Prostitution, extortion and gambling. But also financial speculation and infiltration in corporate activity. The Yakuza, the extremely powerful Japanese mafia that commits five hundred murders a year, is a fixed presence in the economic life of the Japanese archipelago. A not too hidden presence, given that many of its members - boasting the feudal roots of the "honoured society" - have no problem showing themselves and their flashy tattoos in public. A shadow system that works almost discreetly, but in the last week a series of events with a strong media impact reveal how extensive its influence is on the country's industrial and service sectors.
On Friday, Tadayoshi Ueno, 70, the head of a fishing union, was found dead on the street in a city in southern Japan. According to the police report, he was shot and killed. Ueno, whose family runs a construction business, escaped an ambush in 1997. His brother was killed the following year. According to the police, the man refused to rig some contracts. This is the second such killing in two days.
Only yesterday, the killing of the president of one of the largest restaurant chains in Japan. Investigators have not yet found a link with the Yakuza, but the media are talking insistently of the involvement of the Japanese mafia, responsible for almost all gun deaths in a nation unaccustomed to blood crimes.
In 2012, police counted a total of 17 homicides, compared to an average of about 100 a year in the United States. The latest victim was from this morning. Takayuki Ohigashia was found dying in Kyoto, in front of the headquarters of his Ohsho Food Service group, which operates 665 restaurants.
Earlier in the week, the influence and brutal methods of the local mafia had been publicly denounced by the young winner of a prestigious beauty contest. Ikumi Yoshimatsu, who had won the Miss International title the previous year, was unable to participate in this year's competition. According to the miss, the organizers of the competition gave in to pressure from criminal organizations, which for months had tried to get her into one of the promotion agencies controlled by them.
According to the expert on Japanese organized crime Jake Adelstein, interviewed by Les Echos, numerous variety and cinema artists would be forced to work with agents linked to the Yakuza and few media denounce this situation for fear of losing the guests of these stars and therefore seeing decrease the audience.
This tolerance towards the phenomenon now seems to be questioned by the Government, which is organizing itself to strengthen its arsenal of laws in order to reduce the economic influence of criminal organizations, always very present in the construction sector.
During the week, all the executives of Japan's prestigious professional golfers' association were forced to resign after police revealed regular contacts between two senior executives and the heads of a large mafia clan on the southern island of Kyushu.
