The World's Most Evil Gangs (17 page)

In the knowledge that it is the high-visibility of gang crime that has fuelled this public feeling of insecurity, attempts to suppress the gangs had been stepped up since the Nineties, with the strengthening of laws specifically aimed at them. In 2008 a special police unit, the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand, was established to disrupt their activities. The following year, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act gave police greater powers to seize the proceeds of crime and use the money to fund further policing efforts. At a local level, Wanganui District Council in 2009 passed a controversial bylaw banning gang patches in public places throughout the city, a move studied closely by other towns. It opened a debate about the wider ban on patches – and the potential for action from gangs against the law, like that taken against Wanganui councillors.

Moves for a national ban on patches on public premises were stepped up in late 2012 following an outcry about gang intimidation following the killing of a Rotorua schoolboy whose uniform was a colour associated with a rival gang. The death was in the constituency of National Party MP Todd McClay, who launched a campaign for the prohibition of patches from schools, hospitals and other government and local government buildings.

The MP sponsored the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill with the aim, he said, of ‘focussing on the harm and significant misery that gangs cause throughout
all communities and all parts of New Zealand’. He told Parliament: ‘People feel intimidated by what they stand for and they feel intimidated every time they see them in their WINZ office [Work and Income centre], in council offices and in schools and hospitals around this country. I believe this bill is one step towards banning gangs in New Zealand. To gang members I say this: if you go to government premises with a patch, your government will not serve you. Instead, a policeman will and he will want to talk to you about all the nasty things you and your criminal mates have been involved in.’

Another MP, Richard Prosser of the NZ First party, was even more forthright, describing gang members as ‘weak, sick, fat, unfit, drug-addled retards’.

The bill specified gangs that would be covered by the ban – including the Hells Angels, Mongrel Mob and Killer Beez – and said others that emerged with ‘a common name or common identifying signs’ that ‘collectively promote, encourage, or engage in criminal activity’ could be added.

In ensuing parliamentary hearings, the police union gave official backing for the ban. Police Association president Greg O’Connor said that in many places around the country the gang presence is ‘real on the most vulnerable people’. He added: ‘This bill, while no panacea, does give another tool to show that those who are vulnerable, those who are likely to be intimidated, will see gang members scuttling, [or] taking their patches off before they go into buildings.’ However, the legislation was still being argued about a year later, with claims that it was inconsistent with the country’s Bill of Rights.

How does New Zealand’s gang culture look to an outsider – perhaps someone who has grown up with the notion of this beautiful land being the epitome of rural tranquility and
peaceability? A BBC journalist, Rebecca Kesby, presented a shock report on the NZ phenomenon in 2012. She says: ‘It’s not just the swastika tattoos, the missing teeth and scars that make these men – and some women – frightening. The list of serious crimes many of them have been convicted of is also terrifying. And those are just the crimes the police know about.’

It is ironic that the Maoris, the indigenous people of New Zealand before the white man arrived two centuries ago, were persuaded to end their warlike ways and become settled and peaceful. The British governor, signing a treaty with their traditionally tattooed leaders in 1840, promised: ‘We are one people.’ Sadly, that can no longer be taken for granted.

I
n Japan today there are two principal types of gang that make up the nation’s criminal underworld: the old and the new, the Yakuza and the motorbikers.

The Yakuza can be traced back over 400 years and supposedly originated from Robin Hood-like characters who defended their villages against roving bandits. But their days of protecting the weak against the strong are long gone. They may be less well known than the Italian Mafia or the Chinese Triads but the Yakuza form one of the largest organised crime groups in the world. It is now a mighty and entrenched criminal network with 100,000 members operating in 22 crime Syndicates and raking in billions of pounds a year

Of the 22 Syndicates, the Sixth Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest and most infamous. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi, with its origins tracing back to a loose
labour union for dockworkers in Kobe before World War Two. There are 55,000 members divided between 850 clans directing their criminal operations that, from their headquarters in Kobe, have spread to Asia and the US. Over recent years, their oyabun (leader) has been Shinobu Tsukasa, also known as Kenichi Shinoda, whose leadership has seen an increase in membership and initiated expansion into Tokyo, traditionally not Yamaguchi turf. Yamaguchi-gumi are among the globe’s wealthiest gangsters, bringing in billions of dollars a year from extortion, gambling, the sex industry, guns, drugs, real estate and construction kickback schemes. They are also involved in stock market manipulation and internet pornography.

The second largest Syndicate is the Sumiyoshi-kai, sometimes referred to as the Sumiyoshi-rengo, with an estimated 20,000 members divided into 277 clans. It differs structurally from the Yamaguchi-gumi, working more as a federation where the chain of command is more lax. Its current oyabun is Shigeo Nishiguchi.

Rare death sparks flew when the Sumiyoshi-kai felt their traditional base in Tokyo threatened by Yamaguchi-gumi expansion into the capital. One morning in January 2007, a senior Sumiyoshi member was shot in his car in Tokyo. Within hours the offices of the Yamaguchi-gumi were fired upon in retribution, bullets shattering the doors and windows. Police arrested two members of the Sumiyoshi-kai and raided their offices in a bid to halt the escalating gun violence, which is rare on the streets of Tokyo.

The Inagawa-kai is the third most significant Yakuza grouping with approximately 15,000 members divided into 313 clans. It has its base in the Tokyo-Yokohama area and was
one of the first Yakuza families to expand its operations outside of Japan. Most of its members were drawn from the bakuto (traditional gamblers), and illegal gambling has long been the clan’s main source of income. It has also expanded into such fields as drug trafficking, blackmail, extortion, and prostitution. The death of its oyabun, Yoshio Tsunoda, in February 2010 marked the beginning of what may be a shift in the structure of Japan’s criminal community. Although he had been the group’s formal head since only 2006, he had overseen a strategic shift towards greater cooperation with the Yamaguchi-gumi. According to security experts, his death destabilised the Japanese underworld, presaging another period of gang warfare.

Many Yakuza members can be recognised by their full body tattoos or missing fingers. Known as irezumi, the tattoos are still often ‘hand poked’ – that is, the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made and hand-held tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel. The procedure is expensive and painful and can take years to complete. They are normally only displayed when playing cards (usually the traditional game of oicho-kabu, similar to blackjack) as they tend to keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts. When new members join, they are often required to remove their trousers as well and reveal any lower body tattoos. Yubitsume, or the cutting of one’s finger, is a form of penance or apology. Upon a first offence, the transgressor must cut off the tip of his left little finger and give the severed portion to his boss. Sometimes an underboss may do this in penance to the oyabun if he wants to spare a member of his own gang from further retaliation.

As previously mentioned, public displays of violence are rare
in Japan but an exception was when the Yakuza were linked to the cold-blooded killing of the mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Itoh, in 2007. Police arrested Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of a gang affiliated to Yamaguchi-gum, who supposedly admitted the shooting. His motives, which have remained unclear, may have been political. Shiroo was sentenced to death but was subsequently spared the hangman’s noose.

To curb their growing control not only of ‘orthodox’ criminal activities but also high-level corporate fraud, Japanese authorities are trying to choke the Yakuza’s existence by starving them financially. A new law, the Organised Crime Exclusion Ordinance, was implemented in late 2011 to force businesses to stamp out Mob links, direct banks to safeguard against money-laundering, cut off loans to Mob-related companies and deny bank accounts to anyone with known gangster ties. In January 2012 Tokyo became the last of Japan’s 47 prefectures to introduce local laws aimed at depriving crime Syndicates of income by targeting firms that knowingly do business with them. One of the main targets is the nation’s multi-billion-construction industry, where the Yakuza have long run rampant by pressuring developers to pay ‘protection’ money or using front companies to win lucrative contracts. But their influence now reaches into almost every area of Japanese business life.

Ironically, one of the difficulties in clamping down on the Yakuza is their seeming openess. They are not an entirely secretive society like their counterparts, the Mafia and the Triads. Yakuza organisations often have an office with a plaque on the front door displaying their name or emblem. Yakuza leaders are the subject of fan magazines and their exploits are turned into comic books. The Inagawa-kai, for instance, exists
openly, with offices opposite Tokyo’s Ritz Carlton hotel. The death of Yoshio Tsunoda, who led the Inagawa-kai from 2006 to 2010, was widely featured in weekly magazines and Kazuo Uchibori, the de facto leader of the group, has done interviews with yakuza fanzines and appeared on their covers.

Yakuza often take part in local festivals, where they carry a shrine through the streets proudly showing off their elaborate tattoos. One Yakuza family even printed a monthly newsletter with details on prison inmates, weddings, funerals – and murders. The Syndicates also make very public their ‘good works’ for the community. It’s good PR, of course. Their most publicised charitable efforts were in reaction to the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the 2011 Tsunami, after which Yakuza families, particularly the Yamaguchi-gumi based in Kobe, mobilised to provide disaster relief. They hired helicopters and ran truck convoys of aid.

Until recently, the majority of Yakuza income came from protection rackets in shopping, entertainment and red-light districts. But drugs are the more recent growth industry. Owing to a strange moral code, some Syndicates, including the Yamaguchi-gumi, forbid members from trafficking. Others, like the Dojin-kai, are heavily involved, with arrests of their drug mules being made across the Far East. Other Syndicates are involved in people trafficking, usually of impoversished Filipino girls brought to Japan to work as prostitutes.

Yet because of their history as a legitimate feudal organisation and their support of extreme right-wing political groups, the Yakuza are though of by many Japanese as no more than a part of the nation’s establishment. Disturbingly, an opinion poll found that one in ten adults believed that the Yakuza should be allowed to continue to
flourish. Which, despite the government’s latest crackdown, they do with impunity.

However, in 2006 in the city of Kurume, around 600 residents who had become exasperated at an explosion of gang warfare launched a court case to drive the gangsters out of town using a civil law that allowed them to challenge businesses that ‘infringe on the right to live peacefully’. Kurume’s problems began in May of that year when a long-time Dojin-kai boss, Seijiro Matsuo, suddenly announced his resignation. This sparked a war of succession with splinter group Kyushu Seido-kai that erupted in a busy shopping centre housing Dojin-kai’s headquarters. Innocent families were caught in the crossfire as gunmen sprayed bullets from AK-47 rifles. In the most notorious episode in the feud, a gangster high on amphetamines walked into a hospital and pumped two bullets into an innocent man mistaken for a rival. The attacks snapped the patience of locals, who launched the legal action. The liberal
Asahi
newspaper reported: ‘This is the first time that citizens have tried to expel the head office of a designated gangster organisation.’ It praised efforts ‘to drive the Yakuza into extinction’ – though sadly, in the end, Japanese law favoured the rights of the Dojin-kai as tenants over the rights of the citizens of Kurume to live in peace.

Whereas the Yakuza stretch back 400 years to an age when they were considered folk heroes defending poverty-stricken peasants, the other principal style of Japanese gang has no pretensions to history or ideology.

‘Motorbike gangs have been a huge part of Japanese culture for over half a century, threatening the obedient status quo of the nation since the end of World War Two,’ according to international gangs expert and author Tony Thompson in his
best-selling book
Outlaws
. He adds: ‘Legend has it that the early gangs were formed by fearless Kamikaze pilots not “blessed” with the opportunity to die for their emperor and desperate for new kicks. They were joined by thousand of antisocial young punks who customised their bikes, removing the mufflers to maximise the ear-splitting revs, earning them the nickname kaminarizoku (thunder tribes).’

These motorbike gangs are different from most others around the world – in that they tend not to feud with one another but are wholeheartedly dedicated in a war against authority of all kinds. Their enemies are the police and the Establishment. They are known for their fast, reckless driving and complete disregard for traffic laws, and have been causing mayhem in inner cities since the 1950s. In many ways, these members of the ‘thunder tribe’, all under the age of 20, were no more than rowdy, rebellious youths who were too immature to be allowed to become members of Yakuza.

According to Tony Thompson, the main biker group, Bosozoku, reached peak strength following riots in Toyoma of 1972 and in Kobe four years later, when 10,000 youths joined forces and rampaged through the streets, burning, stoning and destroying anything that appeared to be connected to law enforcement. A cameraman who got in the way of a sabotaged police truck was killed. The happenings of that day gave the biker gang its name – bosozoku translates as ‘violent running tribes’.

During their heyday, Bosozoku, with their instantly recognisable and intimidating leather, militaristic dress style, would strike fear into neighbourhoods. Their uniforms (
tokko-fuku
or ‘special attack uniform’) generally consisted of a jumpsuit, military jacket worn open with no shirt, baggy
trousers and tall boots. To complete the look, the uniforms would be adorned with slogans, gang symbols, flags, and even swastikas. Favoured accessories included wrap-around sunglasses, hachimaki headbands, surgical masks and pompadour or punch-perm hairstyles. Female members, although less common, would dress in a similar manner, often sporting high-heeled boots, excessive make-up and dyed hair.

Reaching their peak in the Eighties and Nineties, the modern Bosozoku were infamous for their individual reckless driving and their intimidating mass rallies. Their bikes would be uniquely adapted, usually from a normal Japanese road bike but combined with parts of American choppers and British café racers. They would gather in their hundreds and drive slowly though suburbs, blocking traffic and waving imperial Japanese flags while creating an uproar with their illegally modified mufflers. As well as creating havoc on the roads, there were regular attacks on people and property, with gang members wielding metal pipes, baseball bats, swords and even Molotov cocktails.

The fightback against the biker gangs began in earnest in the 2000s. ‘Anti-Boso’ laws were introduced that took the worst elements off the streets, literally. By 2011, membership had fallen from an all-time high of 42,510 in 1982 to a new low of 9,064. With legislation giving powers to clamp down on groups of reckless bikers, the police were arresting 100,000 of them on traffic violations every year. The Bosozoku are hardly recognisable today. Gone is the tokko-fuku attire. To the shame of their violent forerunners, modern Bosos may well be seen on scooters – and some even wear safety helmets!

With the decline of the Bosozoku, bikers have looked overseas for fresh influences. The American Outlaws
Association in 2006 launched their first prospective chapter in Okinawa and by November of that year Japan had its first fully patched Outlaw chapter. While the old school were reduced to riding scooters, the new wave rumbled in on modified Harley-Davidsons.