The Mainichi ran an article recently about how the the tournament has been affected, citing an increase of empty seats as just one of the issues facing his highly-monitored event. A great bit of flavor comes from an account of two fans who got into a fight because one offhandedly said the other looked like a yakuza:

「暴力団……」。２日目の取組終了後、黒いサングラスをつけていた愛知県安城市の男性（６２）が会場の外に出ようとしたところ、他の観客の男性からこうささやかれた。２人は口論になり、警察官が仲裁に入った。

サングラスの男性は「まさか自分が暴力団に間違われるとは。頭にくる。雰囲気が異常だった。名古屋場所は開催すべきではなかったのではないか」と憤った。

At the end of the second day of the tournament, a 62-year-old man from Aichi Prefecture who was wearing black sunglasses was exciting the arena when a fellow fan mumbled, “bouryokudan…” The two got into an argument that ended after security guards intervened.

The man with the glasses commented angrily, “How dare he mistake me for a gang member. It’s really insulting. The whole atmosphere here is really strange. Maybe they shouldn’t have held the tournament at all.”

The article goes on to report that a woman in charge of the information desk at the tournament says that they haven’t gotten even half the number of viewers they typically host and that there’s been a number of cancellations.

Comments from those who did attend the tournament seem to indicate a common sentiment that the entire thing has been blown out of proportion. One 60-year-old local said he thinks the punishment against Kotomitsuki  is too harsh for just gambling on baseball, while a middle school student commented that he wished the Sumo Association “would consider the fans.”

Other news reports tell tales of a large but still disappointing turnout on the first day. While 90% capacity is considered “full house” for the event, the July 11 opening reportedly saw 7,200 of the 8,100–or 89 percent–of the arena’s seats filled. This year was the first since 1985 that the tournament couldn’t roll out their “manin onrei banner,” signaling a full house. Reports of the second day, cite attendance numbers even lower at only around 4,500–800 fewer than last year.

A number of sponsors have also pulled out, leaving the tournament with around 80 percent fewer prizes than in past years. It was reported that on the second day of the event had only 12 gifts, the third 10, and according to the Mainichi, today saw only 11. Understandable that Japanese companies are pulling out sponsorship in the face of scandal (some of us probably remember the heat sponsors gave poor Tsuyoshi Kusanagi after his romp in Roppongi), but it certainly can’t be very encouraging for wrestlers who are already battling it out to a bunch of empty seats.

Jake has much to say on the subject, of course, and has offered his underworld knowledge to various media as they rush to cover what is looking to be a major turning point in Japan’s largest traditional sport.

From AFP:

Experts point to a shortage of money that has made sumo wrestlers and stables vulnerable to organized crime. Sumo’s popularity is falling as baseball and football have become the country’s most popular sports.

“The yakuza have always been huge supporters of sumo, financially and in other capacities,” said Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice and a specialist on organised crime in Japan.

“Many sumo wrestlers have yakuza ‘patrons’ who give them money under the table to supplement the sumo wrester’s meagre income and reward them for their victories or encourage them to train harder.”

Read Japan’s sumo bodyslammed by scandal.

And The Observer:

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice and an authority on organised crime in Japan, said the scandal was connected with a fresh crackdown on a notoriously violent faction within the Yamaguchi-gumi that also had strong ties to the sumo world. “The media haven’t suddenly decided to expose the relationship between sumo and the yakuza,” Adelstein said. “The details were leaked to them by the police.

“Failed sumo wrestlers often end up as yakuza enforcers. The sumo world and the yakuza world have long been intertwined. Some ex-sumo wrestlers have even become yakuza bosses.”

Read Sumo threatened by scandal and crime.

Jake expounds on the topic:

The current scandals involving Japan’s organized crime groups, the yakuza, and the Sumo Association, and the sport of sumo itself shouldn’t be seen as an aberration in Japanese society or something that has never existed before–that would be missing the point. It simply is one battle in a war between Japan’s National Police Agency and Japan’s most powerful criminal organization, the Yamaguchi-gumi, that began in September of 2009. The damage inflicted on the image of sumo as Japan’s national sport and the careers of many wrestlers–they simply are casualties of war. And in the case of the Sumo Association, some of those wounds are also decidedly self-inflicted.

The story really began at last year’s Nagoya tournament when member of the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodokai were given front-row seats at the match and appeared in the NHK television broadcasts. This allegedly was to express solidarity with their jailed boss, Tsukasa Shinobu, who is serving time on fire-arm charges. (In prison, yakuza are allowed to watch sumo matches but not other sports events, and especially not boxing.) The expressed reasons for the yakuza presence may be true but in reality, yakuza often get the best seats at sumo matches and sports events, particularly at sumo matches. This is because they are often a source of revenue for the smaller sumo stables and yakuza and sumo ties have always been strong. In any event, the Kodo-kai members parading in front of the television cameras did not go unnoticed by the authorities. However, the Aichi Prefectural Police were aware of the special seating arrangements for Kodo-kai members since 2006 according to police sources; it simply wasn’t an issue for them.

In September of 2009, Ando Tokuharu, the head of Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA) declared war on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai (4,000 members), the ruling faction of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest syndicate (36,000 members) and directed all police departments in Japan to devote their energies to arresting Kodo-kai members, crippling their businesses and front companies, destroying their revenue sources, removing their spheres of influence, and inflicting as much damage to the group as possible, by any means possible. The declaration partly has to deal with the Kodo-kai’s attempts to intimidate police officers and their refusal to honor the unwritten agreements of cooperation between law enforcement and organized crime that have existed for decades. From October of 2009, discussions began at the NPA level on how to expose the Kodo-kai and sumo world ties in a way that would do the maximum damage to the Kodo-kai’s reputation. The police have always known that sumo and the yakuza were connected. Now for the first time they were ready to make an issue of it.

In January of 2010, the Sumo Association agreed to ban yakuza from attending matches after immense pressure from the NPA, and they publicly proclaimed that they would do so. This helped set the stage for what was to come later. In May of 201o, the police leaked to the media that at the 2009 Nagoya Tournament a total of 55 Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai members had been in front row or prime seats at the event. NHK, Japan’s version of the BBC, which televises the tournaments, “scooped” the story on May 25th of this year. (There are plausible rumors amongst other reporters that NHK was spoon-fed the story by the NPA, which also knew that NHK would have the footage, because of course, NHK were the same people who originally aired the matches). This forced the Sumo Association to conduct an internal investigation and more or less banish the Sumo Association executives who had arranged for the yakuza to receive the special reserved premium spots. Even though the Nagoya tournament incident predated the Sumo Association pledge to forbid yakuza from attending matches, in the public eye, it made the Sumo Association look hypocritical and it also tarnished the image of the Kodo-kai as well. In addition, the police leak of this information created dissent and chaos within the Sumo Association–a situation advantageous to the police who planned to play sides against each other in an attempt to expose the baseball gambling and yakuza connections.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Organized Crime Control Bureau has been peripherally aware of Yamaguchi-gumi ties to the sumo world since the investigation of Suruga Corporation in late 2007-March 2008. Suruga Corporation, once listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, employed a Yamaguchi-gumi front company to consolidate real estate projects by scaring away tenants in areas ripe for real estate development. They also sold condominiums in Mongolia to Japanese businessmen and Asashoryu and other Mongolian sumo wrestlers functioned as salesmen/brokers in the operations. At Suruga Corporation sponsored parties to sell the condominiums, sumo wrestlers and yakuza fraternized with businessmen representing major Japanese corporations investing in Mongolia. In that investigation, other ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi and the sumo world were also noted. It should be noted that while the yakuza working for Suruga were arrested for violations of the lawyer laws, no one from Suruga Corporation was arrested or prosecuted for hiring them. This may have been because on the board of directors was a former NPA bureaucrat from the Organized Crime Control Bureau and a retired prosecutor. It may simply be that under current Japanese law asking an organized crime front company to settle land disputes itself is not necessarily a crime.

This year, the Mongolian born sumo wrestler Asashoryu assaulted a civilian and paid damages to keep it quiet, but the story was leaked to the media nevertheless. The resulting scandal forced him to retire. The “victim” in this case reportedly repeatedly provoked and poked and prodded Asashoryu until the point where Asashoryu lost his temper and punched him. The “victim” also allegedly had ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi  and other anti-social forces, including the Inagawakai, which is now very much under the Yamaguchi-gumi umbrella. What the authorities believe and so did other Mongolian Sumo wrestlers in the Sumo Association, was that Asashoryu was set up for a fall by a rival Japanese sumo wrestler faction in the organization which wanted to get rid of him and diminish the Mongolian faction influence. They supposedly did this by outsourcing the work to the Yamaguchi-gumi’s Kodo-kai. Whether that was the case or not, when Asashoryu was questioned by the police about the incident, he talked about a lot of things and aired a lot of grievances. As did the Sumo wrestlers who were kicked out for alleged use of marijuana. Note: I wouldn’t want to imply that Asashoryu was solely responsible for the baseball gambling investigation or the cause of the story to break or that he was the sole person talking to the police, that would put him in a rather precarious position.  He’s a piece of the puzzle. As early as January of this year, the National Police Agency had solid intelligence from both the Aichi Prefectural Police Department and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department that a number of sumo wrestlers were socializing with the yakuza and gambling with them as well.

The “sumo wrestlers betting on baseball” story was leaked to Shukan Shincho by the police. Just as in October of 2008, the police leaked to the same magazine the story of how Japanese gang boss Goto had a lavish birthday party attended by celebrities, including famous enka singers. The mass media then picked up the story, the Shukan Shincho article turned out to be correct, and NHK banned the attending singers (Kobayashi Akira etc.) from appearing on television. Just as NHK is now not broadcasting the Sumo tournament. In Goto’s case, the scandal resulted in his fall from power. In the case of the Kodo-kai, top level executives will be forced to resign or be arrested for their part in the baseball betting operations. In fact, the arrest of yakuza crime boss, Mori Kenji, (Yamaguchi-gumi Tsukasa Kogyo), on gambling charges, several weeks ago may be part of the current investigation as well. In his hotel suite, where he held a traditional gambling session, sumo wrestlers, celebrities, and some corporate executives were also alleged to be in attendance. One part of the　sumo-yakuza-gambling scandal that may never come to light is that, not only were sumo wrestlers were participating in the gambling, so were some executives from the Japanese companies sponsoring the sumo tournaments. For those reasons, the investigation is likely to be cut off at a predetermined point before it becomes an international embarrassment. Established connections between gambling, yakuza, sumo and major Japanese corporations wouldn’t reflect well on the business image of Japan. There is already a proposal to “pin the crime” on low-level yakuza boss who died of natural causes last year, designating him the “puppet master” who ran the show. Dead men make the perfect fall guys and don’t say things they shouldn’t.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is doing their job and doing it in the way they’ve probably always wanted to do it. Except now they are acting with the approval of the National Police Agency from the top down. When the curtain is pulled away, it will be revealed that the Yamaguchi-gumi was running most of the bookie operations, that they made the baseball betting possible and that the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumo Association ties have been strong for several years. (Some of the bookie operations were run by different crime groups in different regions.) In the end, the NPA will achieve another victory in its war on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai. Their biggest victory will be in terms of public relations. By showing that the yakuza have corrupted Japan’s national sport, they turn public opinion against the yakuza and create an atmosphere where stronger anti-organized crime laws are likely to be supported.

Ironically, the exposure of sumo wrestlers involved in high-stakes gambling operations run by the yakuza and Sumo Association executives giving special perks and favors to yakuza–these very issues also came to light because some Sumo Association members tried to use the yakuza to solve internal conflicts within the organization, and many Sumo wrestlers were happy to be on the organized crime dole.

All over Japan’s legislation on the local government level, there are laws which are pending which would make it a crime to pay money or offer rewards to the yakuza for any services performed. The new laws will in essence punish not just the yakuza for their crimes but the civilians who utilize them as well. A similar law is already on the books regarding racketeers (sokaiya) and it had a devastating effect on that as an illegal business.

However, all the law really does is put into legal code Japanese folk wisdom that has been around for years: “When you curse someone, dig two graves.” Or as some Japanese cops jokingly put it, “When you use the yakuza to get what you want, you’re sure to get something you don’t want as well.”

Update 07/11/2010

The article here, Ex-Sumo Wrestler Involved In Baseball Gambling Connected to Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai is in  Japanese, from Sankei Newspaper, but it discusses the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai connection to the current scandal in explicit terms. In May of this year, Ando Tokuhara, the head of the National Police Agency, obliquely hinted at the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai and Sumo connections in his press release of instructions (kunji) to Japan’s police department heads,  which called for a crackdown on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai, including their banishment from Japanese society and reduction of their spheres of influence, while explicitly mentioning the Sumo Association.

Also it’s worth mentioning that the excellent book, Sumo: A Thinking Fan’s Guide To The National Sport by David Benjamin, almost foretells the current troubles on pages 231-233, in an entry called “Cracks In the Facade.”  It starts off describing how powerful the Sumo Association has been in Japan for years, cozying up with major media, suppressing any scandal.  It notes that in recent years: “The weekly magazines had become so persistent, in accusations about matters like hazing, links to the Mob, and yaochozumo (fixed matches), that the Sumo Association could no longer keep such stories entirely out of the mainstream press.Two ex-rikishi, reportedly ready to spill the beans about yaocho, died mysteriously.”

I’d almost forgotten about those unfortunate two. It always struck me as a little odd that both whistle blowers should fall ill and die in the same hospital shortly after holding press conferences where they announced that they were ready to blow the lid off the dirty diaper bin of the sumo world. (Probably just a coincidence. Squealers and whistle blowers in the sumo world probably tend to feel so bad about betraying the sport, that they invariably get really sick and die, of the same illness, around the same time–which is why you only need to do one autopsy for every two mysteriously deceased wrestlers)

However, I think the two dead rikishi held one of their press conferences at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan, that means there should exist an audio recording of the conference or a transcript. Any enterprising reporter who’d like to “dig up” that story and is in good health, good luck.

Also check out  Tokyo Reporter’s summary of weekly magazine reporting on the dismal state of sumo affairs and organized crime links.  As usual, Brett does a stellar job of putting the popular press spin on events into context: Sumo worlds ties to gangsters baseball betting have long legacy.

The Nagoya Tournament, which NHK is not broadcasting, opened as planned. A reporter friend in Nagoya says the police presence there is immense.  It marks the first time that the Aichi Prefectural Police have posted organized crime control division detectives to guard the entrances and check for a yakuza presence. It isn’t just to keep the yakuza from watching the contest. The National Police Agency quietly fears that a sumo wrestler will be killed or have their “suicide” arranged by the Yamaguchi-gumi as a warning to others to keep their mouths shut.  It only takes one death or serious assault to make thirty people suddenly very quiet and forgetful. This makes investigations difficult.

However, the yakuza don’t always have to use direct brute force to get a point across. If I were a sumo wrestler who’d admitted to participating in gambling or had talked at length to the police, I’d be extremely careful when eating my chanko nabe; I’d probably insist on making my own, with no added secret ingredients.

Finally, Mori Kenji, a recently arrested Yamaguchi-gumi Kodokai member, was also reported to have attended Asashoryu’s birthday party last year.  By now, no one should be surprised that the yakuza and the sumo wrestlers associate with each other–the question is just how symbiotic the relationship really has become.  Recent reports suggest that many of the shops and businesses selling Sumo tickets are also run by the yakuza as well. What many fear is that when you remove the yakuza support and sponsorship of the Sumo wrestlers and the smaller Sumo stables, the whole thing will began to collapse under its own weight.

Update 07/12/2010 (corrections to previous posts are colored)

The Sumoforum.net has some very interesting posts on this subject, some poking holes in this article, some supporting it. In any event, most of it is rather intelligent discourse and polite–something quite rare for on-line forums about any subject.  I could be wrong, of course. I will point out that what I wrote in Tokyo Vice in 2008 about Goto-gumi, Goto Tadamasa’s links to Sokagakkai and powerful politicians and his liver transplant at UCLA were more or less confirmed with the publication of Goto’s memoirs in May of 2010 (this year). He’s donating all of his profits on the book to charity, which is very nice of him. Just wanted to say that I’m right some of the time.

Anyway, reading the posts which express reasonable doubts made me decide to add more source materials where possible (although not everything could be found in English).  Check out the forum yourself if you’re interested in following the story. I’m taking a break from it until the first arrests or  perhaps until the TMPD files papers on the dead yakuza boss. (It’s a classic way of solving a case–blame it on a dead guy, file charges with the prosecutors (shoruisoken) and then call it a day. Case closed).

According to the National Police Agency, even more yakuza have been arrested in an Osaka drug ring selling fake Viagra to unsuspecting fun-seekers. Two members of the Yamaguchi-gumi were arrested again (see the original report here) and are being held in custody on charges of unauthorized sale of pharmaceuticals after they were caught last month illegally selling fake Viagra. A third Yamaguchi-gumi member was also arrested.

Police discovered 13,000 tablets of the fake Viagra in a Naniwa condo, what they believe is one of the ring’s bases for selling the erectile dysfunction medication. It’s thought that the proceeds from the business were directed back into the organization. The three are suspected of selling 120 tablets without a license to three men for a total of 39,000 yen between April 27 and May 5.

The “fake Viagra” the yakuza are selling, according to police, is about twice as potent as normal Viagra–essentially the active ingredient Sildenafil. An overdose of Viagra–very possible with this much Sildenafil–can cause a lot more than an overly persistent erection, occasionally resulting in heart attacks or death.

It seems like the yakuza’s lucky customers escaped such a fate, however. In his statement to the police, one of them allegedly complained,”It was relatively cheap and it worked. What’s the crime in that?”

While the system to be used has yet to be decided, the JSDA is hoping to cut down an investigation process that used to take several days into a simple search that can be done instantly. Up until now, the NPA would cooperate with inquiries from the JSDA or individual securities companies, providing certian information on organized crime members. Police have yet to decide how to handle so-called junko seiin, or those who are not officially related to a specific yakuza group but are suspected of having connections.

Last September, banks changed their regulations–no longer allowing organized crime members to open or hold an account–but have yet to set up a database to search for members. Similarly, the JSDA plans to make it obligatory for companies to add such a clause in new and existing account contracts as of July. They too had plans to use a private database to enforce the regulations, but costs proved to be too high.

Says the Mainichi, anti-organized crime laws have made it increasingly difficult for gangs to reap great profits through securities, and a number of groups have begun conspiring with ex-employees of securities companies to do business. Some point to a higher amount of gang activity in emerging markets due to more lax listing standards.

(Info from the Yomiuri and the Mainichi)

The move by the NPA to share part of their undoubtedly broad wealth of information on the yakuza is a good first step. As was addressed at the FCCJ press conference for Fujitsu ex-president Kuniaki Nozoe, although companies are obligated to do research to ensure they are not involved with any “anti-social forces,” police refusal to give up the necessary information officially (as opposed to unofficially) makes the process time consuming and difficult. As regulations against organized crime groups get tighter, the least police could do is make compliance easier. Now there’s the question of what kind of privacy issues will erupt…

Previously, transaction fraud was done by scammers pretending to be a relative of the victim–usually an elderly person. Known commonly as an  “Ore Ore” scam, a scammer would call the unsuspecting victim, claiming he was a relative and that he needed money deposited into his bank account because he had gotten mixed up in trouble with a yakuza and was being threatened.

But beginning around November of last year, Osaka police began to receive reports of a different type of scam, from local businesses instead of the typical elderly victim. Callers now directly threaten victims with claims of being yakuza, demanding deposits into their bank accounts from companies ranging from construction companies to foods wholesalers. The article reports that one company received a call demanding a deposit of ¥70,000 for dry cleaning charges–because a company vehicle had run over a can of juice and splashed the “yakuza” member’s suit.

All those affected drive vehicles with their company names and phone numbers printed on the car or truck, and many have reported feelings of being tailed by suspicious vehicles. Police believe the group of scammers may be prowling around looking for potential victims.

The number of bank transaction fraud cases fall drastically last year, and authorities believe that scammers have changed their techniques because traditional “Ore Ore” scams have become less effective. According to a survey of local citizens by the Osaka Prefecture organized crime elemination center, 63.4% of respondents found organized crime groups “somewhat scary” to “extremely frightening.”

Pre-paid USB wifi cards from eMobile, one of several companies that offer the service.

According to an organized crime watchdog, police in Wakayama Prefecture have uncovered a child pornography ring that was able to set up a website selling DVDs by abusing the anonymity of pre-paid wireless Internet cards. Pre-paid Internet access through USB wireless modems are becoming increasingly popular, as use does not require a contract with a provider. Authorities arrested five members of the ring last month on violations of child prostitution and pornography laws, and are currently looking for a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliated gang member who they believe to be the ringleader.

Police say the group operated the website selling pornographic DVDs featuring girls under 18 and sold them for 1,000 yen each. Around 2,000 DVDs, a prepaid modem and prepaid mobile phone were found at the Gunma Prefecture home of one arrested man. Other suspects were apprehended in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and elsewhere, and are believed to have used Internet cafes as bases for their operations. Customers deposited money for orders into a personal bank account located in Fukuoka. Police are investigating the ring as a potential source of income for organized crime groups.

When I was a young reporter, circa 1995, I made an appointment with a Sumiyoshikai (住吉会)boss, Kaneko Naoya, at his office in Minami-Ginza at 7pm.  I showed up at 7:20. And Kaneko was pissed. Unreasonably so, or so I thought.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said apologizing.

“Why were you late?”

“I had some work to do.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I guess I should have.”

“No, ‘I guess I should have’ isn’t good enough. You should have at least called.  And you should have been here when you said you would be here in the first place.”

I bowed my head and apologized again.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were so busy.”

“I’m not busy,” he laughed. “That’s not the point.”

“Then why are you so pissed?”

“Because you promised you would be here at 7pm.”

“Is it such a big deal? It was a little promise. (大した約束でもないでしょう)”.

He was silent for a second and then stared me in the eyes, and said, “There are no small promises. You need to learn this now if you’re going to be a good reporter and if you’re going to walk in and out of our world. If you’re going to be a man. Trust is built on little promises and it can all be lost by failure to live up to them.  All promises are important. Do you know the saying, 武士に二言はない–bushi ni nigon wa nai? *Literally—A samurai does not have a second word.

I said I wasn’t familiar with the proverb and asked him what it meant.

“It means this: a samurai values his honor, his good faith more than anything and once he has given his word, once he has made a promise he always keeps that promise. If you say it, you do it.  I’m not saying I’m a samurai but this is what an honorable man does. If you didn’t think you could have been here exactly at 7pm you shouldn’t have said that you would. “

I was a little pissed when I heard this, the way anyone is when he or she gets lectured. I thought he was just being a cantankerous old bastard or giving me crap because he could.

“I’ll say it again—I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.”

“Could not or did not? Which is it?”

And before I opened my big yap one more time, I thought about it again. I’d spent too much time at a bookstore on the way there.  I stopped to have a can of coffee. I could have been there on time—I wasn’t. For him, my answer was going to be critical in his decision if he could really trust me. I could feel that.

“Did not. I’m sorry I did not come here on time. I do not have an excuse. I will try not to do it again.

(二回と同じ失敗しないよう頑張ります.).”

He offered me a cup of tea and smiled.

“That was almost the right answer. Don’t try, just do it.

（惜しかったな。がんばるんじゃないよ。やるんだよ。約束を守るんです。）

He then very politely explained to me why I should pay attention to his words.

“When you’re a yakuza or a reporter or a cop, people count on you to keep your word, to do what you’ve said you’ll do.  In our business, sometimes we got to war—over turf, over money, over a meaningless quarrel. But that’s part of the business. If we’re going to bump heads with the Kokusuikai and one of my soldiers says that he’ll be at his post at seven pm sharp and he’s not there—what do you think will happen? Maybe the guy he’s supposed to back up will have to go in alone—maybe his buddy will get killed.  Maybe we’ll lose the chance to make the strike. Apologies don’t cut it. You’re a reporter, you have deadlines.  If you don’t meet your deadline—what happens? Can you just blow it off? Do you think your editor will just say, ‘no problem, we’ll just leave part of the paper blank.’  I don’t think so. You can get fired for things like that.  I don’t know how it is in America, and maybe I don’t know how it is for the civilians but for us, a man’s word is the most important thing in the world.  You need to learn not to promise things lightly and to know the difference between promises you can’t keep and promises you don’t keep.  Nine times out of ten, the failure to keep a promise is in yourself, not something you can blame on the world.”

I nodded once more but I think I smirked a little and he raised his finger and pointed at me quite forcefully and said, “And when you break a promise, you need to show in your attitude that you are sincerely sorry. And you should try to make amends.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“I’d like you to listen to what I’ve told you and take it to heart.  If people don’t think they can trust you, you will never be a good reporter. You have to show them that they can trust you. Every little promise you keep, every time you’re punctual, every time you do something that you said you would do—you build trust. And every missed appointment, every favor you forget, every loan you fail to repay, every time you say you’ll call and don’t—these things add up.  You do some things right.  But you still don’t get it. Think about what I’m saying. And we’ll call it even.”

Kaneko passed away years ago and I’m still not batting a hundred on keeping my promises. I still fail to keep them but I try my best to uphold them and when I can’t do it, I try to make amends as best as I can.  Lately, I’ve been so bombarded with work and other things, that I have a very hard time keeping up to date or writing back to everyone who’s read the book and is kind enough to send me a letter.  I haven’t promised I’d respond to each person but I do a feel a duty to do it—it seems like the bare minimum of required politeness.

Honor is a hard currency to trade in.  There are promises and debts that can lock you down and not let you go.  In the thick of a scary time in my life, I promised Mochizuki-san, ex-yakuza boss, my friend, bodyguard and driver—that no matter what happened I would look after him and his family. And he promised that he’d lay down his life for me if he had to, and that if he failed to do his job, he’d find the person who took me out and kill him.  Sure, it’s pretty melodramatic crap but that’s how it went.  I meant what I said and he meant what he said. It can be a cumbersome thing.

Sometimes, I’d like to leave Japan and not come back but I owe the man and his family. And until I’m reasonably sure that he, his wife and their son are taken care of, I can’t leave.  When he had to move out of his apartment on short notice, I put up the money for his moving expenses. When his car broke down, I bought him another one. I’m not wealthy but these things are essential and I scrambled each time to find the money so I could keep what I see is part of my promise to him. He has severe diabetes and that means that a minor injury can set in motion a chain of events that might result in him losing his hands or his feet. Necrosis. He’s in the hospital today. He bought a new pair of shoes and they didn’t fit well and in a short time, his foot was severely infected. It’s touch and go whether they’ll amputate or not. I’m hoping they won’t have to do it.  But even then, I’ll still take care of him. I’ll find work for him, even if he can’t walk.

It’s the same way with the Polaris Project Japan. I said I’d be a director on the board and that I would take on certain duties. Honestly, I want out of that as well, sometimes.  Valuable things come out of the work but it’s hard.  Last week, the information brought to us about a homosexual pedophile ring that makes child pornography was so horrible and unpleasant that it made me physically ill. The informant wanted us to validate the evidence before going to the cops,  and he showed it to us. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Some of what we deal with gives me flashbacks that keep me up for days. However, I said I’d do it and I’m not going to back out just because in retrospect that promise is slightly detrimental to my mental health or I didn’t quite see what I would get myself into.

God knows, there are some promises that I have colossally failed to uphold. My marriage vows would be up there. I could argue that I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I don’t have a good excuse. No one put a gun to my head. I could argue that I’m not solely at fault but so what? It doesn’t matter. All I can do is make amends for that—I’ll be paying them off financially, emotionally, and in many other ways for the rest of my life. And I should.   Not all promises are stated either. There are some promises that are understood. Journalists have an unstated promise that they will protect their sources. The sources don’t have to protect the journalist. And I can’t say I expect them to do it.  Promises are often unilateral. And sometimes honor.

As a journalist, I have a promise to protect my sources and my friends and family. I have gone to extraordinary lengths to do that and I have done some terrible things in the process. I don’t regret keeping that promise. I only regret the times I have been unable to do it. Those are the things that haunt me.

The thing is that the damages people can suffer are immense, when you fail to do your job and honor your word as a journalist.  If you blow a cop source, he might be disciplined, fired, or since technically they could be seen as  violating the government worker confidentiality laws–they might even go to jail.  If you don’t conceal a yakuza source–they might be expelled temporarily from their organization, banished for life, or just vanish, completely.   If you are careless with government sources, they might be demoted, fired or harassed for the rest of their careers.  Sometimes, to protect a source you have to kill a story. I’ve done it before. But I’d rather lose the story than lose what little honor I have left.  There will always be other news. People only have one life.

Even when we realize that we’ve made shortsighted, foolish, or difficult promises–it’s doesn’t nullify the promise. If we could retroactively change every promise we didn’t like or wish we hadn’t made—a vow wouldn’t mean anything at all. Of course, it’s hard to learn to not make those promises in the first place. Maybe that’s even harder than keeping a promise, learning the gravitas of our words. But when you break them, no matter how foolish they might have been–if you don’t at least regret it and ponder it, you haven’t yet learned anything. And ultimately that lack of regret makes a person untrustworthy and prone to do it again. People remember every missed appointment, every casually promised thing not delivered, or book not returned. Just as they remember every little favor you have done, or kindness you have bestowed upon them, or little promise to them that you kept.  These all add up when we judge a person and ourselves and how others judge us as well.  And if they don’t, they should.

I don’t have many close friends and it’s probably because I hold people to the same standards that I try to live up to. Maybe that’s not fair.  I don’t know. But the people who are my close friends, are invariably very good about keeping their word.  They don’t forget. They pay their debts. Alien Cop (as I still think of him) may be a little shady, but if he says for example, “Oh, I have a good book about the new revisions of the organized crime laws. I’ll bring it to you next time we go drinking”—well, he will bring it. I almost never have to remind him. If he says he’ll do it, he does it.  If he says, “I’ll call you back tomorrow”—he calls. It’s not a big deal, but over time, his pattern of behavior has established that he is trustworthy.  I don’t really believe that there are no small promises but each one has considerable weight.

The keeping your word thing has a lot to do with leadership, I think. There are hundreds of crappy books written about leadership.  I haven’t read many that impressed me. I’m not a leader. I work best alone with a small group of people. And I also believe if you have people following you, then you should know where the hell you are going. I have a terrible sense of direction, the proverbial sense and the literal sense, what the Japanese would call a方向音痴 (hook-onchi). Well, actually, I’m not bad navigating on horseback and out in the wild but unfortunately I don’t really have the space for a horse here.

However, I’ll defer to what  Shibata-kumicho once told me  about what it means to be a yakuza boss. I’ve internalized the words so well, that I forget they are not my own.

“If you are a leader, the people who follow you have to know that you are as good as your word and that you won’t leave them stranded behind and that if you did, you’d make every effort in the world come back for them. Or that at the very least, you wouldn’t forget about them—that you’d agonize over the decision. Otherwise, no one will follow you. The measure of a man is the promises he’s kept and the promises he hasn’t. In the end, that all we have. Our honor, our memories and the decisions we’ve made.”

I’m not a cop, or a samurai, or a yakuza but I admire some of their ideals. Maybe, I’ll come close to living up to them someday.

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In Ehime, it was reported by the Mainichi that on Dec. 15 the prefectural government started a project team for the creation of a prefecture ordinance to eliminate organized crime (県暴力団排除条例総合対策プロジェクト). The ordinance will reportedly be based on Fukuoka Prefecture’s anti-organized crime ordinance (to be put into effect next March), but contain special regulations aimed at eliminating yakuza groups from interfering with local festivals and fireworks events. The team, which is composed of police investigators from the anti-organized crime division, say they will have a proposal for the ordinance presented at the prefectural assembly meeting next February.

In nearby Hiroshima, a small town called Sera unanimously approves an ordinance (町暴力団事務所等の開設の防止に関する条例) Dec. 14 that protects local property who have dealt with dirty purchasers or leasers, allowing a contract to be dissolved or for property to be repurchased if it’s found that the property is being used as an office for yakuza business. It is the duty of real estate agents to do the appropriate due diligence to ensure they’re not dealing with a crime group, but if a property is found to be occupied by a group through no fault of the owner, police will cooperate in removing the renter. The Asahi reports that the ordinance, which goes into effect Jan. 1, is the first of its kind in the prefecture, and similar to one passed in Saga Prefecture earlier this year.

And most recently, on Dec. 17 the Nagasaki prefectural assembly chewed on an ordinance proposed by police to help prevent organized crime groups from opening offices in the area (県暴力団事務所等の排除に関する条例). According to the Asahi, the ordinance follows a case where a local Yakuza group, the Kyushu Seido-kai, was kicked out of a building in Sasebo City after locals complained to law enforcement officials in July. Also similar to the ordinance in effect in Saga, the Nagasaki ordinance differs in that due diligence is not only the obligation of the real estate agent, but also any company that does construction or renovation work on the property. The government aims to have the bill come into effect next spring.

In January 2005, ICE agents executed three federal seizure warrants targeting Los Angeles and Las Vegas bank accounts belonging to Kajiyama, 60, who is currently serving a 6 ½ year sentence in Japan on loan sharking charges. As a result of those warrants, ICE agents in Los Angeles seized two bank accounts containing approximately $342,000 from the Union Bank of California. ICE agents in Las Vegas executed a third seizure warrant targeting an account containing $250,000 in Kajiyama’s name at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. ICE agents in Los Angeles and Las Vegas coordinated closely with the agency’s attaché office in Tokyo and the Nevada Gaming Control Board on the case.

Read ICE’s announcement here.

Another article about the case can be found here.

inside japan's underworld

Hello to all the viewers of 60 Minutes or the readers of the Washington Post who have stopped by after seeing the program and/or reading the article. We’d like to thank Lara Logan and the rest of the CBS News crew for visiting Tokyo, and hope everyone enjoyed the segment!

Browse around the site to learn more about the case of Tadamasa Goto and the rest of the Japanese underworld, and don’t forget to check out information about Jake Adelstein’s new book Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan.

For those who have yet to see the 60 Minutes feature on yakuza, it’s available for online viewing here.