The Underworld Podcast - Sex, Drugs and Shinto: How the Yakuza’s Only Woman Found Redemption

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

When Mako Nishimura, the yakuza’s only female member, fell in love with a rival gangster, it would send her on a long and painful path from drug and sex trafficking, to painkiller addiction and finally a role helping ex-yakuza go straight. Her journey would mirror the downfall of the yakuza at-large, from the world’s largest criminal gangs to social outcasts, outwitted by cops and outpaced by new, digital criminals taking over the Japanese underworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. Satoro Takagaki is no bottom-rung street thug. Tall and well-built, with a ponchant for sharp suits and crew cuts,

the Kobe native has been an enforcer for the Yamaguchi Gumi, Japan's largest Yakuza syndicate for over 30 years, rising from debt collector to personal bodyguard to the boss. Takagaki is old school. He prefers to do battle with a knife, over a gun. But by 2005, he's getting tired of gang life. The Japanese state has turned the screws on what it calls Boriokudan, or violent groups, curbing their access to finance. Only a handful of Yakuza can now afford to live the high life, for the most part foot soldiers, even experienced

old hands like Takagaki, have been forced to feed on criminal scraps. There are now fewer than 80,000 Yakuza, where there were once almost 200,000. Journalists and movies mocked them where once they'd have been cowered into silence. Worse still, young Yakuza, those who still want to be gangsters despite the absence of old-school glamour, are forgetting the traditions that made them as respected as they were feared. Of course, the majority of this has always been an elaborate lie, but Takagaki, at least in part, believed it. I joined, he tells a reporter, because I was attracted by the sense of honour that we had then,

the sense of fighting for our community. But things changed. And thus, in middle age, despite his high profile, Takagaki is considering a change of career. That's not easy for an underworld that, with a few exceptions, expects loyalty until death. But later in 2005, the son of Takagaki's boss is gunned down in the street. It's the final straw. I was getting older and slowing down, he says. I decided it was time to leave.

Takagaki knows it won't be an easy ride. And not long after he announced his departure, five bullets are fired into his front door. He installs CCTV all round the building and he sleeps with a Wakazashi, a traditional short sword beside his bed. Despite the fear, Takagaki's decision soon looks a wide,

one. In 2011, another set of laws batter the Yakuza, cutting them off from car purchases, public spaces, even SIM cards. The Yamaguchi Gumi, once the world's largest gang by membership, descends into civil war. In one uncharacteristically public display of violence, a faction leader is peppered with machine gun fire in the middle of a crowded shopping mall. The kids, they're not all right. And Takagaki knows there are more like him. Yakuza desperate to escape the life, it's diminishing prospects of wealth, and far better odds of a bloody death.

He knows too how dimly Japan's public view ex-Yakuza and how difficult it is for them to re-enter society. So he moves from Kobe to nearby Himeji and launches an NGO called Golgin Kai, providing homes and help for folks who've only known a life of crime. Shortly afterwards, a woman in her 50s, shows up to one of the trash collecting drives Takagaki leads in Himeji. She is small and wafer thin, with long-died hair and a body covered almost entirely in tattoos. The pair begin talking.

She seems in awe of him. And as Takagaki learns about her incredible life, her rise as either the only or one of only two women ever to officially join the Yakuza, her turbulent affair with a rival gangster and her lifelong struggle to kick drugs in the criminal life, he realizes she might just be one of the most valuable ex-Yakuza he's ever met. The pair grow closer. The woman, Makonashimura, hasn't fully shaken the Yakuza, but she's desperate to. And before long, she's become Gok Jinkaya's point woman in Gifu, her home city, helping to wean Yakuza off crime. It's good timing. The Syndicates are being steamrolled by younger, nimble crews, ones that don't play by the old

rules anymore, informal, sometimes foreign-led, and part of a shadow economy of fraudsters and scammers that is, in tandem with South East Asia scam industry, threatening to destroy the Yakuza altogether. This is the underworld podcast. Hello and welcome all to the weekly podcast that tells stories of lives beyond the law. Folks, you wouldn't want to come across in a dark and narrow alley. I am Sean Williams, a reporter and writer based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I am joined by a friend, colleague and close confident Danny Gold in New York City.

We have covered conflicts from Mosul to Mogadishu, gangs from Manila to Mexico City, and we put together a show every week about how crime truly works. If you get to the end of these shows and think, God, I'd love to hear more of these lovely young men interviewing reporters, experts and criminals about organized crime. Well, head over to our Patreon for bonuses, notes, ad-free shows, and the chance to contribute to my son's schooling. We've got merch at underworldpod.com, and it's really expensive out here, that inflation is nuts. And you can get in touch with us directly at the underworld podcast at gmail.com, which is honestly we're about a quarter of our episode ideas are coming from these days. and we will reply to you.

Can you tell me a brief anecdote about your week in 10 seconds, Danny? We want to keep the banter short and sweet, even if it is in the words of one commenter S tier. That's true. We did get a commenter saying that. You know, I've been experimenting with sleeping pills lately, and it's a new hobby I really should not be having. But, you know, it's hot out here.

My AC's loud, and you got to do what you got to do. So it's what we're dealing with, folks. How's that for a 10-word-termary? Yeah, yeah. That was great. You're going to be on the after-dinner speaking circuit in no time. And it kind of teased up part of this episode as well. Anyway, the more aware of you will know that today's show is part two of the rise and fall of Mako Nishimura. By some accounts, the only woman ever to officially join Japan's Yakuza. And by joined, I mean performed the sake sharing ritual that formerly makes a Yakuza gangster in a similar way to how Mafioso become made men or Mafia.

EEOC become made men. It's a fascinating tale, one I reported in October in which the Guardian recently published as a long read. So if you didn't listen to Part 1, probably do that before listening to this, or just play it on some other family or friends device constantly for a week. And if you want to know what Mashko and Nishamura looks like, and given Mako means devil's child in Japanese, you're going to want to see what she looks like. Check out the Guardian piece 2, link in bio. What makes Nishamura's story so great is the way that it traced the rise and fall of the

Kikusa itself, from swashbuckling gentlemen gangsters who had the public's backing, to despise thugs, to marginalise to where they are today, which is outclassed, outpaced and overrun by faster, smaller, informal gangs called Tokudio. More on that in a bit. First, we left off off-off part one around 1992-ish. Nishimura is a member of the Sugino Gumi, an offshoot of Tokyo's Sumiyoshi Kai in her hometown of Gifu. She's making thousands of of dollars selling drugs, girls, and extorting businesses. But she's also addicted to methamphetamines and beginning to question her role in the gang. At the same time, Japan's government has just enacted a host of laws against so-called Boryokudan, which is a phrase used interchangeably by the

government with Yakuza to prevent the groups changing stocks and accessing other parts of high finance. They'll come into force the following year, and these laws are a huge vital step in addressing Yakuza that have grown well out of control since the end of the Second World War. But they don't initially work that well. Here is veteran of the pod Jake Adelstein writing in his recent book, The Last Yakuza, massive recommend, of course, quote. The laws were intended to immediately allow the police to crack down on Yakuza activities, encourage members to leave, and force them out of the public eye. But the laws were a complicated mess, full of holes, and carried such light punishments that they seemed pointless. However, they did serve as a warning

to Japan's 88,000 Yakuza that times were changing. And they gave the police a solid excuse to go in and out of the Yakuza offices whenever they wanted, as well as to put a check on the visible presence of the gangs. Yeah, I think that's a major plot point in the TV show, either that error or maybe there's a second one they do later on. But it really shows how they kind of rework the laws to allow them to actually start cracking down and having an effect on Yakuza. Yeah, I think that might be the second group of laws which you're going to talk to later because i feel like jake might have got out there like mid to late 90s yeah yes that might be too early around that time right yeah yeah um but this this stuff that he says in the book is like really really fascinating and he goes on i'm going to quote him some

more here quote the laws forbade many type of shinogi extortion collecting protection money blackmail debt collecting and other such staples were technically banned under the new laws whenever a yakuza committed any of these acts the victim could go to the police The police would issue a cease and desist order to the Yakuza in question. If they continue to do it, the police would issue a do not do this again, preventive order. And if the Yakuza also ignored that, he faced arrest and or a fine up to a year in jail or a fine of up to 50,000 yen, which isn't a huge amount, or both. However, it almost never went that far.

Before the new laws came into effect, the police would build a case and make an arrest. But now they'd given the Yakuza a warning first to cease. and desist. It was like baseball rules for them. Two strikes and you're out. For most Yakuza, the warning was enough. For some people, simply having a Yakuza go away was more than enough. Yeah, and I think as we learned from arguably the Best Simpsons episode of all time, Japanese prisons aren't even that bad. Like they're, they look fun. Although, to be honest, I think they actually are. Is this a super happy, shiny fun? Yeah, a rainbow show. Yeah, yeah. One of the best. But I think they actually are, I mean, from what we've learned

and stuff like this, they actually are kind of gnarly at points. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this whole thing about the police always being several steps behind the Yakuza, this came up a load in my, like when I spoke to people in Japan and in the story, there's one excerpt from the David Kaplan book, Yakuza from 2003, which is like the Bible on loads of this stuff. I think he quotes a policeman who's basically saying we have a 1940s police force trying to fight 1990s crime.

And I also heard, I don't think I'm going to quote it further down this, show, but there's a story that I heard more than once in Gifu with the city of Nishimuramako, which is that there was a story about a judge who allowed a cop to place a GPS tracker on a suspect's car, but only if he told the suspect first, which kind of shows you how far behind the cops are. Like, there's some institutionalized, basically, the Yakuza that it's just like, you know, they're happy to have them in place for the most part to stop other kinds of crime. Jay Kaldstein actually adds that the term Borio Kudan incenses yakuza bosses because it is a term devoid of the kind of dignity and spirit the Yakuza at least believe their actions are imbued in which is deep Japan core.

Some change their names as more corpora sounding ones and put more of their money into legitimate investments which on one hand, yes, bad gangsters embedded in the economy but on the other if they're not actually doing crime then is this progress? I guess in a way this. This is a really kind of interesting thought experiment. Like, if Sinaloa gives up cocaine smuggling, stops murdering people and focuses on its energy on real estate, agriculture, and fisheries, is that a good thing? Sort of unofficial amnesty on money made via said drugs and murder? I don't know. I mean, I think, honestly, with the level of murdering that they do, and it would have to be not just them, right?

It would have to be the other cartels. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, how... Anything's got to be better than what it is now. Anything is going to be better than like literally thousands, tens of thousands of people being killed every year in this. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad I'm not in charge.

But, uh, yeah. Yeah. Like, what do you? And we can't, we can't emphasize this enough. We're not in charge of these decisions. I mean, it's a great question that I've never really thought about. But like, how do you make the argument against it besides? Yeah.

I mean, obviously, like, it's not an example of justice and it's not an example of justice. and it's not an example of people playing. But if you could prevent an additional 10,000 murders every year by that, I don't know, man, I don't want to get into it. It's too early, even though it's, what, 130 right now? Tell us what you think in the comments. Let's get some, like, disgusting arguments going for the Spotify comments. Yeah, let's move on, I think.

Yeah. Great, great hypothesis, well said by both. Before any of this stuff that we just mentioned hits the Sugino-Gumi, though. Remember, that is the game. that machinish mirror is in, she is flying high. She's completed her probation period, this strange two-year probationary period where she's walking dogs and making potato salad, and she's making banking the sex and drug scenes. But she's also getting very, very high on her own supply. Sometimes she's so messed up, she can't even do any of the bookkeeping for illegal operations,

and she starts hallucinating stuff, hearing voices in the rain or people in the shadows. She can't sleep and she begins to go mad, which sounds like a crowded house lyric, but it's not. It's bad drug addiction. What's more, there is an official embargo on drug taking by Sugino-san, the clan's boss. But Nishimura's apartment is basically a stash house. It welcomes a rotating cast of meth-addicted gangsters who free base or inject the drug, leaving paraphernalia lying about for days. When Sugino finds out half his men of meth heads, he orders Nishimura to apologize on their behalf,

the Yakuza way by severing the top of her little finger, a process known as Yubitsumi or finger shortening. And nobody quite knows where Yubitsumi came from, but the leading theory is that it originated in the early days of the Bakuto, wandering gamblers who were the predecessors of the Yakuza. In fact, and we mentioned this several times before, the name Yakuza comes from gambling too. It's a hand in a traditional card game consisting of Yaa, 8, Kuh, 9 and Zah, 3, totaling which is apparently a worthless hand. The Yubitsumi is supposedly a form of debt repayment if the gambler doesn't have any money, a payment in flesh, which also affects the victim's ability to hold a sword

and therefore defend the honour of him or his boss. And Nishamura, she doesn't think twice when Sugino tells her to commit Yubitsumi. Here's an excerpt from Martina Baradol's book Yakuza Blues, quote, Someone had to take responsibility and apologise. Mako was chosen. So she took a Nihontol, the Jackson. Japanese short sword and prepared to perform Yubitsumi. She placed her hand on the floor, rested the blade on her finger and pushed with her foot. But given her lightweight, the cut wasn't

clean. So, having no other choice and demonstrating remarkable composure, she struck it repeatedly with the sword until it was severed. Then, as per procedure, she wrapped the stump in paper and went to the hospital, where they filed down the bone and stitched the wound. Returning to the office she handed over the phalanx and the matter was considered resolved. After that episode, she was often asked to cut off members' fingers during Yubetsumi, so she developed a full-proof technique. She would prepare a wooden cutting board, place the blade on the finger, and dropping something heavy on the knife, she would cut it clean off. Her brothers usually thanked her and left a tip. Now this sort of odd conveyor belt of finger cutting carries Nishamura a ton of favour

with Sugino San and her fellow Yakuza. And it's another example of the way she effectively appropriates or even advances the kind of ultra-violent acts normally associated with men. Another aspect of that is her willingness to victimize other women on behalf of the mob. As I hinted out in the previous episode, Nishimura particularly grows wealthy selling girls to an island 50 miles south of Gifu called Wattakarnu, a half-square-mile cluster of bruffles and go-go bars that earns it, unsurprisingly, the nickname of Prostitute Island.

According to the vice-writer Hanako Montgomery, quote, Wattacano was once hailed as a mini-sex paradise. In its prime, from the late 70s to mid-80s, Japanese civil servants, policemen and salarymen from the nearest main island, would take a three-minute boat ride to this carnal wonderland, where a quarter of its 270 residents were sex workers. Watakano's sex industry is healthy enough that some girls there can make the equivalent of over 30,

$20,000 a day in today's money. Which incredible cash. And obviously a big cash cow for the organized criminals who run the trade. Yeah, it's like this is, I mean, it's like peak Japanese economic miracle as well. So people are just running around with tons of cash. Nishamura hunts down talent for Watakano, Yakuza and pimps, searching among Gifu's homeless and drug addictive for the chance to bag a big advance. 30,000 a day.

I mean, we should do, if we could make $30,000 a day, I think both of us would be doing doing this at this point. Well, you could do it. I mean, you can kick me up a, you know, part of the profits. You would take the 40% or the 60%? Jesus, that's insane. Happenys Tiger was no joke. That economy must have been insane.

Yeah, I would take quite a lot less than that, actually. Yeah, you could probably keep decreasing that amount. They got a hold out for $30,000. Anyway, things don't always go according to plan. just like our careers. On one occasion, according to her memoir, Nishamura finds a girl named Rieko, but she runs away before Nishamura can deliver her to Waitakano.

So Nishamuru works for her criminal contacts, and she tracks the girl to Osaka, Japan's second city. She hires a local yaku to kidnap Rieco again, then picks her up in a Mercedes, adding travel expenses, food, and the cost of Rieko's meth to her supposed debts to be paid off in flesh.

You have to clean up after yourself, Nishamara tells the girl, At this point, Nishamura adds, Rekka was on the chopping board. She was so scared she couldn't say anything. Nishamura then dries the girl down to the Watakano ferry and hands her over to one of the island's pimps for a big fee. But the guy allegedly then injects Rieko with meth in her neck, partially paralyzing her face. Nishamura beats the offending guy with a stool leg. This is just pretty nuts.

But the damage is done. She meets the girls years later, but she is vacant, doesn't remember anything. anything about the kidnapping. Here's Martina Baradale, the academic and author on this particular episode and what it says about Nishamura and the Japanese mob. I think it's the exception that proves the rule. If you have some skills and if you have these, also the fact, you know, a woman who wants to become a yakos are very rare. So one condition, second condition, a boss who, because he needs, because he wants or whatever reason, he accepts a woman as a member, also very rare condition. When you have these two conditions align, you can have a woman who enters the group.

But again, you really need two very rare conditions to align to have it. And so that is why we only have these two examples in the history of the Yatazana. Of course, if you want to talk about women who have the Yatiza, girlfriend, who else, and this kind of informal network and settings, of course, we have a lot of cases there. We have a lot of cases. in other martial groups of women who have the group as externals. But then I think we're talking about something else. Jeez, I mean, that whole thing, like, it's like an updated, extremely dark version of memoirs of a guy shot,

which is a fantastic book, but this is like, and has a lot of darkness in it too, but this is just brutal, dude, brutal. It's pretty grim stuff, right? I mean, it's not like, yeah, a lot of this like career of Nishamurus it's pretty gross, actually, the stuff she has to get down and dirty with. And at this time, like around this time, cops raid Nishamura's Gifu apartment, they discover drugs, and she is eventually sentenced to two and a half years in prison for assault and drug possession.

The state sends her to Kasamatsu Prison, a women's facility just south of Gifu City, famous for its vocational training, which includes a beauty salon open to the public. Partly because of the way she looks, inmates start rumors that Nishu's, were is locked up for murder, and she does nothing to quote the gossip. It suits her, basically. She studies a business law degree behind bars and learns about scam artistry from an inmate who's been convicted of fraud. Quote, I thought that a repeat con artist is really clever, and it made me think of con artists in a new light. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive, the Price is Right Fortune Pick.

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Maui, you aboard my boat and restore the heart of Tafiti. And here we go. The journey begins. See her light of the night in this. The ocean chose you. Let's go save the world. I got you back, chosen one. Disney's Moana.

Bootsnirk. His name is Haye. His name is Yum Yum. When he goes in my tum-tum. In theaters July 10th. That quote is pretty strange what we're going to learn soon. But besides the camming, Nishamura learned some concrete skills

without the overbearing presence of her father, who by now has told her never to go home again. The study in Nishamura says, gave my prison life meaning. But she doesn't exactly ditch the Yakuza life. In fact, she maintains status inside by becoming what she admits was a bully, beating up and victimizing fellow inmates.

When Nishamura's release date arrives at age 24, something quite spectacular happens. Lined up at the prison front gates, a rows of Sugino Gumi gangsters who form a guard of honor. They then drive Nishamura to Gang HQ in downtown Gifu, dress her in a brand new suit, and hand her a million yen around seven and a half grand today. And then everyone has a feast and, of course, they get wasted.

This is something called Demukai, a quote, important right of passage for the Yakuza member, according to a 1981 academic paper. Quote, it was a symbol that the state's rehabilitation efforts had failed. Nishimura had actually gotten clean in prison, but the moment she's out, she starts using again and slips further into meth addiction and desperation. At this exact time, Japan's economic bubble bursts. It wipes 60% off the value of the Nikai stock index and the yen tanks. Yakuza are hit just as hard as anybody else by this, and they lose massive casino, real estate,

golf club building projects all over the world. It's like when I think I own okay, then I go to New York and I realize I can't afford a salad. You just stay in your lane. Which is exactly what the Yakuza do, retreating from the world stage and leaving criminal voyage to be filled by gangs from China, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other emerging hubs of organized crime. At the same time, Southeast Asian and Chinese triag gangs are cornering the market in meth, while cocaine and other party drugs coming out of Latin America in the Middle East are squashing Yakuza profits in those markets. Then come the 1992 anti-Yakuza

laws. As Jake Hale Sting wrote in his earlier extract, this doesn't push the Yakuza out altogether. In fact, they migrate to more legal markets and still make bank getting paid to extort and intimidate on behalf of regular Japanese businesses and individuals. I mean, some of the biggest corporations in the country, rather, are like using Yakuza explicitly to carry out intimidation, like scaring tenants in like high-rise projects and stuff like this. But Yakuza violence is increasingly spilling onto the streets and even show business. once commanded by Yakuza kingpins like Kazuu Tooka of the Yamaguchi Gumi has flipped on its head.

Where in the 1960s films depicted Yakuza as debonair smart-suited gentleman thieves, it now mocks them and exposes their cruelty. 1992's Minba No Honor, or Mob Woman, features a female protagonist who faced down the gangs and humiliates them. Soon after the movie's release, Three Yakuza visit the home of its director, Juzo Itami, and slash him across the face with knives. Itami recovers, but the attack outrages Japan's public and further erodes this false story they've been peddling the country for over a century about being noble Robin Hood X's figures.

Itami, by the way, he dies by suicide in 1997, although a leading Yakuza later claims his men had murdered him. This is a wild episode. I mean, the story the Japanese filmmaker himself is just, like, could be its own thing. And those guys, Japanese filmmakers take really bold risks, aren't there a few of that I've been attacked by the Yakuza? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not the only one. It just happened to coincide with these laws. But there are other stories. I think this might also be a Jake scoop. I think he spoke to, is it Tadamasi Goto?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still alive. I think he lives on Pen on Penh, which is really weird now. But he told him, I think it's how me if I'm getting it right, I jumped out of his high, I had like story window, but he didn't even know. There was other like really weird things about his death. And yeah, I think Goto later said that his men had murdered him, which, you know, I believe.

By this time, the Yakuza's numbers are down from almost 200,000 to way under half of that. They are even getting outsmarted by foreigners on their home turf. Here's David E. Kaplan in his seminal 2003 book, Yakuza, quote. In 1993, riotists in Tokyo plastered the city with swastika Marx posters calling for the expulsion of all immigrants. One flyer warned that foreign workers were, quote, threatening our culture, history and lifestyle and vowed to, quote, take action against them. Sensational media reports told of how ruthless Chinese thugs had pushed the Yakuza out of their old haunt of Kabukichol, a sleazy nightlife district in Tokyo. kabuchiko kubuko oh my god you're doing great kibokiko kubukkha kubukhya yeah whatever that place asserted one breathless tabloid is no longer part of japan added the weekly sunday my nietzsche the day when japan is run by

the world's gangsters may not be far off i did go there on my trip i don't like that place it's not really weird no it's not cool it's actually around this time that some young yakuza seeing the writing on the wall not the swastas or maybe i don't know, basically learn to code. Remember that phrase? What's the Gen Z equivalent? I don't know. Learn to battle your money on political speeches or learn to fall in love with a chatbot. Am I young and relevant? No, no. You better have. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Neither am I. Right's Kaplan quote. Okay, okay. Got it back.

Ooh, okay, here you go. Yeah. Wright's Kaplan quote, in one worrisome marriage, gangsters made deals with the Ortaqu, Japan's fervent high-tech youngsters to do freelance hacking. Of course, Nishamura doesn't learn to code. She carries on trucking with sex and drugs, doing well financially but becoming a meth-addicted wreck on the inside. I mean, you've got to love a traditionalist, you know? Yeah, I mean, we have to say that. But all that changes in 1995.

Age 29, she meets the member of a rival Yakuza clan, a subsect of the Yamaguchi-Gumi at a dinner party in Gifu. Yes, rival Yakuza had dinner parties. He's 15 years her senior and he's married. But they start an affair and, six months later, Nishamura gets pregnant. When she has the kid, a boy, everything changes. I never thought I would die for anyone, she told me. But when I had children, I started to think I could die for them. The boy's father had been on bail when they met

and a judge orders him to return to prison soon afterwards for breaking the terms of that bail. So Nishamura is alone. She quits meth and she breaks off contact with the Sugino Gumi No, I see a lot of similarities with this when, you know, her having a son and making these sacrifices and you, when you had a son and sort of quit your windowless Berlin basement lifestyle, you know? I wonder when you were going to come in. It's a good place to come in. It is.

I mean, I try to keep it to like one every other or every third episode now, but that's, I mean, come on. Well, I mean, I moved to Wellington, which soften the blow. but um you know i i am going to go to amsterdam next month with a couple of friends uh and we are making plans uh for some merriment so i might try and probably wouldn't say that on the podcast okay no what i mean what i mean is staying out past midnight so what at then go museum oh i'm gonna do that yeah it's gonna be great um how to revelation there on mushrooms i genuinely that was the first thing i said to my friend he's like are you fucking joking um so yeah i'm cool Nishamura's father has died, but she reignites a relationship with her mother, Hiroko,

and for a while they spend good time together, reveling in the family's latest edition. A year later, the boy's dad gets out of prison, but he refuses to ditch the gang life, so Nishamura ditches him, and she moves from Gifu to a city closer to her mother. For a few years afterwards, Nishamura stays out of trouble, but despite its obvious highs, motherhood doesn't offer the same thrills as the Yakuza. For a while, Nishamura writes, quote, life seemed to stand still. In the child's final year of kindergarten,

the dad asks if they can give their relationship another go. Nishamura says yes, and the family move into a Gifah apartment. But she struggles to make money legitimately. Whenever employers hear about her past, see her tats or a missing pinky finger, they'll find the way to get rid of her. So she gets back into crime.

First by running a massage parlor, like she had in her early days, then by sourcing high-grade meth from Tokyo and selling it in Gifu. One meth deal can bring in several times the money a single month of legitimate work can, and she ramps up her drug-dealing operation. At the same time, she assumes the role of Anisan, or Gangster's wife, an official position we discussed in the previous part of this double-header. Nishimura cooks and cleans for her husband's Yamaguchi-Gumi colleagues,

even though her drug operation is bringing in way more money. The couple fight, sometimes violently, and their young son often sides with his dad. Age 39, Nishamura has a second boy. This whole time she's steered clear of meth, but she instead gets hooked on prescription sleeping pills, and she's under increasing levels of surveillance from the cops for the meth dealing she's doing out of their apartment. One day cops raid the place, releasing Nishamura after ten days when they discover nothing but suspicious shipping labels. But once again, her life is in a... downward spiral. And this is all coinciding with a second, even more devastating period for the

Yakuza at large. Remember Satori Takagaki from the Cold Open? He ditches the mob in 2005, not only because the son of his boss is gunned down in broad daylight, but because young Yakuza seemed to have ditched the principles of their predecessors. Some are deep into digital romance scams and other crimes directly targeting regular citizens. For the whole of the 20th century, Yakuza have lived by a creed not to harm so-called Katagi Noshu, or citizens under the sun, basically regular people. But as their access to wealth has been cut off by the state, that creed goes clean out the window. As one financial crime reporter told me in Tokyo last year, quote, the old-time yakuza had a strict rule not to involve ordinary people in crime. The rules are

gone. There are no rules. So, Takagaki decides to leave the yakuza, even though Yakuza gangsters take Takazuki, supposedly, until death, there are some ways to leave the gangs. But obviously, as we heard in the cold open, members often don't take too kindly to fellow Yakuza who want out despite these loopholes. So, Takagaki is threatened, shot at, intimidated. Only, this makes him even more resolve to provide an off-ramp for men like him who want to go straight. So he sets up Gojin Kai, an NGO to help ex-Ekusa get jobs, get a roof over their heads, and get on with their lives outside the gangs. In 2011, the Japanese state goes after the Yakuza even harder, outlawing any financial transaction with them. You know, that actually might be

the plot point I was talking about in that era. But it probably is, yeah. I want to add to the NGO thing is such a classic, like worldwide, get out of a gang thing. Let me start an NGO. to help other gang members. Sometimes it's real. A lot of times it's not. Sometimes. Sometimes it's real. A lot of the times it's a way to siphon money and recruit and stay involved.

There is a guy who used to be a yakuza who lives in like northern Tokyo and runs a church, like one of these like happy, clapy churches. And he's like that guy. And I think it might be something more to his story. I didn't get a chance to like meet. I did a documentary years ago. in El Salvador for The Guardian, actually, about a guy who run,

or two, multiple pastors who run churches that helped get members of MS-13 and 18th Street out of the gangs, because the only way to leave without, you know, dying, or that was it, you could either get killed or die, that was it, was to become a born-again Christian. And then they would let you leave, but you couldn't really fake it

because the gangs really keep an eye on you. Like if you say you're, no, I'm serious, if you say you're, you're converted or whatever it is and you're, you're born and Christian, you're on it. And they see you like out at night. This is back in the day when I saw what it was a very different country that is right now. They see you out at night and you're like, you know, getting hammered with girls, all that sort of stuff. Like they would get killed. Yeah, yeah. And then also, you know, the police never took it seriously either.

So they were always after them for any little infraction or stuff like that. So you really had to be, it wasn't like, you know, a lot of these NGOs in the States. the guys who lead them like we'll get go down after five or ten years for various infractions you couldn't really play that hand too much in El Salvador in that area yeah that was for the Guardian as well right

they've done pretty well yeah yeah I think that's got let me just check that I think that did like millions of hits on YouTube yeah that was huge so good as well we should leave that on the notes for this one I haven't uploaded the notes in a while you gotta stop saying that I just say Lincoln Bio I don't even know what Linking Bio means. Oh yeah, 4.4 million views seven years ago, the El Salvador pastor's saving MS-13 gang members. The only way out is through Jesus. Four point four million. How about that? Long form, too.

12 minutes. Well, not long form, medium form. That's great, man. Congratulations. Thanks, blood. Appreciate it. I saw zero dollars from that 12 point whatever billion. Oh, no, no, no. We don't need to mention that kind of stuff. No, no, no. Journalism's great. Yeah, so, like we said, in 2011, they introduced this second raft of laws that really kind of crippled them even further. So here's Jake Euston again in the last accuser, quote. On October 1st, 2011, Tokyo finally passed an exclusionary ordinance against organized crime. It promulgated a lumber of matters, but it principally made paying off the Yakuza or working with them a crime. That had never been done before, not across the board.

There was a serious problem in Japan beforehand, in that because there was no penalty for those who used the Yakuza to solve problems, the Yakuza stayed in business. Getting paid off was how they earned money. The police realized that in order to put the Yakuza out of business, they also had to punish those who did business with them. And the 2011 ordinances made that principle systematic and universal. We've spoken about this on the pod before, but these 2011 audiences are a hammer blow to the Yakuza. They blocked the Gans' prime source of income, being used as hired muscle or extortionists, or both. And not only that, but because it's now a crime to pay any yakuza at all, they struggle to buy homes, cars or even a SIM card. Gone is the promise

of a glitzy gangster life. The 1960s are a distant memory, and tons of disaffected yakuza come to Saturu Takagaki and Gojin Kai for help. By 2014, Makonishimura's prescription pill addiction has grown chronic. She doesn't know how to live without the drugs, taking as much as a whole sheet of them each day. And later that year, at age four, 48, Nishamura takes enough of the pills that they paralyze her. She's laying on her bed, unable to move, quote, like I was tied to it. Nishamura is hospitalized and she recovers, but decades of drug abuse and violent crime have taken a huge toll, and her partner gets custody of the two boys. She reaches out to the Sugino Gumi one more time, but like a lot

of Akusa syndicates, they are a shambles. Her closest ex-collee is now an alcoholic, and the gang had knee-deep in financial scams. The quote, responsibility to fight the bullies to help the weak, she told me, seeming to forget that A, she quite likes scans when she was in prison, and B, has spent her life victimizing poor and drug-eddle women. Quote, is the core of Yakuza fall. If it's not like that, I don't like it. She quits the gang for good soon after.

Yeah, I mean, that's the exact opposite of what she was doing. Yeah, yeah. The stories people tell themselves are always good. Anyway, Nishamura then dressed for a series of dead-end jobs, getting increasingly lonely and depressed, missing her sons but also her mother, Hiroku, who she hasn't seen for years. But in 2020, she meets Satoru Takagaki, who by this point is often quoting in the media as saying the yakuza on their last legs. Nishimura is instantly enamored with Takagaki, this huge former bodyguard to the Yamaguchi-Gumi boss, now on a rampage

against organized crime. She joins him on one of the monthly trash-collecting drives they do. It's, quote, wonderful to see such a big shot in the past, taking the initiative to pick up trash, she writes. Nishamura is poor, alone, and desperately sad. But, she says, if Takagaki can rebuild his life, quote, so can I. Before long, Nishimura convinces Takagaki to let her open a branch of Gojin Kai in Gifu, and she dedicates the lion's share of her time to help inform the gangsters quit the life and oftentimes also drugs. On one occasion, this goes very, very wrong. A young meth-addicted gangster attacks her, and she suffers some pretty horrific injuries,

but she carries on. By the way, she also beats the crap out of him in that story. The COVID pandemic then hits the world, and one particular episode exposes just how weak the Yakuza have become. Now, you all remember that cruise ship The Diamond Princess that had a COVID outbreak on board and got stuck in Yokohama in Tokyo for about a month? after a couple of weeks things are getting smelly on the boat. So uprock a bunch of aging Yakuza who often to scrub the ship's decks.

Humans like us should do the dirty job, one of them tells the media, harking back to another of the Yakuza myths that they come out of low-cast, so-called Burakumin, Japan's Untouchables, which is also partly BS, but it's also attempt to win PR points with the public. I mean, some of them do come out of the low cast, right? It's a lot of like people of Korean descent or have Korean descent that were cast out. But also, I think the PR thing kind of worked, right? I remember seeing a bunch of articles about it.

And haven't they, they did stuff like that before too, right? Sunami recovery. Fukushima. Yeah, weren't they really big in using their logistics and sold just to go out there and like give out goods and just help people? Yeah, and they also offered to clean up all the toxic waste that came out of the nuclear power. I did not know that. would not. I mean, that's a typical or a nice crime scandal, right? Isn't that

a big thing with Italy that they the Italian, I don't know if it's the Calabrians or the Sicilians, but they always were going to dispose of your toxic waste and they just dump it in the ocean? Yeah, exactly. Plus the earthquake stuff, right? Didn't they, we did an episode on the Kosa and they like offered to clean up

or like clean up the rubble of one of the cities in Sicily after a massive earthquake there. I think that's part of their story as well. Maybe it's in Calabria, I'm not sure. But yeah, this is like, Like, this is what the Yakuza have to do at this point, right? They don't have the, I guess they have implied power, but they don't have much actual power.

Because by this point, there are fewer than 30,000 of them, and they're getting steamrolled by foreign gangs at home and abroad. To the point where they're offering to scrub actual shit off a cruise ship. At the same time, the Japanese underworld is going through a huge restructuring. Because while the Yakuza's fortunes are fading faster than a sideburn in an Istanbul barbershop, Crime hasn't just gone away. Okay. Nailed it.

Okay. Yeah, no, that was worth of. I sincerely apologize for that. No, I was, do not apologize. The fans want more. Say one more time just so we get it all. Okay. I'll just repeat that.

Because while the Yakuza's fortunes are fading faster than a sideburn and an Istanbul barbershop, crime hasn't just gone away. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets. Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal. Invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to.

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Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Japan is still a rich nation. Instead, crimes are being committed by so-called Tokudial gangs, informal, less hierarchical groups composed of folks from all kinds of backgrounds. And definitely, with none of the rituals or baggage or tradition, the Yakuza have been steeped in for centuries.

Here is the South China Morning Post, quote, short for Tokumi Riudo, or anonymous and fluid, Tokourio are a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan's underworld. The term was first used by the country's national police agency to describe loose networks that have emerged over the past decades as authorities' tightened laws aimed at crippling traditional Yakuza syndicates. In contrast to the Yakuza revolt, which traditionally have a hierarchy and adhere to a strict code of conduct,

Tokourio have little in the way of hierarchies, are flexible and use technology to recruit members and communicate. This new approach to organized crime is seeing Tokourio edged their predecessors out, although there is still a degree of collaboration in some areas between the two criminal groups. Martina Baradale has written her latest book, 21st century Akusa, on this phenomenon. Here she is once more speaking about the Yakuza's spectacular fall from grace. So the Tokudu is a phenomenon that started, I mean, a few years ago. I think, so we are talking about very different things because they are actually a mafia group which is rooted in the territory, is rooted in physical markets,

while the Tokudu is something which is more in the digital world. So I don't think that we have a new technology, some people exploit the technology to do crime. And I don't think that even if the yakuza were super strong now, they could limit people going online and doing internet scams. This is something that nobody can limit, unfortunately. So I think we are looking at two different criminal groups. Tokoriu are not really a group. Tokoriu are individual entrepreneurs that sometimes come together to organize a criminal action, a criminal plan and sometimes they hire other people to, you know, to bring forward this plan,

but it is not the Yakuza can really control. So the Yakuza, what they can control is when these groups online form the groups, they intervene in their territory. So we have had cases in which Yakuza groups, groups are ideologically, let's say, against Tokuru, because Yakuza groups, at least, you know, Of course, we have yakuza who do frauds and who do private activities, but the yakuza, their reputation is about protecting their territory, being a good force of society in their minds, of course. So we have cases in which yakuza groups were, you know,

sending out or putting out bulletin boards and staying in our territory, we are going to be very careful if there are people who do frauds or people who do burglars, We will control that and we will limit that. So they can do that. They can control that in their area, there are not people coming in to steal and to rob and so forth. And they try to do that. If they have strength to do it, they try to do it.

But on whatever is done online, I think they do not have any authority to stop these groups. And these groups also, if you see, you know, these Tokoru groups, usually tend to be much younger, People who are involved in these sorts of frauds, are online crime, they are much younger than the average age of the yakuza, which is now very old. We are talking about two different words, I think. But yes, this is a worry, which, again, as I said, I don't think that the yakuza could limit the Tokuru, but it has been a very constant worry. I think for parts of the police as well, for the population too, that, you know, it's better. The common idea is, it's better that we have the yakuza rather than having. And according, you know, it was before it was Chinese gangs,

because there were a couple of cases in Tokyo of Chinese groups who had some fights, very big fights. And so, you know, okay, maybe it's better to have the yakuza than having Chinese gangs coming in and having Jasmus gang coming in. There is, you know, this idea that the yakuza is still, still connected to Japanese values. So it's better to have the accosate that we know and we can talk to and have our same way of life rather than having trips from abroad who do not respect anything, do not respect our rules, and they do what they want. I see this is a wider fear and a wider discussion that probably Japanese society should have about xenophobia and fear of fear of

foreigners coming in, especially in the past two and three years. You know, if you now turn on the TV in Japan, you will probably see this news about a married couple, 28 and 25-year-old Japanese, who hired for 16 years old to go and do a burglary, which of course ended up in a murder because you're putting in experts, very people who've never done a crime, 16 years old. You put them up to do, you know, a burglary, And then they found the woman who's living in the house, she was in the house, something goes wrong, and then she was killed, no? So you have also a lot of younger Japanese generations that get involved in crime.

In the past, they would go to the Yakuza. And now the Yakuza is not really a very good prospect, because you will be limited in everything in your life, So you will have problems to have a bank account. You will have problems to rent a house, to have a phone, anything you can think of. The Yakuza now members have a lot of limitations in their daily lives. So you have this problem. You have the problem that the Yakuza revenues have fallen.

So you will probably not make a lot of money. And so probably if you think rationally about your economic prospects, it's better to join up another gang, join up a group which is not Yajusa, which doesn't have all these limitations. On the other hand, the Yakuza still has, I think, in some parts, in some parts in cities, depending on the group, depending on the leadership, which in Yaku's is very important. The Yakuza still has, can operate a little bit of fascination on some people. So, as I said, in my fieldwork, I've also met very young, very young men. like 20 years old, who are training to join the local group. So some people still find it fascinating.

They are that maybe it's a very small turf, but in that neighborhood, in that part of the city, they are someone. And young people who maybe didn't graduate school, do not have a very solid household or alone. It can be for somebody, it can still be family, you know, group that you're not. you can join, where you can be protected, where you can have an older brother, who else you out, who pranks you, who, you know, you can feel part of something. So I think that was

very much more common in the past and now is true only for a few selected cases. Let's get back to Mako Nishimura though. Through her work with Gojinkai, she manages to shake the pills in the criminal life seemingly for good. And while she misses the thrill, the hierarchy and the camaraderie of Ikusa life, she really she's now in a far better place, and slowly she begins to pull the pieces of her life back together, which brings us to the point of which I met her last October, when she took me to an ancient shrine in downtown Gifu, and I'm going to close out the episode by quoting my own story for The Guardian, because I wrote it so I can do that. I mean, you're properly citing yourself, too. I mean,

the only journalist left with any integrity and ethics, Sean Williams, doing it. I am. It's only, Well, you know, we both are. We both do good work, don't we all of the time. Anyway, yes, quote, The Kugani Shrine in Gifu is a complex dedicated to Shinto, Japan's indigenous animist faith. Some version of the shrine has stood on the same spot for almost 2,000 years, though it has been destroyed and rebuilt for a series of national calamities, from an 1891 earthquake to Allied fire bombing campaigns. Shinto has also become a key part of Mako Nishimura's post-Yakuza reinvention,

and on a chilly Sunday morning last October, she invited me to join her at Kagani, as she paid her respects alongside a white-road priest. Nishimura's younger brother and mother joined us on the visit. Heroku is even tinier than her daughter, with rosy cheeks and cropped graying hair. She had kept secret her sporadic visits with Nishamura over the years, But in December 2024, alongside Martina Baradale, the author,

mother and daughter sat together in the family home in Tajimi for the first time in decades, making sure to do so while Nishimura's younger brother was at work. In spring 2025, mother, daughter and brother met at a Gifu cafe. They spoke for three straight hours. We had to cry, said Nishimura. She apologised for the years of hurt she called her brother. He is, too, missing a little finger. He claims he was only a Yakuza for a short time and went back to driving trucks after a year.

He spoke about their childhood. Hiroku would fight their father, telling him not to be so harsh on the kids, he told me. When Nishimura stopped coming home around the age of 14, he added, it was hell. By the time of the reunion, they hadn't even seen each other for over two decades. Years of secrets and sputtering contact with her children had taken their toll on Hiroku. I was missing them, she said, bursting into tears, anxious, worried about what they would do. Nishimura, sitting opposite, wiped away a tear of her own. Nishimura meets occasionally with her older son, now 29.

His younger brother, 21, isn't yet ready. For now, reuniting with Hiroku and her brother will have to do. If she feels sad, she knows she can call them. I've realized how important family is, she told me. She shrugged, then offered a rare hint that her sex had him fact protected her in her life of crime. If I was a man, she said, I'd have been killed already. I don't even see it in my dreams that she'd even share a moment with her kids like this, she told me. I'm so happy. Every day I was thinking about her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She pointed

at Nishimura, the prodigal daughter, her painted hands wrapped around a coffee cup and laughed. Because she's so cute. That's pretty nice, huh? Everyone was crying at that moment as well. It's like, like really emotionally intense. Anyway, if you want to read the whole thing, we'll link to it in the show notes or somewhere. I'll just like read out a hyperlink or something in my bathroom. Maybe you can hear that. I don't know. And like I said in part one, you want to see it.

And like I said in part one, you are going to want to see the pictures of Makunishimura and her credible tattoos. But yeah, that is the story of the only woman to have been an official made member of the Akusa, or perhaps the second. but let's not worry about that. Thanks for listening. Dude, that was beautiful stuff. I mean, Sean Williams, true long-form writer, one of the few left.

Wonderfully done, man, wonderfully done. Thank you very much, my friend. Yeah, that was fun.