How does the Japanese mafia work and how does it survive among professional killers and bosses who can also buy political lobbies? Investigative journalist Jake Adelstein knows the answers to these questions, who years ago became the first foreign journalist at Japan's largest newspaper.
He managed to get into the circles of the Japanese mafia, NOVA reported.
He says that he was fascinated by Japanese culture since he was a student. When he was offered a student exchange, he immediately agreed. “It is charming here. "You have the feeling that you are in another world," says the journalist.
During most of his work at the paper, he covered organized crime in the Land of the Rising Sun. “The Japanese Yakuza mafia is so ingrained in society that wherever I go, there will be some kind of problem related to them,” adds Adelstein.
Yakuza are 20 different organizations. Each of them has a website and headquarters. Their income comes from legal and illegal sources, the investigative journalist further explains. For many years, he said, organizations were considered a normal part of the landscape in Japan. “They crossed many borders, but even now they are not banned, only controlled,” says Adelstein.
He explained the infamous Yakuza tattoos. Tattooing was considered a sign that they were giving up civilian life. They often wore the symbol of their gang on their chests, which made it much more difficult for them to join another.
The journalist also found out why most Japanese mobsters have their legs cut off. “Shiniubi”, in Japanese dead finger, is a ritual through which a member of the organization who has sinned is punished. By cutting off his little finger, he lost the ability to wield me, which the Yakuza still do to this day. The reason – murder with a cold weapon may be 2/3 less punishable than one with a firearm.
Jake Adelstein did not hide the terrible situations in which he himself found himself. The group of a Yakuza boss named Tadamasa Goto was not typical. It regularly attacked civilians, including artists and journalists. Goto received a liver transplant in the US only because he made a deal with the FBI. The story seemed interesting to Adelstein and he began to write about it. However, the boss did not like this and he ordered it. The journalist was under guard, as was his family abroad. “I am getting older and wiser, I no longer write things that will anger the Yakuza,”, admits the investigative journalist. However, he stressed that the average age of the mafia is increasing because young people are no longer joining it.