Japan: yakuza weakens and police focus on social media criminals

A senior member of the yakuza was arrested for allegedly stealing Pokémon cards near Tokyo in April, a case that highlights how Japanese organized crime groups are struggling with declining membership numbers.

The police officers who a few years ago were busy dealing with thousands of members of the Yakuza have observed a new phenomenon: disorganized and loosely connected groups that they believe are behind a series of crimes that in the past were dominated by the Yakuza.

The police call them “tokuryu”, anonymous gangsters and young experts in technology hired for specific jobs. They often cooperate with Yakuzawhich blurs the distinction between the two and makes it difficult to police investigationssay experts and authorities.

Currently, the metropolitan police Tokyo investigates six suspects between 20 and 30 years old, most of them with no ties to each other, whom it believes were recruited through the social networks to kill, transport and burn the bodies of an elderly couple on the bank of a river in Nasu, 200 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

“It’s a crime that is carried out like a part-time job“said Taihei Ogawa, a former police investigator and expert in criminality, on an internet talk show. “Tasks are divided, making it difficult for police to figure out where instructions come from”.

The number of members of the Yakuza fell to 20,400 last year, a third of what it was two decades ago, according to the National Police Agency. The decline is largely attributed to legislation to combat organized crimewhich includes measures such as prohibiting members of designated groups from opening bank accounts, renting apartments, purchasing cell phones or purchasing insurance, according to authorities.

In the past, the Yakuza He operated from well-marked offices, often with signs on the facade and symbols of his trade, such as lanterns and samurai swords, visible through the windows. Movies and cartoons often depicted them as noble outlaws with a code of honor. Their usual activity was extortion, gambling, prostitution, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and bribery in construction.

But gang violence in several neighborhoods — including the 2007 fatal shooting of Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito during his election campaign — has since led the government to tighten gun control, anti-terrorism laws and organized crime and other anti-gang measures.

Residents and businesses have also mobilized, filing dozens of lawsuits against those groups to ban them from their communities. In December 2022, the city of Fukuoka sought a court order to close an office of the Kobe branch of the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza near primary and secondary schools, forcing it off the street six months later.

The aging of yakuza members and its financial difficulties have also affected the organization, according to experts.

The number of members detained in 2023 dropped to 9,610, down from 22,495 in 2014, police said.

The strong measures against Yakuza have led many of its members to resign and others to go underground. But they have also encouraged younger generations to join “tokuryu” groups instead of the criminal structures said Noboru Suetomi, a criminologist and yakuza expert, in a recent article.

The police describe the “tokuryu” as groups “anonymous and fluid” that are repeatedly formed and dissolved through social networks to carry out scams, illegal gambling, prostitution and other crimes, often remotely or even from abroad.

They recruit members who are not connected to each other and assign them specific functions. According to the police, although they often cooperate with conventional yakuza, they invest their profits in illegal businesses. “They have become a threat to public safety“, the authorities noted.

Although figures are difficult to track, more than 10,000 people linked to the “tokuryu” were arrested between 2021 and 2023 for alleged fraud, illegal drug trade and other crimes, such as forging identity documents, according to records.

In April 2022, police dismantled a network of 19 anonymously recruited people who operated a fake telecommunications company from Cambodia and defrauded an elderly Japanese man. A year later, Tokyo police arrested six people who got in touch through social media and carried out a notorious daytime robbery of watches and jewelry valued at 300 million yen ($1.92 million) at a store. of the capital’s luxurious Ginza district.

Police Chief Yasuhiro Tsuyuki said in a meeting with the prefectures’ main criminal investigators on Monday that “tokuryu” have been part of the growing cases of scams through social networks and have become a “serious concern”. Furthermore, he urged police across the country to join forces to tackle the problem and also cooperate with foreign authorities.

Tsuyuki maintained that the police must drastically change its measures against organized crime to deal with the new threat and called for an organizational restructuring and the collaboration of all investigation departments, from cyber to theft and fraud.

To reinforce measures, the police launched a joint investigation unit specialized in social networks and telephone scams in April. The agency also stepped up policing in entertainment districts and measures against juvenile delinquents and motorcycle gangs.