YAKUSA the International Expansion of Japan's Criminal Brotherhood
| Date | 01 October 1982 |
| Published date | 01 October 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8205500408 |
| Author | Raymond Lamont-Brown |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RAYMOND
LAMONT-BROWN
YAKUSA
The International Expansion of
Japan's Criminal Brotherhood
During 1978-80 some 608,000 Japanese tourists visited the U.K.
stimulating approximately £340 million in sales of consumer goods
and travel. In
1981
around 3,909,000 made overseas trips spending
nearly £788 million on manufactured goods as souvenirs. Big
business, undoubtedly, and it is being constantly. monitored by the
Yakusa, Japan's equivalent of the Mafia.
Because of the fast-developing Japanese tourist industry (with
Europe in general and the U.K. in particular as popular holiday
venues) the Yakusa are setting up operations overseas. At the
moment they have become very well established in such Asian
capitals as Bangkok and Seoul, and in the American territory of
Hawaii as wellas on the West Coast
ofthe
U.S.A. itself. Hong Kong
Police, too, report Yakusa activities in the British Crown Colony.
These Asian bases are being used as recruiting areas for Japanese
brothels (Asian, Eurasian and European girls are employed) and as
links in the Yakusa drug and gun smuggling chains.
Yakusa activities have stimulated much concern in U.S. police
circles and a joint task force is being established from U.S. law
enforcement officers and the Japanese National Police Agency. Up
to now Yakusa agents have been easy to spot. With fingers
missing-
as signs of sorrow for broken promises and mistakes - the bodies of
the Yakusa are covered with a nightmare pattern ofcolourful tattoos
showing mythological heroes and mouth-gaping dragons. The
Yakusa wear flashy suits, usually white, with exaggerated lapels,
have close-cropped hair styles, pointed shoes and anonymity-seeking
sunglasses.
As they move out into the world crime markets, however,. the
Yakusa have become too conspicuous, so the dress trends and
tattoos are losing favour as they seek to blend with the ordinary
Japanese tourist.
It
has been easy for them to merge with the
population of Hawaii and East Coast U.S.A. as there are large
resident Japanese communities. At present the Yakusa are looking at
ways in which they can pursue some profit-sharing arrangement
which would make them acceptable in Europe, or make their
organization less obvious in an occidental world.
Almost the whole of Japan's current sex scene is Yakusa
controlled, if not directly, then by minor linkage. They operate
customer-vetting systems for prostitutes and monitor the girls'
activities. Only in Japan, too, would you get a paternalisticsystem of
October 1982 355
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