Original subtitles

They evolved from a noble race of warriors,

but have earned a darkened terrible reputation

during the past 400 years.

Manipulators of governments and massive amounts of money,

they can be powerful allies but fearsome opponents.

Described by some as nothing better than bullying,

drug trafficking, flesh peddlers,

they are the organized crime wave of terror from Japan.

They are, Yakuza.

The six sacred oaths that bind together

one of the most sinister and vicious crime networks

on the planet, the Japanese Yakuza.

The ancient Japanese crime syndicate known as the Yakuza,

has evolved into a global criminal organization

that is not only involved in the most evil of crimes,

but also operates massive legitimate businesses.

Investigators have attempted to penetrate the Yakuza

and became lost in a bewildering maze,

an underworld where truth and myth flick you

in the half flight of traditions born centuries ago,

during the age of the Samurai.

Like many other ethnic crime gangs,

the Yakuza can trace its roots back hundreds

may be thousands of years.

Modern records trace their origins back to as early as 1612

when people form groups known as Kabukimono,

or the crazy ones.

These people were originally called, hatamoto yakko,

literally, servants of the Shogun.

The groups comprised nearly 500,000 Samurai

that were forced into unemployment in a time of peace

during the Tokugawa era, forcing them to become Ronin

or masterless Samurai.

Many had turned into bandits, looting towns

and villages as they wandered throughout Japan.

Yet these fallen Ronin cannot truly be seen

as the forebears of the Yakuza.

Instead, the Yakuza consider their ancestors

to be the Machiako, or servants of the town.

These people took up arms and defended the villages

from the hatamoto yakko, the shogun servants.

They were simple clerks, shopkeepers, innkeepers,

laborers, homeless warriors and other Ronin.

Everyone who was part of the Machiako was an adept gambler,

which helped them develop a close-knit relationship

with each other and their leaders, much like today's Yakuza.

The Machiako soon became folk heroes,

praised by the townspeople for their actions.

Their good deeds have been described

as similar to England's Robin Hood,

and they too became the subjects of stories and plays.

But with that role came power,

and eventually power began to corrupt.

What was considered a noble endeavor,

began to feed on profit and greed.

Perhaps the best way to describe their role

is that the modern movie, "The Magnificent Seven,"

is the American retelling of the ancient Japanese legend

of the Seven Samurai.

These were people who could be hired to do the dirty work,

tasks considered taboo by the common people

or the ruling classes.

These Machiako gang members included Bakuto

or traditional gamblers.

They were first recognized during the 1700s

when the government hired them to gamble with construction

and irrigation workers.

This was to regain part of the substantial wages

the workers received.

Still, they remain people who carried with them

an aura of care for the common man.

It is an image still fostered to this day

by the modern Yakuza.

Former legislator and professor at law, Terry Gygar

says that even today, the Yakuza sees itself in the role

of outlaw heroes of the Japanese people.

They seem to be able to tell themselves

that they are sort of outcasts, but they're good outcasts.

They're the nice outlaws

who don't take from the little guys.

And in a lot of ways, it's been a great scheme for theirs.

It's very safe in Japan, very, very safe.

One of the reasons it's safe

is that no petty criminal would be gained

to operate on Yakuza territory,

and do things like beat up tourists.

That's bad for the image of the local gang,

and they'll be very severely dealt with if they do it.

It was in the 20th century

that the Yakuza began to grow in power and influence.

In Japan, they became politically active

with some of their operations receiving official sanction.

Various Japanese governments even use the Yakuza

as an unofficial police force.

Dr. Joseph Siracusa is a lecturer in crime and punishment.

He makes a chilling comparison

when exploring the roots of the modern Yakuza.

Well, they are the Cosa Nostra, the mafia of Japan.

I mean, they've been around for 300 years.

But when the Japanese were let off the hook

in the early '50s, the Yakuza had an opportunity

to become legitimate and some of them did.

At one stage, the Yakuza had more members in their gangs

than there were members of the Japanese police force.

By now, a clear cut gang structure had emerged.

At the top of the tree sits the Oyabun, or Father.

Below him is a Saiko-Komon, or advisor.

He in turn has a staff of advocates,

accountants, and secretaries.

Next is a Waka-Gashira

who is second in authority but not in rank.

This is a middleman who makes sure the Oyabun's orders

are being carried out.

Of higher rank, but with less authority is a Shatei-Gashira

who has underneath him the brothers or senior gang leaders.

The structure then fans out with each authority figure

controlling minor gangs made up of what they call,

the children.

In turn, each child can control gangs of his own,

and so it continues until clans can have many thousands

of members in total.

As the Japanese economy began to grow and prosper

in the '50s and '60s, the Yakuza again grew with it.

The ancient rights, rituals, and punishment

were refined by wartime brutality into a sadistic art form

by the Yakuza or bMryokudan,

as the authorities now call them, the violent ones.

What you don't seem to understand,

the kind of mistake you made could mean serious trouble

for all of us.

We have been put into danger.

I don't like that.

Do you like that Michihiro?

No.

Kotoro, do you like to be put in danger?

No.

Does anyone here disagree?

So that's why you must learn from your mistakes.

You will show giri, the strength of your devotion

by enduring yubitsume.

This will be a permanent reminder of your error of judgment.

You will thank us.

It was the Bakuto or gamblers

who contributed to Japan's tradition for gambling,

as well as the Yakuza's traditional finger cutting

and the origin of the word Yakuza.

The word comes from a hand in a card game called hanafuda,

or flower cards, which is similar to, "Blackjack."

Three cards are dealt per player

and the last digit of the total

counts as the number of the hand.

A hand of 20, the worst score gives a score of zero.

One such losing combination as 8, 9, 3,

or in Japanese, YAK'UZ'A which began to be widely used

to denote something useless.

This term began to be used about bakuto.

They were on the whole, useless to society.

Yubitsume, the custom of finger cutting

was introduced by the bakuto.

The top joint of the little finger is ceremoniously severed,

signifying a weakening of the hand,

which meant that the gambler

could not hold his sword as firmly.

Yubitsume was usually performed as an active apology,

or giri to the Oyabun.

Further infractions would either mean the severing

of the next joint or the top section of another finger.

It is also used as a lasting punishment

just before expulsion.

The use of tattoos also came from the criminal aspect

of the bakuto.

Criminals were usually tattooed with a black ring

around an arm for each offense he had committed.

However, the tattoos soon became a test of strength

as they were applied by undergoing hundreds of hours

for a complete back tattoo.

The tattoo also marked a misfit,

always unwilling to adapt themselves to society.

Asia Pacific, crime reporter, author and advisor,

Bob Bottom, was only a matter of time

before the modern Yakuza brazenly emerged

as a potent crime force on the world stage.

The Yakuza are so upfront,

they actually have their officers in the main streets

of the cities of Japan, and they have their names on them.

They don't hide behind dark alleys

like they might in Manhattan, or Soho,

or England, or somewhere.

They actually have formal officers and declare themselves.

They often congregate publicly and the like.

And so, they're very, very upfront.

So if they did decide to really expand, they number in the,

sometimes up to 40,000 in one Yakuza syndicate,

one would wonder what would happen.

The Yakuza in Japan run their own newspapers.

The, "Yamaguchi Gumi" newspaper.

They have their name and their badge,

they all have little badges,

on the front of their headquarters.

Their gang members wear badges

to openly proclaim who they are.

And they try and portray themselves as the fine old carriers

of the samurai tradition.

In the recent earthquakes, for example,

one of the Yakuza gang leaders gained a lot of fame

by being the first on the scene with refugee relief,

with food, with aid days ahead of the Japanese government.

This is the image they love to show themselves as,

the fine old Samurai warriors

making their way against the world.

By the '60s,

the Yakuza had an estimated 184,000 members.

Bloody and violent gang wars

on the streets of Japanese cities became a fact of life,

and weaknesses in laws actually assisted the Yakuza.

Yeah, one of the interesting things about postwar Japan

is, there were no crimes up until recent times

against money laundering.

So they were able to take their illicit profits

from other things and then launder them legally

in the Japanese banks, and securities, and exchanges

and things like that.

And as I said, there were no laws against that.

So in a sense, they were tolerated.

And the the gangs only became ugly

when they started getting bigger

and they started to have gang wars among themselves.

That's when the Japanese public probably had to back off

and the police had to do more,

and the government had to do more.

But by now, their tentacles are everywhere.

It's like a generation of the mob in the United States

have gone legitimate, you know?

The money is all out there in the corporate world.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Being assisted in their crimes are not.

It was not long before the crime bosses realized,

gang in fighting was bad for business.

And for Japan, business was booming.

As Japan's economic miracle rolled on,

the Yakuza rode a wave of wealth

into the playgrounds of the Pacific.

Cashing in on cashed up Japanese,

they hit the tourist trail to Hawaii

and other vacation isles.

A new gang structure evolved,

adapting to the rich new world of the Pacific Rim.

The fertile fields of commerce and trade

became hunting grounds for Yakuza developers

and tour operators.

The method was coldly efficient.

Yakuza enforcers would identify businesses

likely to be frequented by Japanese tourists.

Once a business had been identified,

they would approach the owner

and at first offer a simple business deal.

The offer would be that in return for directing large groups

of tourists exclusively to that business,

the gang would be paid a percentage.

If the business operator refused,

things would quickly turn nasty with threats of violence

or the destruction of the business premises.

These threats often extended

to the family of the business owner.

Needless to say, very few people refused.

Once the business became almost totally dependent

on Yakuza controlled tourism,

it was then only a small step before people found

that they no longer owned their own business,

and that they were personally owned by the Yakuza.

The first thing is that they provoke an interest

in the country.

They show that interest by moving in, buying housing,

buying real estate.

And we had a number of very high profile Yakuza figures,

including the deputy head of the Yamaguchi Gumi,

the biggest gang, buying a penthouse on the Gold Coast

and using it as a holiday resort.

Now, when the Yakuza start doing those sorts of things,

they don't go on holidays to soak up the sun.

They've got their eyes out for business opportunities

and you know what's gonna happen next.

The triads, the mafia type organizations are mainly involved

purely in criminal activities, drugs, guns, whatever.

The Yakuza though, seem to operate a little differently.

They use their criminal activities

to give them a competitive edge, you might say, in commerce.

Things like tourism, for example.

If they are prepared to be quite ruthless

about the way they operate their tourism operations,

they can get a great edge over normal people in the market

and therefore make enormous profits.

Particularly, for example,

in the vertical integration of tourism.

It was only a short step for them

to move from doing shady deals to place Japanese tourists

in friendly hotels and resorts, to actually building them.

The gangsters were now becoming developers,

but as always, they had a very nasty edge

on their competitors.

A lot of the Japanese bubble was based on real estate

where real estate values rose, where there was amalgamation

of properties to put up high-rise developments, for example.

One of the Yakuza stock in trade,

their most basic activity was in the amalgamation

of real estate, where 30 or 40 small shopkeepers,

for example, were bought out to build one high rise.

And when the Yakuza became involved,

there was no competitive tendering for their land.

They just suddenly discovered

that it would be far healthier for them

if they sold out early to allow the development to proceed.

Now, if you can do that in a hurry,

you've got a big commercial edge

on any other land development.

A textbook example of how the Yakuza

attempted to infiltrate a foreign country

occurred at the very start of the 1980s.

The Gold Coast in the Australian state of Queensland

had become a major destination for Japanese tourists.

And as Gold Coast based criminal lawyer,

Chris Nyst explains,

in with the tourists came the crime gangs.

Now, the 1980s was a real money time on the Gold Coast.

The Japanese came here in force

and it was pretty clear even at the time

that there was a lot of money floating around

that was perhaps not entirely legitimate money.

And there were certain shadowy figures, Japanese figures

who sort of had that kind of aura about them.

There was talk about Yakuza and all this sort of stuff,

but they seemed to have no visible means of support

and a lot of cash money.

There were a lot of transactions going through at the time

that were of doubtful, shady transactions

in real estate and so forth.

I recall at one stage being in a civil case

and cross-examining a Japanese real estate agent

who was resident in Australian doing business in Australia.

And some evidence came out that a client had handed to him

a paper bag that had 250,000 Australian dollars in it.

And the cross examination went on and his evidence was,

oh, well this is pretty standard practice.

You know, it was nothing unusual at all about that.

And we went on, and on, and on cross-examining,

and as it came out he showed me $50,000 here, $200,000 here,

$300,000 in cash on a day by day basis.

And these were things

that were going into Gold Coast property.

They were going into Gold Coast units,

beach front units and this sort of thing.

So there was a lot of that kind of activity by people

who could be identified with the Japanese crime scene.

And there was also a lot of activity in our casinos

and so forth.

And I think the police in recent times

have become very aware of that and have tightened up

on the surveillance procedures, et cetera.

But there were people who were ostensibly

turning over 100,000, $200,000 a night in our casinos.

And so, I suspect that a large part

of the presence of Japanese crime figures on the Gold Coast

during the '80s was all about money laundering,

and cleaning up a lot of the money

that they'd been taking out of crime in Asia.

It was about this time that authorities

in the United States and other countries around the Pacific

began to become fully aware of the spread

of Yakuza power and influence.

Two special undercover officers prepared this report

for the Los Angeles Police Department.

It gives striking detail of the organization of the Yakuza

and the bMryokudan, their methods of infiltration

of legitimate business,

and the key to their success in using crime as an edge.

The bMryokudan are much like Japanese corporations.

Most groups are highly organized entities

with a strong emphasis on family ties.

And the bMryokudan relationship serving as a bond

which ultimately holds the organization together.

Essentially today, Japanese organized crime

has evolved into several 100 corporate bands of intellectual

and brutally loyal international gangsters.

A bMryokudan member is aggressive in attitude

and not at all like a typical humble Japanese tourist.

He swaggers and has an exaggerated, bold walk.

His facial features are tough

or hardened with the so-called Black Eyes of Death.

When questioned about his occupation,

the response is often reflective

of the type of business established

or influenced by organized crime such as bars,

coffee houses, restaurants, nightclubs, pachinko parlors,

money lending, construction, real estate management,

transportation and trucking.

There are also the associates,

those who have not gone through

the traditional sake initiation ceremony.

It's often these associates who run front organizations

and overseas operations, making them difficult to detect.

These associates contend with ordinary citizens

who are willing to deal with the underworld

because it fills a financial or civil need

that legal financial institutions

and law enforcement cannot provide.

These associates may be the most serious criminal threat

to North America because they maintain a very low profile.

They normally have business experience

and are without the usual outward signs

of bMryokudan membership such as the tattoos,

missing fingers, and flamboyant behavior patterns.

The Yakuza may claim a link with history

in the noble warrior tradition,

but today the reality is far different.

Often recruited from street gangs,

Yakuza members are mostly common thugs

trained in strong arm tactics and shake down methods.

Mark Craig is a former police sergeant

and lecturer in intelligence studies,

and is considered to be an expert

on the operation of Asian crime gangs.

Craig worked for three years in Japan

and says, A modern Yakuza cannot claim a noble past.

That, in my opinion, would be absolute, hyperbole.

That's just myth, because one has to appreciate

that the majority of Yakuza are actually recruited

out of the boxing clubs, and judo clubs,

and pool halls of Japan.

They are the misguided youth.

The Yakuza are basically started out

in the gambling industry, unemployed.

But by and large their activities were not looked upon

as criminal, this is back in the Edo period

we're talking about now.

The days when Admiral Perry sailed into Japan, okay?

We're talking history here.

This could have really very little to do

with what we are seeing with Yakuza activities,

certainly in the post second World War period,

which is when they started to move into the corporate world.

And like any good business,

growth is important at home and overseas.

The case with Hawaii is rather unique.

That was one of the first major, I guess, foreign locations

that they established a presence.

For the simple reason being,

they followed the Japanese tourists.

They followed the Japanese businessmen.

Just like they did in Australia

in the mid to the late '80s.

They followed the investment dollar

and the real estate development.

They gained a very strong position in Hawaii

because the law enforcement, they were very slow to react,

because again, it's a secret society.

They were very slow to,

I guess appreciate the full extent of the problem.

And now it's not possible to eradicate them,

they're part of the landscape.

But the Yakuza also have competitors.

Sometimes they can be right next door.

Now in Tokyo around the KabukichM area,

which is the entertainment district, which the stronghold

of Yakuza operations in Tokyo.

The Chinese have actually beaten them at their own game.

They're charging better prices.

A contract hit, for example,

is running at about 2,700 US dollars, very cheap.

They're not afraid of the Japanese.

And there have been several cases that I've read of

where they've actually robbed these characters,

with a weapon in broad daylight, which is just astonishing

because this is just unthinkable in Japanese society.

And going back to the Chinese again,

there was an incident in Yokohama several years ago

where the Chinese looked to extort a particular restaurant.

Now, even though Yokohama Chinatown

is a Chinese Chinatown, obviously,

the Japanese still were collecting money in there, okay?

Now the Chinese moved in and this particular instance,

the Chinese took a cleaver, not unlike this cleaver here,

and decapitated a waiter in full view

of the entire restaurant as a message

that they are the new kind of boys in town.

Even in the underworld,

you need a business plan.

And the stricter the execution of that plan

and the people you involve, the bigger the reward.

The traditional scenario is something like this,

earn your money through criminal activities

and then launder it into legitimate activities.

And for example, the Yakuza in Japan

earn around about three, 3.5 million US dollars per year

through the distribution of ice, which is methamphetamine.

Now that money has to be laundered somewhere.

And if they can get it abroad, which they can

through various front companies,

they invest in legitimate business.

One example comes to mind on how they sought to do this.

And they engaged an international consultant

by the name of Prescott Bush.

Now Prescott is the brother of President George Bush.

He runs an international consultancy.

And what they did, through some front companies in Japan

got him to purchase some respectable companies

in New York and Texas.

And he received a $1 million commission for his work.

He never knew he was working for the mob,

and that's simply how they do business.

Still, we have seen as the '80s rolled on

and the Japanese economic bubble burst,

things started to go bad in a big way for the Yakuza gangs.

First a series of violent events turned the Japanese people

against those who had been regarded as their protectors.

No longer is it considered desirable

to have a Yakuza living on your block.

Up until the early '80s, that was the case.

And I lived in Japan in the early '80s, one felt safe.

Then actually, kind of turf battles erupted

and it became very public,

and innocent people were actually shot in the streets.

Japan is another country where firearms are a no-no,

and very hard to get,

but the Yakuza don't seem to have any trouble importing them

from places like the Philippines and the United States.

Because of a number of very public acts,

they kind of fell out of favor.

And it was round about the early '90s, 92,

that legislation was enacted, outlawing actually,

'cause previously it wasn't a crime

to belong to Yamaguchi Gumi or Inagawa-kai,

or any one of these organizations.

So new legislation was enacted,

which in effect drove these groups underground.

And that changed the whole, I guess, the whole balance

and the whole kind of way they interacted with society.

They were always something to be feared.

Don't misunderstand that 'cause they're still ruthless,

but now they're an unknown quantity

because they're underground.

So much out of favor are the Yakuza members now

that attempts are often made to disguise

once proudly displayed symbols of courage

such as the ritual tattoos.

Some gangsters have even tried a bizarre form

of plastic surgery.

What's emerged in the last 10 years or so

is the sort of application of prosthesis.

And it is not uncommon for the particular person

to have an operation whereby a toe is removed

and surgically sewn onto the cut finger.

And of course, it's always going to look mutilated.

But then with subsequent plastic surgery,

it's not as easy to discern as may have been in the past.

By the early '80s however, one major crime syndicate,

the Yamaguchi Gumi controlled over 2,500 businesses

ranging from loan sharking, to pornography and prostitution.

While the big money flowed, so did the violence and greed.

One of the group's leaders was gunned down at a coffee shop

by fellow gang members.

The execution style murder occurred in the city of Kobe.

Masaru Takumi, number two man of the Yamaguchi Gumi

was enjoying his morning coffee when the killer struck.

Kobe in 1985 was also the city

where over 1000 black suited gangsters

gathered for the funeral of their murdered boss.

400 riot police were on hand to Watch over proceedings.

These gangsters are also members of the Yamaguchi Gumi.

Their slain boss was 51-year-old Masahisa Takenaka.

It was in an apartment building in nearby Osaka

where he was gunned down by a rival gang's hit squad,

where the police head was led by a Yakuza lieutenant.

He was caught, the gunmen weren't.

Even as Takenaka's body was taken home,

Japanese newspapers reported that the Yamaguchi Gumi

and the police were in race to find the three gunmen.

Takenaka had led the Yamaguchi Gumi for only a few months.

And it was his election

that caused a rival faction to split away

from the Yamaguchi Gumi.

It was that group that killed him.

They are the Ichiwa-kai, many thousands strong.

Both gangs are Yakuza,

and together comprised over 100,000 soldiers.

They are best recognized of course,

by the missing little fingers after they had made a mistake

and atoned through yubitsume.

This was not a healthy regime to reign over.

Even their former boss of 35 years, Kazuo Taoka,

although surviving many assassination attempts,

finally succumbed to the stress of being Oyabun

and died of a heart attack.

Following power struggles, gang wars, and some success

from the Japanese police force,

there are about half as many of them as there used to be.

The major gangs are kept under constant surveillance

these days and a continuing war of nerves.

It was a different scene just months

before the funeral here in Kobe, when the police

and the Yamaguchi Gumi were out in force again,

that time was to inaugurate their new leader.

Takenaka had won the power struggle to the top,

and at that time in Japan, the head of organized crime

made no effort to hide who he was or what he does.

Here is a traditional ceremony making him the head

of a 5.5 billion dollar business.

With the drinking of the saki,

he assumes the mantle of Oyabun or boss.

The Yamaguchi Gumi is headquartered in an office building

marked by the gang's symbol for all to see.

There was no need to hide.

The Yamaguchi Gumi is run like any business.

Has a board of directors who meet regularly,

examine their achievements and make goals.

If you're successful,

you might even make the members honor roll.

But during this era of increasing infighting,

the violence didn't end within their own ranks.

The Yakuza is always ready to go after anyone

who decides not to play by their rules.

Oh yes, they've got absolutely no qualms

about taking action against people who offend them.

As a well known Japanese film producer, for example,

dared to produce a film

which showed the Yakuza as criminals and thugs

as opposed to the Samurai image they like to portray.

Well, he had a run in with two people with a samurai sword

outside his office, and required hundreds of stitches

through his face.

And this is world renowned film producer.

They'll do that to him,

they're not too worried about little guys.

In the '90s, the high flying gangsters were hit hard,

not from the efforts of law enforcement,

but by bad investments.

The Yakuza's close ties to the world of business

and commerce nearly ruined them.

When the bubble burst, of course,

a lot of the banks turned a blind eye

to who they were lending their money to.

And there were a lot of Yakuza billions, in fact, dollars

put out to Yakuza development companies.

Non-performing loans were therefore sourced to the Yakuza

and someone trying to go around and get the Yakuza to pay up

on a non-performing loan is not the healthiest activity.

The vice president of a leading bank in Japan

found that out fatally, unfortunately to his demise.

At that time,

the government launched a major crackdown.

And probably since then, since the early '90s,

the Yakuza have, well, they've seen better days

and they're not looked upon

in the same sort of historic awe,

as they may have been in the past.

The Yakuza have gotta be strangled at birth

because their whole objective is to get legitimate.

And it's very, very hard in a competitive society,

a free enterprise society to find where this thin line

between tough business and criminal activity falls.

And the Yakuza will always fall on the wrong side.

But they're not that easy to detect in a rugged environment

of business competitiveness.

If they can get established,

they are very, very difficult to counter.

Far from retreating to their Japanese homeland.

The gang simply began to reinvent themselves

and continue to operate primarily throughout

the Asian Pacific Rim and the United States.

The west coast of the United States

has traditionally been a home for Asian gangs.

Chinese, the triads set up there

in the San Francisco region.

We've had the Yakuza, we've got the Vietnamese

now being the worst of them apparently in the United States.

But the Yakuza have got a foothold in there,

which has allowed them to get very legitimate businesses.

And many of the Yakuza involvements now in the United States

are very difficult to counter

because they're so intimately tied up

with legitimate investment, and that's what they aim to do.

The United States

is a very attractive target.

I mean, it is the home of most of the money in the world

and almost every organized crime in the world

looks at the United States.

And the time will come maybe when the Yakuza

or others will also have to team up with, say,

Islamic militants who wanna punish the United States.

And people like the Yakuza might make a common cause

with Islamic militants or terrorists,

just for a season in order to get in

or to bankroll their organization.

So there are numerous opportunities.

I'd say that the chances of stamping them out are zero.

Anybody who thinks we have done such a thing,

of course doesn't know much history.

Also, there's been a new spirit

by the Japanese government to try and wipe them out.

Unfortunately, the result of this

has been to make them even more vicious, even more criminal.

They're now becoming more

and more involved in organized pedophilia rings,

for example, of buying young Chinese children

and shipping them around the world.

A big ring was broken up in Italy of all places,

where they found Yakuza involvement in pedophilia.

So at the dawn of the new millennium,

organized crime gangs, which once claim direct descent

from the noble samurai of Japanese legend

have evolved into peddlers of flesh and death.

Author and criminologist Dr. Paul Wilson

says this new chapter in their history

makes them even more dangerous.

They will keep coming,

they're not afraid of law enforcement,

and they can fall back on hundreds,

sometimes thousands of years of history.

Alarmed by the spread of Asian crime gangs,

Australian authorities have formed

a unique law enforcement unit.

The force combines the skills of street police

with a mental muscle of lawyers, accountants,

and electronics experts.

A veteran of 38 years in what he calls,

the war with organized crime.

The general manager of the National Crime Authority

is Peter Lamb.

Yes, in each of our investigative teams

around the country, we have lawyers, we have accountants,

we have analysts, and we have technical experts.

A whole range of technical trying to work together

in a team model.

Now that's not always been easy.

Police traditionally quite aggressive, they're paramilitary.

Some of the other disciplines are not that way inclined.

But over a period of time

we think we've got the formula right,

and everything seems to be working quite well.

The reflect that anyway.

For Peter Lamb and law enforcement agencies

in many countries, including the United States,

the focus has changed.

They now know that the new weapons

of the organized Asian crime gangs are not swords or knives,

but laptop computers.

Yes, particularly in the movement of money.

The electronic commerce evolution has provided opportunities

for the movement of money around the world

at the blink of an eyelid.

And indeed, from time to time there's no trail.

So we've had to move with that or try and move with it.

We've had to create laws

that were compatible with the current environment.

We've had to arrive at mutual assistance arrangements

with other countries to permit those type of inquiries

to be run in their countries.

Yes, a whole range of things that we've gotta do.

But I think it's fair to say

that we're always playing catch up,

we're never really ahead.

So nowadays, a modern sleuth

on the trail of the organized Japanese crime gangs

in his quarry are often more than likely to be found

in front of a computer terminal

than walking the back streets of our cities.

Still, there will always be a job for the police,

whose work takes him into the real underworld

of our society.

Ordinary citizens, however, now also have the power

of computers and the internet.

Spreading the word from Japan

is a community striving to expel crime syndicates

or bMryokudan.

This is a Japanese homepage of the N-A-C-E-B,

the National Center for the Elimination of bMryokudan.

The anti-bMryokudan law

came into force in March of 1992.

It stipulates that the National Public Safety Commission

designate a public corporation in the country,

designed to prevent unjust acts by bMryokudan members

and to help the victims of these acts.

The Japan Crime Prevention Association

was designated as the N-A-C-E-B.

Their main activities are publicity

and information like this webpage,

training for counselors to search and survey

so that all can see violence reduction trends.

It is staffed by lawyers, parole officers,

and former police officers among others.

There is even information on what to do if bullied

by bMryokudan, and how to cope with this violence,

intimidation, or forcible obstruction of business.

What of the future?

Experts say the Yakuza may be badly wounded,

but the gang still has its deadly tentacles

spread around the globe.

Is there hope for victory

Provided societies are largely the same

as they are now, no.

The needs of organized crime are so varied these days.

They need the capacity to move money,

they need the capacity for technology.

They need a whole range of things they didn't need before.

As those things are brought into the melting pot,

it's far more complex to investigate.

But at the same time, it is, I suppose, creating work.

It is developing expertise,

all of which make for a totally different environment

than what we've seen in the past.

And a far more complex one.

The Yakuza and Asian gangs, generally

are renowned for being very deadly

and having no hesitation in killing people

to further their aims.

The Yakuza have always been able to adapt

to changing times and emerge with new modes of operations,

as they have done so many times in the past.

Well, I'm a little cynical.

I don't think there's probably any stopping them

at all, now.

They've got too big, they've got too legitimate.

But what we have seen is a move to be more vicious with them

and to be involved in tackier types of activities.

I'd be staggered for example, if we looked at internet porn

and didn't find the Yakuza heavily involved in that.

They've traditionally been involved

in sex related industries at the fringes of criminality,

prostitution, pornography.

Recently we've seen, for example,

them involved in pedophilia rings

or the supplying of underage children.

But I think it'll be a very, very safe bet for anyone to say

that if there's any internet pornography

and similar questionable activities

being sourced outta Japan, it's a Yakuza operation.

The Yakuza have had a bad odor among the Japanese public

in recent years, particularly the last 10 years

where we have all this corporate scandal, et cetera.

And I know Japanese crime enforcement, and the Interpol,

and the FBI, and others say that the Yakuza

are on the retreat in Japan and in some places eliminated.

And there are anecdotal stories

about Yakuza are wanting to become legitimate

and to repair the damage in their lives and all this.

But this is usually mostly nonsense.

It's like the FBI saying

that they just about have the mafia out of business

because John Gotti's sitting in a prison somewhere.

For every John Gotti, there's 100 John Gotti's

to replace him,

for every Yakuza there's 100 Yakuza to replace them.

Because the Yakuza is a very glamorous life,

like the mafia and the rest of it.

And it offers to people an opportunity

to make a lot of money in a very short period of time.

It gives them clout.

And as long as Japan and the United States and other places,

as long as they worship money,

these people will be where money can be worshiped

and obtained as quickly as possible.

That's why the mafia will always live,

and the Yakuza will always live,

and the Triad, and the Tong and the rest of it.

As long as we worship money, they know we to get it

and get it in a hurry.

As long as the Yakuza represents a global menace,

the fight will continue,

but the skirmishes will no longer be fought in back streets,

brothels and drug dens.

The new battleground in the war against the Yakuza

is now the corporate boardroom

and the cyberspace of our increasingly technological world.

I'm Robert Stack, thanks for joining us.