basically just picks up yeah it picks up where tokyo vice ends so it overlaps a little bit picks up about 2007 and what's what's the what's the story being covered here the story is being covered is um what it's like to be a corporate due diligence investigator in Japan trying to fare out how the Yakuza are doing business, whether you're looking at a real firm or a fake one. And then the second half is about discovering that there are worse things than the Yakuza, which are the ruling party and this horrible corporation that let a nuclear disaster happen and probably will have another one happen. I don't think people understand that the Fukushima nuclear reactor is still an accident in progress.

If they stop pumping water into it, nuclear fission occurs again and you have explosions. Why would they stop pumping water into it, nuclear fission occurs again and you have explosions. Why would they stop pumping water into it? Well, they have to. But if the pumps break down, you have another nuclear accident. Whoa. They haven't even taken the nuclear rods out of it. And all the contaminated water that's flowing into it, now they're dumping into the ocean. Into the ocean?

Yeah. So this is still, this is 13 years later years later yeah and this is still basically going on i mean the japanese you know the japanese government calls it treated water so there's a huge you know controversy in japan do you call this water coming out the new fukushima nuclear power plant contaminated water or treated water because it is go through some filtering process japan is in the middle of what is called the ring of fire. What does that mean? It means that it's a center of volcanic activity, of seismic activity.

You have volcanoes. You have earthquakes all the time. It is the worst place to build a nuclear reactor. And some of those reactors are 40 years old. And the through line of the government, and I, and I talk about this in the book, is that the nuclear disaster happened because there was a tidal wave and knocked out the reactors and they couldn't cool them. And that's why we had a nuclear meltdown.

But what actually happened is the, the reactors were so old that when the first earthquake hit, the first tremors hit, all the pipes burst. And when the pipes burst, you can't get coolant to the nuclear reactor. The meltdown began about two minutes after the first wave of seismic activity in reactor one. The other two may have been knocked out

by the power shortage. But one of the three reactors, solely due to the earthquake. And when Japan, you know, redid their nuclear power regulatory agency and set up these safety standards, it's all predicated on the idea that it wasn't the earthquake that caused a meltdown. But that was because TEPCO hid the information and the data which showed the nuclear accident began with the earthquake. They hid it.

They hid it. And the reason it came out is the new president came in and in a huge data dump, one nuclear scientist saw, was able to show within a minute of the first 9.0 magnitude wave heating, there was no coolant going into the reactor. Temperature shot up. The nuclear meltdown began. A nuclear radiation warning post about 20 minutes from the reactor went off before the first tidal wave hit. What a mess.

Yeah. I got to look at this story more yeah you know if any sensible nation would just be like okay we're gonna abandon nuclear radiation but there's so much money and there's so many politicians that have tepco stock that japan will just keep continuing until there's the next nuclear disaster and their issue is because of the natural environmental problems that are around them that's why that's why this is an issue as opposed to the actual energy itself and stuff because like there's a huge movement now around the world even bill gates is getting in on it to move to nuclear energy on things because

it's it's climate it's climate efficient but where it's located like in america here they're doing in like fucking montana and shit last i checked they're doing it in like fucking Montana and shit. Last I checked, Montana is not having typhoons and shit come through. That is true. You know what I mean? You still have to dump the nuclear radiation somewhere, right? And the problem is, you know, entropy. Everything falls apart.

And nuclear power plants have, you know, best 40 years of usage. Best? Best. Why just 40? Things start to fall apart. All these parts, the pipes, the coolants, the generators. But they can't keep kind of, you know, when things depreciate, you upgrade. What, you know, everywhere you look in the world, you know, after 50 years, you start seeing nuclear accidents. It's great until it goes wrong. I mean, the cost of what, you know, your solar power or your windmill going wrong is maybe a couple of birds die.

The cost of a nuclear power plant melting down is that you have a huge area of land where no one can live for 10, 20 years. Oh, yeah. It's monumental. The other thing that's going on, on a separate note, but I guess concerning trend in Japan that we hear about all the time, that I kind of wonder like how much of this is noise versus truth. There has to be some truth there, but you hear about like the demographics trend where people aren't having kids and there's a potential for like population collapse there. What's there to that? Well, if you overwork your population and you don't give them time and enough money and wages so that they can raise a family, no one is going to have kids. One in five – sorry, no.

Half of all single mothers in Japan are in poverty. Japan has a gender equality ranking of 118 out of 144 countries. Whoa. So, you know, if you don't make an environment hospitable for people having children, if you don't restore the sort of full lifetime employment that made people feel secure about having children, they're not going to do it. And the rich old men that run the country are completely clueless. So I just don't see it. I don't see it. So it's a real problem. It's a real problem. I mean, you walk around. I mean, let's say I go to the gym, right? I'm like a kind of a gym rat because I don't have any other real hobbies. I should probably start a martial art again. You know, it's full of old

people. I'm like one in five people in Japan is a senior. People aren't having kids. And if you have a kid, the cost of education is so expensive. And if you want to get them into the right college, which ensures their career, you know, that's an addition to whatever you have to pay for regular expenses. I think high school only became free in some prefectures quite recently. Whoa. No, it's expensive. People work insane hours.

I mean, Japan is, you know, one of the few countries that has a word for death by overwork, which is karoshi. Really? Yeah. Abe Shinzo, who I totally despise as a political leader, during his time in what they called the work freedom revolution or something, basically said that you can work your employees 100 hours of overtime a month. Now, the Ministry of Health and Welfare sets 80 hours of overtime a month as the danger line, right, where people are at risk of dying from overwork. But he made it so up to 100 hours. That's a lot. And then they eliminated overtime for

a lot of positions as well. I think that Project 2025 has an idea of eliminating overtime. I always knew that Trump and Harvey were friends, but I didn't know they were listening to each other. Well, he says he doesn't know anything about that plan. I guess not. Yeah. I guess he doesn't know anything about those seven calls he made to Vladimir Putin either. Yeah. Well, I mean I feel like a lot of these things are used as taglines too and I still haven't even like looked at – I think I know the foundation that did Project 2025 or whatever.

But people were just like pounding that into the ground. Usually when that's happening, it's like it's noise rather than actual fact. But I mean at the end of the day, I think the problem globally now with politics is these pendulum swings get wider and wider. So you don't really have equilibrium opinions anymore. There's either just like we got to burn it all down from one side or the other. Well, I'll tell you this because I'm like 55, right? I remember the Cold War. thought that I would see a day when that the president of this of the United States would be putting the lives of Americans at a lesser value than the lives of the dictator of Russia

when there's when he's sending COVID tests to Russia while we don't have them in the United States that's just mind-baffling to me like being friends to Russia kissing up to Putin like you know that would have been traitorism. That would have been like – like the Republicans would have been so angry. It just baffles me that we've reached a time where it's like we're comfortable giving aid to Russia, which was always the enemy. Somebody is always giving aid to somebody you don't like though. You know what I mean? That's true. Like I'm with – Putin's a bad guy and that war is a really, really – I mean all war is horrible.

War is hell. But the world unfortunately is this place where alliances are formed. What did you say earlier? The enemy of my enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And sometimes you see these parties. They get mixed up with people that they shouldn't get mixed up with. And we're always going to be able to pick that apart.

That's true. I am biased because my grandmother was a Ukrainian Jew. So you can tell which side I'm on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's horrible what's going on there. But hopefully we see that stuff kind of clean up. But listen, this was a lot of fun to go through a new topic on the podcast.

We've never done this before. I never talked about the Yakuza with anyone. You've been wired into this forever. You're obviously wired into much more in Japan than just covering the Yakuza as well. Well, final notes here. They are fading away. They have gone from 80,000 to 22,000 in the last 10 years. Wow.

I have moved my collection of Yakuza fan magazines to my other house in the countryside because I need it less and less. The average age of the Yakuza is 55, which is my age. Wow. So, you know, they are fading out. They're fading. So keep a hold of this magazine because it's going to be an antique. This is your copy. Because thank you.

Because of your reporting, they're fading away. Even toothpick. I really don't want to take credit for that but uh they are fading away all right well jake we'll have the links to the book in the description people can also check out the two seasons of the show on hbo max and until the next book my friend okay thank you all right thank you sir american thing everybody else you know what it is give Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also, if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow the show at Julian Dory Podcast or also on my personal page at Julian D. Dory.

Both links are in the description below. Finally, if you'd like to catch up on our latest episodes, use the Julian Dory podcast playlist link in the description below. Thank you.