Tag: yakuza

Hide your pinkies!

In what can only be characterized as yet again, life imitating art, and thus, numerous direct to video movies, Japan’s top yakuza boss, Kenichi Shinoda, was released from prison after having served a sentence for illegal possession of a firearm. We’d comment on how that seems like a weak thing to be put in the hoose-gow over, but we’re a-scared of ninjas. It doesn’t help that Shinoda is the head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the nation’s largest yakuza organization, with around 35,000 members.

In 2009, a huge police crackdown lead to the disruption of the gang’s activities, but not before Shinoda greatly expanded the Yamaguchi-gumi’s influence by making deals with other gangs. And while Shinoda may be a gang leader, you kind of have to be in awe of a guy who previously went to jail for killing a “rival” with a samurai sword. That’s pretty bad-ass, even if it’s Highlander-ish in origin.

Shinoda is now heading home to Kobe, though I’m sure the arms of the Yamaguchi-gumi are warmly awaiting him. We gladly think that “Boss Shinoda” is an awesome name please don’t kill us.

Fake viagra is the most egregious fake blue pill of them all

So it’s a Friday night and you’re looking for a good time. Me? I tend have a few drinks with friends. But maybe you need some Viagra to get you through the shame of having to deal with a hooker (not that there’s anything wrong with that in Las Vegas).

The National Police Agency in Japan has announced that even more yakuza have been arrested in an Osaka drug ring for selling fake Viagra to thrill seekers like yourself. Two Yamaguchi-gumi members were arrested again on charges of unauthorized pharmaceutical sales, with a third member also getting thrown in the clink.

The police found 13,000 fake Viagra tablets in a Naniwa condo, which they believe is one of the bases for the drug ring. Officials suspect that the drug profits are being redirected back to the organization itself. The three yakuza who were arrested are suspected of selling 120 pills without a license to three men for about 39,000 yen between April 27 and May 5.

So what’s wrong with the fake Viagra? No, the problem is that it’s equivalent to about two regular Viagra. You might think that having a raging hard-on that could take down small cities with one fell swoop wouldn’t be that bad, except for when you watch an episode of House or E.R. and realize how exactly to rid yourself of a little condition called priapism. That, and the fake pills can cause heart attacks and death. Yeep.

I guess it’s lucky for the customers of the yakuza that they made it out unscathed. Although one of them even had the audacity to complain, “It was relatively cheap and it worked. What’s the crime in that?” Double yeep.

Keeping your finger-the latest version of a dowery

It’s no secret that Japan’s graying population and shrinking birthrate are major concerns, and everyone is being asked to pitch in and help out in their own way. From attractive public service billboards to special cash bonuses, businesses and government are all working to encourage the young people left in the country to get busy and make more young people.

What’s really weird is that there’s now an industry. Opportunities are to be found everywhere to be labeled as “marriage brokers”, or people who matchmake without the help of a weird website and weirder commercials. Obviously, if there’s a new industry, then there’s opportunity for crime. Fifteen men with ties to the yakuza have been arrested for running a series of marriage brokering scams and making off with as much as 1 billion yen from 200 victims. It’s hard out there for a yakuza.

Posing as “celebrity marriage brokers”, the gangsters would entice victims into signing up for their service with a “membership fee” of about 100,000 yen, and then setting up dates with accomplice “sakura” girls. Each date would cost a fee to set up along with various “deposits” and convenience charges. The client would then be strung along for more and more dates as his bride-to-be feigned growing affection. When the time was right, the gangsters and their girls would just disappear. One victim was taken for nearly 80 million yen. Their scams also went small-scale, targeting rural, lower-income marks for about 100,000 yen apiece. Victims in those cases were more likely to just write off the losses rather than shame themselves trying to get their money back.

Do the yen to dollar translation yourself. And no, we won’t make a joke about a shotgun wedding.

Staying G’d up is too costly

Like most businesses in Japan at the moment, the yakuza are also feeling the economic recession squeeze. The Japanese mafia has purged some of their ranks in an attempt to save themselves; like out of work yakuza Taro Hiramatsu. He said,

“The yakuza have been hit by the financial crisis because they’ve invested in the stock market among other things. For yakuza today, money buys everything, including senior positions.”

Meaning, no money, no job; and for him that would cost something like $30,000 a month to the organization. One of the reasons why the yakuza are in this situation, is because of their gradual evolution from street gangster to ‘investment bankers with guns’. In 1992 the police began to crack down on yakuza crimes, forcing their bosses to be liable for the crimes committed by their cannon fodder. After this, the yakuza began to pick on the big boys, extorting money from blue-chip companies and the like. They then began investing in stocks, real estate, and other things a normal business would invest in; thusly making them susceptible to the troubles of every-day men.

The only thing to save the yakuza now is to return to their roots and start getting their hands dirty once again. For the sake of all of us, they must! It’s the only way to save all of our vices in these harsh economic times!