Japan’s once-feared yakuza gangs are dying out in the face of intensifying police pressure and a lack of interest among young people in a career of crime.

A recent unprecedented death penalty against a “gokudo” – literally, a member of “the extreme path” – has sent shock waves through the country’s historic criminal networks and comes on the back of a raft of creative new laws targeting gangsters and their affiliates.

Coupled with the fact that younger people no longer find the work appealing, the yakuza, a byword for violence and a shadow over Japanese society since the 17th century, is now struggling to find new recruits, with some former members even helping the disaffected to leave the underworld.

Making their mark

And that’s precisely what authorities who have declared war on the yakuza want. 

“In the old days, we used to go around and show off our tattoos. It was the way we walked, talked and acted,” said Satoru Takegaki, who for 32 years was part of Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest gang in Japan. 

“But now yakuza don’t show their tattoos. They keep a low profile. They don’t want to attract attention, from the police but also from ordinary people,” the 70-year-old told the Telegraph.  

“And when you factor in fewer young people and less money, it’s clear why so many people are not joining gangs or leaving them. In 50 years, perhaps less, I think the yakuza will be extinct. They will be the stuff of movies and legends, just like the ninja. Gone.”

The numbers speak for themselves. As recently as 2011, there were 70,300 known yakuza, but that figure had fallen to just 25,900 by 2020, according to the Centre for Removal of Criminal Organisations. It is a far cry from the heyday of the Sixties, when gangs with regional strongholds across Japan had more than 184,000 members.

Mr Takegaki is among those contributing to chipping away at those numbers in his own small way. In the Yamaguchi-gumi, he spent more than three decades working first as an enforcer who ensured rules were obeyed and debts paid, and then eventually being promoted to a senior member. 

His preferred weapon was a knife, but he also carried a gun, just in case. He says he cannot remember how many prison terms he served, only that the longest was for five years over an assault.

When the allure wore off

However, by 2005, he had become disillusioned. It was becoming harder to make money, he said, while newcomers were ignoring the traditions that had once made the Yamaguchi-gumi respected as much as it was feared. 

“I joined in 1972 because I was attracted by the sense of honour that we had then, the sense of fighting for our community. But things changed,” he explained.

The last straw was when his boss’s own son was machine gunned dead during a gang dispute.

“My ‘senpai’ [mentor] was retiring and I was in line to take over. But I was getting older and slowing down, so I decided that it was time to leave.”

Walking away from an organisation that takes a dim view of disloyalty had its dangers. Mr Takegaki said five shots were fired at his front door shortly after he left and he took to sleeping with a “wakizashi” short sword within easy reach.

It turned out to be a wise decision. The gang later splintered into rival factions and descended into internecine warfare on the streets of Kobe and Osaka. Keiichi Furukawa, one of the factions’ heads, was shot 10 times by a rival gangster on a quiet residential street one evening in November 2019.

Mr Takegaki went another way. Soon after he left the gang, he set up an NGO in the city of Hyogo to help others in his situation to leave behind a life of crime and ostracism from Japanese society.

Japanese society remains extremely wary of former gang members, few of whom have much education or work skills, so most end up in construction or similar jobs. Gojinkai, his NGO, helps former gang members who come out of prison to find a place to stay and some sort of work.

“I want to help people who leave gangs but have nowhere to go for support or assistance,” he said. “There are some who come out of prison and there is nothing for them. It would be easy for them to go back to crime.”  

He estimated that his organisation has helped about 60 people quit their yakuza lifestyle. With the authorities breathing down their necks, more people are keen to follow suit.

Death knell of the yakuza?

This summer, the authorities sent the clearest signal yet that the days of yakuza gangs going about their business while police looked the other way were over.

A court in the southern city of Fukuoka on August 24 sentenced Satoru Nomura, the head of the Kudo-kai underworld group, to death for ordering underlings to carry out four attacks, including the shooting of a former police officer.

It was the first time a yakuza leader had been given the death penalty. Nomura, 75, was so taken aback at the ruling that he threatened from the dock that the judge would “regret” his decision.

Successive Japanese governments have also passed sweeping new laws that make it far harder for yakuza to earn a dishonest living. Armed with new powers, police are taking tough action on the traditional sources of income of gambling: the sex industry, drugs and protection rackets.  

One of the most creative items of legislation makes it illegal for any company to do any form of business with a gang member, so insurance companies, for example, can no longer insure a gangster’s car.

That may not entirely dissuade anyone from a life of crime, but it serves as one of many small inconveniences that can dissuade some, said Mr Takegaki. 

Another law has made it illegal for a business to pay protection money to a gang, severing a key source of income. 

“The new laws have crippled the gangs,” said Prof Shinichi Ishizuka, the director of the criminology research centre at Kyoto’s Ryukoku University.

“I heard a story not long ago about a gang member who went to play a round of golf. The course would not allow him to play because they feared they would be prosecuted for taking money from a yakuza. It’s the same in a lot of restaurants or bars.

“And [this], together with the aging of society and fewer young men wanting to join a gang, I expect them to continue to get smaller. That does not mean there will be no more crime, of course, but it just won’t be these organised groups.”

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