Gendai ismedia, 30/03/2023
https://gendai.media/articles/-/108038
An all-time low
The number of yakuza members in Japan has continued to decline in recent years. This is due to the fact that the Bōtaihō (Anti-yakuza law) came into force in March 1992, and that their activities are strictly regulated by the Bōhaijōrei (Yakuza Exclusion Ordinances) that were put in place across the country by October 2011. Furthermore, the idea that yakuza and similar criminal organisations are anti-social forces and should therefore be excluded from economic activities has become widely accepted in society.
The number of gang members at the end of 2022, the latest data compiled by the National Police Agency, was confirmed to be approximately 11,400, the lowest number ever. The number of gang members at the end of 1992, when the Boryokudan Law came into force, was approximately 56,600, a decrease of approximately 80%.
The era of the rise of the 'economic yakuza'
On 29 December 1989, the closing price of the average share price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange reached a record high of 38,915.87 yen. Not only share prices but also land prices continued to soar. The Japanese economy was booming at the peak of the bubble economy, as money games, which resembled speculation more than investment, were popular under the name of 'zaitekku' (financial technology).
The booming economy also brought many of the benefits of the bubble to the yakuza, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s counted 60,000s members, approaching 70,000. Bosses further inflated the funds they had gained from the land grabs by, for example, investing them in stocks. Some of these bosses were called 'economic yakuza'.
At the time, Susumu Ishii, the second chairman of the Inagawa-kai, was widely known as an economic yakuza. However, it was discovered that he had been promoting the buying up of Tokyu Corporation shares. It turned out that it was Nomura Securities, the largest securities firm in the industry and known as 'Gulliver', that had been approaching the stock market, and the company's chairman, Setsuya Tabuchi, who was regarded as the 'Don of the securities industry', was forced to resign and came under heavy criticism.
In addition to Ishii, Masaru Takumi, who in the 1990s was the number two and young boss of the Yamaguchi-gumi at the time of the fifth leader, was also known to have moved huge sums of money through land speculation. Takumi used to say to those around him: 'If you read the Nikkei Shimbun, you will find a hint of our shinogi (source of funds)'.
An old senior member of a yakuza groups operating in the Tokyo metropolitan area recalls with nostalgia those days.
"In those days, we engaged in land speculation, and tens of millions of yen came in all the time. In addition, we were continuously collecting protection money from restaurants in the downtown area of our territory. When the economy was booming during the bubble years, it was so difficult to find a good use for the money."
Another designated yakuza boss based in the Kansai region said: 'I was still a young man when the bubble economy was booming, but even so I was able to earn hundreds of millions of yen, which I had never touched before the bubble. I drove expensive foreign cars such as Lincolns and Mercedes Benz.
'It's getting tricky'.
The number of yakuza members nationwide, which was in the low 60,000s at the start of the 1980s, increased towards the end of the 1980s to keep pace with the booming economy, with approximately 66,700 members in 1989 at the peak of the bubble. The following year, 1990, the number further increased to 68,700, as it looked as is Japan would continue to enjoy prosperity.
However, the bubble burst. As funds began to short-circuit in various areas, the yakuza also began to fight over businesses, and shootings in the downtown areas of major cities started to prompt criticism.
In response to this situation, the Bōtaihō, which is regarded as the starting point for regulating yakuza activities, came into force in March 1992. The law prohibits the collection of protection money, for example, and restricts the basic income of yakuza groups. Violations resulted in cease-and-desist orders, failure to comply in the event of recurrence ended up in prevention orders and, in the most serious cases, arrests.
The senior officer mentioned above said, "When the Bōtaihō was enacted, I thought it was going to be a problem", and spoke of the actual situation at the time as follows.
"Before the Bōtaihō, there was no problem in collecting protection money from restaurants and bars within a territory. If a restaurant refused to comply, we sometimes drove a large dump truck into it, smashing it to pieces. When the shops reopened, they complied. However, some shops openly refused to comply when the new law came into force. Those for whom protection money was the main source of income quit because they could not collect the money."
The plight of some of these gangs is also recorded in police statistics. In 1991, the year before the law was introduced, the number of gang members was about 63,800, but by 1992, the number had plummeted to about 56,600. After that year, the number of gang members began a steady decline, falling below 50,000 to about 48,000 in 1994, and then declining unilaterally every year thereafter, reaching about 43,100 in 2001.
Many difficulties
In order to issue a cease and desist order, an organisation must be one of those on the list of the designated gangs under the Bōtaihō. To be designated as a gang the following requirements are necessary:
1. use the power of the organisation to conduct fund-raising activities.
2. A certain percentage or more of its members have a criminal record.
3. The organisation has a pyramidal hierarchy with the boss at the top.
If the above three requirements are met, the organisation is designated by the Prefectural Public Safety Commission. Currently, there are 25 designated gangs, including the Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai.
Designated gangs are prohibited not only from collecting protection money from restaurants and other establishments, but also from collecting debts. In the event of a conflict, the use of their offices is limited, and they are subjected to other restrictions.
The most complicated part of the designation process was the identification of the members. A senior police official who was involved in the preparations on the eve of the implementation of the law recalls:
"Before the Bōtaihō came into force, we were very busy gathering materials. We had to prepare a large amount of certified documents, including collecting copies of previous reports. We had them sign a personal statement, which included basic information such as their legal domicile, address, name, and date of birth, as well as when they became yakuza, their rank and position in the organisation, who their boss was and who the younger members under their command were. Business cards and photographs of the yakuza were also attached. They prepared documents that said, 'This person is definitely a yakuza' and identified him as a member of the yakuza."
'We cannot lose to the yakuza.'
In listing the Yamaguchi-gumi as a designated yakuza group, the Hyogo Prefectural Public Safety Commission held a hearing in April 1992 in which Takumi, a young leader, attended on behalf of Yoshinori Watanabe, the fifth leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi. He argued against the designation, in a strongly-worded speech, that it was against the Constitution to discriminate against yakuza because of their social status as yakuza, in violation of equality under the law. Takumi, who had made a name for himself as an economic yakuza as well as a fighter, showed his legal knowledge on this occasion.
The police were careful in their documentation, partly as a preventive measure against such counter-arguments and lawsuits from the yakuza. Although they later withdrew it, the Yamaguchi-gumi filed an administrative lawsuit in the Kobe District Court in November 1992, demanding the cancellation of their designation as a yakuza group. Senior police authorities were adamant that they cannot afford to lose to the yakuza in such lawsuits.
In an effort to intensify the offensive, the National Police Agency issued a major order to police headquarters nationwide: 'Arrest yakuza members, no matter what (the charges) are'. The aforementioned senior investigative officer stated "In addition to full-scale cases of injury and extortion, the yakuza were arrested on charges of violating the Rabies Prevention Law if the gang leader's pet dog had not been vaccinated, and on charges of violating the Fisheries Law if they had been engaged in petty poaching".
'The connection will last forever'.
However, the gangs have been trying to keep their organisations alive despite the increased police crackdowns. The number of gang members had been unilaterally declining since the implementation of the Bōtaihō, but since 2001, the number remained at around 44,000 until 2010.
A senior investigative officer commented: 'After all, the basic source of funds for the yakuza is protection money. When the yakuza office receives a call from a snack bar saying that a drunken customer is making a fuss and refusing to pay money, the yakuza immediately rush to the scene. They enter through the back door so as not to disturb other customers, grab the offending customer by the collar and take him outside to punish him. They clear up the matter in a short time. That's why the connection with the yakuza lasts", he added.
A senior yakuza member said: “In the beginning, it was fine as long as we obeyed the cease-and-desist order. We accepted that it was much better than being arrested for extortion”.
It is believed that the gangs have been trying to maintain their organisation in various ways behind the scenes, including continuing to collect protection money from some shops, intervening in black market finance, black market casinos and construction sites, and returning to trafficking in methamphetamine. In recent years, they have developed new sources of funding, such as special frauds.
However, the gangs were subsequently driven into a corner by the Yakuza Exclusion Ordinances that were implemented across the country.
