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Re: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1584360/posts
New York Mob Indictment Charges 32 People

Current yakuza members fall under three general categories: tekiya (street peddlers), bakuto (gamblers), and gurentai (hoodlums). The peddlers and gamblers trace their roots back to the 18th century while the hoodlums came into existence after World War II when the demand for black market goods created a booming industry. Traditionally the tekiya, medieval Japan's version of snake-oil salesmen, worked the fairs and markets while the bakuto worked the towns and highways. The gurentai, by contrast, modeled themselves on American gangsters of the Al Capone era, using threats and extortion to achieve their ends. After World War II, in the governmental power void caused by the Occupation, the gurentai prospered, and their ranks swelled. They also brought organized crime in Japan to a new level of violence, replacing the traditional sword with modern firearms, even though guns were now officially outlawed in the country as a result of the surrender.

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The yakuza's influence is more pervasive and more accepted within Japanese society than organized crime is in America, and the yakuza have a firm and long-standing political alliance with Japan's right-wing nationalists. In addition to the typical vice crimes associated with organized crime everywhere, the yakuza are well ensconced in the corporate world. Their influence extends beyond Japanese borders and into other Asian countries, and even into the United States.

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After the Japanese surrendered to the Allied powers, he [Yoshio Kodama] was classified a Class A war criminal—a distinction reserved only for cabinet ministers, ultra-nationalists and high-ranking military leaders—and served two years in prison before being released as part of a general amnesty. A fervent anti-Communist with access to valuable information regarding Communist movements in China and Japan and an army of street criminals at his disposal, Kodama became an attractive asset for the occupying forces. Just as Lucky Luciano provided the Mafia's services to the invading Allied forces in Sicily during World War II, Kodama acted as go-between for the G-2 section of the occupational forces and the yakuza, and was able to mobilize battalions of gangsters to carry out his political will. The CIA paid him $150,000 in 1949 to use his underworld connections to smuggle a shipload of tungsten out of China, a shipment that never arrived, although Kodama kept his fee.

Kodama used the yakuza to suppress anything that might be considered a Communist initiative. In 1949 Kodama ordered one crime group, the Meiraki-gumi, to disrupt a labor movement at the Hokutan Coal Mine. A fervent nationalist, Kodama used his clout in the hope that the honor and glory of the Japanese empire could one day be restored. To that end he modernized the bickering and disorganized yakuza gangs and brokered coalitions between the larger factions, throwing their combined support to the conservative, anti-Communist Liberal Democratic Party. Personally Kodama detested warfare and abhorred street hoods, although they were an important part of his power base. Ironically his dream was to insure a peaceful Japan.

Kodama was a pivotal figure in the notorious Lockheed scandal that emerged in 1976 when it was revealed that the aircraft giant had paid the godfather more than two million dollars to influence the Japanese market away from McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing and toward Lockheed. To do this, Kodama sent a gang of sokaiya (shareholders' meeting men) to disrupt a meeting of All Nippon Airways stockholders. The sokaiya spread rumors of an illegal million-dollar loan made to the president of the company, Tetsuo Oba, who had rejected Lockheed's bid for a new fleet of passenger aircraft. The pressure mounted on Oba, and he was soon forced to resign. His replacement was handpicked by Kodama, and the new president was more favorably disposed to purchasing Lockheed's wide-bodied jets. In 1976 Carl Kotchian, Lockheed's president, was called to testify before a United States Senate committee investigating the Lockheed scandal. The ripple effect of his shocking testimony reached back to Japan, spurring the national police to investigate Kodama's participation in the scandal. Though the police could not uncover enough proof to prosecute Kodama on charges stemming from the Lockheed incident, they found that he had evaded taxes on more than $6 million. The public was outraged by the enormity of Kodama's tax-fraud scheme. In fact, a distraught young actor who had been a great admirer of Kodama's attempted to crash a small airplane into Kodama's suburban Tokyo house.

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A Korean gang from Osaka, the Meiyu-kai, was [Yakuza's next leader, Kazuo Taoka] Taoka's next target, and its defeat gave the Yamaguchi-gumi a controlling share of the Osaka rackets. Operating like a wartime commanding general, Taoka moved in on the Miyamoto-gumi next and swallowed their ranks into his own. In the 1960s even the great Kodama had to negotiate with Taoka to keep the Yamaguchi-gumi from muscling into Yokohama.

In 1972 Kodama brokered a historic pact between the Yamaguchi-gumi and Tokyo's powerful Inagawa-kai. The deal was sealed at Taoka's home in a traditional sakazuki ceremony in which blood brotherhood was sworn over elaborately poured cups of sake. After the sake was consumed, the empty ceremonial cups were wrapped in paper and put away inside the representatives' kimonos. The men then clasped one another's hands, and a go-between declared the ceremony completed. The Yamaguchi-Inagawa alliance created a yakuza behemoth with only four of Japan's prefectures free of their control.

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The Korean yakuza are a powerful presence in Japan, despite the fact that Koreans suffer discrimination in Japanese society. Although Japanese-born people of Korean ancestry are a significant segment of the Japanese population, they are still considered resident aliens. But Koreans, who are often shunned in legitimate trades, are embraced by the Japanese yakuza precisely because they fit the group's "outsider" image. The man who paved the way for Koreans in Japanese organized crime was the Korean yakuza godfather Hisayuki Machii.

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Sex-related enterprises are the yakuza's bread and butter, and they cater to the wild side of Japan's overworked, buttoned-down "salary men." The yakuza smuggle truckloads of pornographic films and magazines into Japan from Europe and America. They control prostitution rings throughout the country, commonly holding young women from other Asian countries captive as indentured servants and forcing them to work as "comfort workers." The Japanese euphemistically refer to the act of prostitution as "selling spring," and Japanese johns have a taste for very young women, as demonstrated by the national obsession with young women in school-girl outfits complete with short pleated skirts and knee socks. The yakuza buy unwanted female children from China--where the law restricts couples to only one child and the cultural preference is for boys--for as little as $5,000 and put them to work in the mizu shobai (literally the "water business"), the yakuza's network of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. [Big Apple Oriental Tours? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1472612/posts ]

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The yakuza also make millions of dollars a year through corporate extortion, and the sokaiya (shareholders' meeting men) are the masters of this enterprise. Sokaiya will buy a small number of shares in a company so that they can attend shareholders' meetings. In preparation for the meeting, the sokaiya gather damaging information about the company and its officers; secret mistresses, tax evasion, unsafe factory conditions, and pollution are all fodder for the sokaiya. They will then contact the company's management and threaten to disclose whatever embarrassing information they have at the shareholders' meeting unless they are "compensated." If management does not give in to their demands, the sokaiya go to the shareholders' meeting and raise hell, shouting down anyone who dares to speak, making a boisterous display of their presence, and shouting out their damaging revelations. In Japan, where people fear embarrassment and shame much more than physical threats, executives usually give the sokaiya whatever they want.

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Another sokaiya scam is to set up booster clubs that solicit donations for non-existent causes. They also throw gala events to which the invited businessmen are expected to bring cash gifts for their hosts. Such events have been known to net more than $100,000 in a single night. The sokaiya have also organized beauty pageants for the purpose of shaking down corporate "sponsors," and sokaiya golf tournaments come with pricey entrance fees for their corporate players. These corporate racketeers have also been known to sell blocks of tickets to theater events at grossly inflated prices. Anything to extort money out of legitimate companies in the most polite and indirect way possible.

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The yakuza have also put down roots in California where they have made alliances with Korean and Vietnamese gangs and furthered their traditional partnerships with the Chinese triads. Los Angeles is particularly attractive because of the influx of young actresses desperate to get their big break in the film industry. Yakuza shills have become adept at luring these vulnerable women into porn films and prostitution. Japanese men, whether on sex tours or at home in Japan, often desire western women, particularly blondes.

Like most American organized crime groups, the yakuza love Las Vegas, where gambling—both legal and illegal—is everywhere. Showgirls and hookers are also plentiful in Vegas, and the yakuza are instrumental in steering Asian tourists to establishments owned by Americans who pay substantial "finder's fees."

Yakuza members have even been spotted in New York City, where they have made loose alliances with the American Mafia. Although cultural differences and the language barrier make a strong bond nearly impossible, the two groups have been able to cooperate in illegal gambling operations, with the yakuza channeling Japanese tourists to illicit after-hours casinos around the city.

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