Tokyo Underworld (42 page)

The Sumiyoshi influence in the Ginza was seriously eroded one afternoon in March 1956, at a gangland funeral in the old quarter of Asakusa. Four men in the crowd at a seventeenth-century Buddhist temple where the services were being held drew .38 caliber pistols from their morning coats and began firing at the Sumiyoshi-Ginza head, who was in attendance. When the smoke cleared, he was dead and the TSK’s Ginza position had been solidified.

As he grew in power, Machii developed a friendship with Rikidozan, whom he knew as a fellow Korean, and eventually took over the promotion of all Riki’s
Tokyo matches, much to the chagrin of the Sumiyoshi, assuming the post of auditor in the JPWA. In return, Machii quietly installed Rikidozan as a formal member of the Tosei-kai, with the high-ranking post of
saiko komon
(‘supreme adviser’), a rank beneath only that of the boss. For Riki, who had a bizarre fascination with mobsters, it was an honor in the same league with winning the WWA championship. Soon, the police began calling his Club Riki a ‘branch office of the TSK’ in their internal reports.

Descriptions of Riki’s character came from the plethora of books about him as well as several people the author interviewed who knew him. In addition to Zappetti, there was Richard Beyer, who wrestled in Japan as ‘The Destroyer’, Carl Goch, also a professional wrestler who knew Rikidozan, Roger Suddith, who managed the Nomura Hotel, which Rikidozan often terrorized, and Y. Mogami from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Beyer recalled traveling with Rikidozan on tour in the months before his death, staying in Japanese
ryokan
(inns). Riki had taken to sleeping with a gun under the futon, while gripping tightly a briefcase containing the evening’s take. A knock on the
shoji
would bring Riki to his feet, gun in hand. He frequently moaned that someone was trying to kill him.

In
Yakuza to Koso
, his autobiography, former gang boss Noboru Ando describes his ongoing war with Rikidozan, including an unsuccessful attempt to have Rikidozan killed and the brief kidnapping of three of Rikidozan’s top wrestlers, which Ando had ordered. (Ando was upset because Rikidozan had opened a bar in the major Tokyo entertainment hub of Shibuya, which Ando’s gang controlled. Also Rikidozan had assaulted a nightclub hostess who then turned to Ando for retribution. Rikidozan actually went into hiding until the matter was resolved – through the payment of a sum of money.)

Rikidozan’s ROK trip was reported in
Sports Nippon
, January 11, 1963. The
Tokyo Chunichi Shimbun
translation of the AP story on Riki’s trip revealing his identity was published on January 11, 1963.

The North Korean magazine article was written by Rikidozan’s daughter from his first marriage, who was then living in Pyongyang. It was first published in
Ryuitsu Hyoron
, March 9 and 16, 1984. It appeared in Japanese in June 1984 under the title, ‘
Rikidozan Ni Mo Sokoku Ga Atta’
[‘Even Rikidozan Had a Homeland’], in the monthly
Tong Il Hyoron
, pp. 118–35. By then, the daughter was married to the president of the National Physical Education Committee of the Democratic Republic Committee of North Korea, a union strongly blessed by Riki’s number one fan on the peninsula, Kim Il Sung.

The knifing of Rikidozan was reported extensively in the daily newspapers and
later in the numerous books written about Rikidozan. The most complete account of the knifing was given by the assailant Murata himself, in an interview with the
Shukan Shincho
weekly, February 9, 1989 (pp. 127–28), entitled, ‘
Hanin Ga Kataru Rikidozan Sasatsu No Shinwa’
[‘The Criminal Tells the Truth about the Stabbing of Rikidozan’]. Also see ‘
Jiken No Ato’
[‘After the Incident’],
Shukan Sankei
, pp. 176–79, December 2, 1982, which quotes Murata on the stabbing, and ‘
Pro-Resu Sankoku-shi,’ Asahi Geinno
, August 15, 1992, pp. 60–64.

Conspiracy theories were mentioned in
Mo Hitotsu No Showa Shi (1), Eikyu No Rikidozan
, and ‘
Rikidozan Ni Mo Sokoku Ga Atta
.’ Rikidozan’s daughter did an interview in the August 1, 1991, issue of
Yukan Fuji
(p. 1), in which she laid all the blame for her father’s death on the Japanese yakuza without mentioning the CIA.

Nick Zappetti’s private eulogy of Rikidozan was this: ‘Rikidozan was a nice guy, a really nice guy when you got to know him. And he was the greatest friend in the world; he’d do anything for you. It was only when he was drunk that he turned into a mean son of a bitch. Of course, the problem was, he was drunk all the time.’

4. POST-OLYMPIC UNDERGROUND ECONOMY

‘I feel I am returning to a completely different city,’ Noboru Ando, quoted after his release in 1964 from six years in prison. See
Yakuza to Koso
(vol. 3, p. 126).

Economic data on the Olympic boom are from the annual
Japan Almanac
. The 25,000 bars figure comes from the Leisure Development Center White Paper.

Descriptions of Roppongi in the 1960s are from firsthand experience as well as from interviews with Zappetti, Tom Scully and Hal Drake. The Mikado description is from Grolier Japan President Hiroo Nakao, Richard Roa, Dwight Spenser and, again, firsthand experience.

Defense and entertainment expenditures were drawn from
Japan Almanac
(data provided by the Defense Agency).

Description and background of the Copacabana comes from ‘
Copacabana To Rikon Nyobu No Mise’
[‘The Copacabana and the Club of the Manager’s Ex-Wife’],
Shukan Shincho
, May 25, 1978, pp. 40–44. ‘
Seizai Kai no Naisho wo Shirisugita Otoko’
[‘The Man Who Knew Too Many Secrets about the Political and Economic World’],
Shukan Sankei
, August 9, 1979, pp. 24–27, and ‘
El Morocco’, Shukan Bunshun
, April 5, 1979. All of these referred to club’s mob connections in one form or another. Another source of information was crime journalist Hiroshi Sasaki, who also frequented the Copacabana.

Further Copa descriptions came from Grumman aircraft consultant Jim Phillips, Hiroo Nakao, Richard Roa, and nightly fixture Nick Zappetti. The author has also paid his own visits to the Copa.

Tonichi trading company’s procurement of women for Sukarno was described in the February 28, 1966, issue of the weekly
Shukan Gendai
(p. 51), as well as in the aforementioned
Shincho
piece of May 25, 1975, which credited Tonichi with helping to arrange Dewi’s marriage to Sukarno and also by journalist Hiroshi Sasaki in interviews with the author. Tonichi’s activities became a scandal in the 1960s and subject of many other newspaper and magazine articles. The president of Tonichi trading was Masao Kubo, an intimate of Machii and a man whose company was backed by Kodama and LDP bigwig Ichiro Kono. Whenever Sukarno was in Tokyo, he stayed at Kubo’s palatial home in Takagi-cho.

The Tonichi–Dewi relationship was reported in the February 28, 1966,
Shukan Gendai
article, the aforementioned
Shincho
piece, and in Yoko Kitazawa, ‘Japan-Indonesia Corruption: Bribe, It Shall Be Given You (Part I),’
AMPO magazine
8, no. 1, 1976. ‘The Structure of Sponging (1)’ by Eiji Tomonomiri, in the
Asahi Evening News
, March 19, 1976, describes the activities of Tonichi’s main competitor and subsequent partner in Indonesia, Kinoshita Shoten.

Material on Copa hostesses as industrial agents came from journalist Hiroshi Sasaki, aircraft consultant Jim Phillips, and Nick Zappetti – all regular visitors to the club. The activities of the hostesses was also revealed in May 25, 1978,
Shukan Shincho
article, in which the Copacabana was referred to as the ‘nighttime stage’ for the ‘aircraft wars’.

The 1958 Lockheed bribe is described in detail in ‘Japan’s Lockheed Scandal: Structural Corruption’, by Karl Dixon, in
Pacific Community
8, no. 2, January 1977. It is also described in Anthony Sampson,
The Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed
, as well as by Takashi Tachibana in the aforementioned
Bungei Shunju
article, ‘
Kodama Yoshio to wa Nanika’
(the latter piece also described the Patek Phillipe watch incident with Kodama).

Ginza Machii’s order to those followers whose appearance was ‘not pleasant’ was published in the aforementioned July–August 1964
Mainichi Daily News
series on organized violence.

The Caravansary was introduced in the
Shukan Bunshun
article, ‘
Yoru No Kanko Ni Noridashita Showa No Kaibutsu,’
June 9, 1966, pp. 38–42. Further description came from firsthand experience and from one-time patrons Hiroo Nakao, Rick Roa and Dwight Spenser. Kodama’s quotes were taken from the Bunshun article.

Data on Kodama and the
sokaiya
are from Takashi Tachibana, ‘
Kodama Yoshio To Wa Nani Ka?’ Bungei Shunju
. The Nomura Securities ‘adviser’s fee’ paid to Kodama was reported in the
Japan Times
, June 12, 1977. (It states, ‘Kodama was getting 2 million yen as a summer gift and 3 million yen as a winter gift from Nomura.’) The article entitled ‘
Black Current’
, issued by Kyodo News Agency on April 1, 1992, cites a 20 million yen fee the brokerage paid to Kodama in the mid-1970s with a quote from Minoru Segawa, chairman of Nomura Securities.
Segawa was quoted as telling an LDP staff worker, Katsuyoshi Hayashi, ‘Even publicly owned companies have both public and private faces. We pay
Kodama-sensei
20 million annually in an adviser’s fee. In return, he fixes problems of all sorts for us. I consider the fee well worth it.’

There were an estimated 5,000
sokaiya
throughout Japan. Some were of the type that specialized in peacekeeping operations at shareholder meetings; others’ main area of interest was corporate extortion through their own private publications. Before his influence waned, Kodama managed to bring some 75 percent of them under his control.

The police representative’s quote and other related estimates are from ‘
Hen-shin Suru Boryoku Shudan’
[‘The Changing Violent Gangs’],
Shukan Yomiuri
, October 15, 1978, pp. 28–40.

KING OF ROPPONGI : MAFIA BOSS OF TOKYO

Descriptions of life at post-Olympic Nicola’s came from Zappetti, Frank Nomura, Eugene Aksenoff, Marty Steinberg, Larry Wallace, Loren Fetzer, and Joe and Leith Bernard, all of whom were habitués at the time.

The Machii finger-amputating incident was described in several publications, including ‘
Kodama no Kage De Odoru Aru Fuikusa’
[‘The Fixer Who Danced in Kodama’s Shadow’],
Asahi Journal
, October 1, 1976, and also the
Shukan Bunshun
series, ‘
Kankoku Kara Kita Otoko’
[‘The Man from Korea’], June 30, 1977. It is also described in Kaplan and Dubro,
Yakuza
.

In his autobiography,
Yakuza to Koso
, Ando vividly describes the knife attack on him and how his face was sewn up with no anesthetic. The incident in which a TSK soldier faced a man with a sword and had his left hand lopped off is described in the Tokyo police file on the Tosei-kai. The ‘You see that sword glint in the light,’ quote is from an author interview with ex-gangster turned novelist Joji Abe, who once belonged to Ando’s gang.

Dave’s kidnapping was described by eyewitness Frank Nomura. The incident with Maurice was related by eyewitness Zappetti. The Mike Sullivan story was related by Nick Zappetti. Witnesses to Sullivan’s fight with Matsubara were Akio Nomura, who was working behind the bar at Tom’s that night, and Hal Drake, a
Stars and Stripes
reporter who was present, sitting at one of the tables. The aftermath was described by Drake and Tom Scully, who worked with Sullivan at the
Stripes
. Scully sent whiskey and other supplies when Sullivan was in hiding from the Tosei-kai. Sullivan refused to grant an interview.

Zappetti’s arrests were verified by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Azabu Precinct; the shotgun raid by US Embassy attaché Barry Nemcoff. The FBI visit was described by Yae Koizumi and Zappetti. Zappetti was characterized as ‘Gaijin Enemy Number One’ by Yutaka Mogami, a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Police Department’s Foreign Affairs Division. Zappetti’s offenses were many and varied. He once flew into a rage at a policeman who had arrived with a light meter to gauge the darkness level of Nicola’s restaurant. Angry over having his dinner interrupted, the proprietor threw the light meter, and the policeman, down the stairs of his restaurant, which earned him a huge fine by the Tokyo District Court. Zappetti also had a habit of getting drunk while out on the town and forgetting where he had parked his car. He would call the police the next morning and demand they track it down for him. Yutaka Mogami had struck up a friendship of sorts with Zappetti after his first incarceration in the Tokyo Detention Center, when Mogami belonged to a team of interpreters tasked with interrogating foreign criminals. Mogami thought that Zappetti was one of the strangest people he had ever met. Mogami ran occasional small errands for him, tracking down old girlfriends, and got all the free pizza he could eat in return. Mogami also did occasional translation assignments as well. But Mogami’s honesty was beyond question. He once turned down an extremely handsome offer from a representative of Lucky Luciano’s gang who wanted Mogami’s help in setting up a casino in Japan. Instead, he reported the man to his superiors, and the Luciano mobster was deported. Mogami’s relationship with Zappetti eventually deteriorated. It wasn’t just the fact that Mogami’s fellow police officers looked askance at it. The problem was also Mogami’s wife, who told him she did not want him associating with ‘that crook’.

In regard to the murder of the man from Macao, Zappetti admitted to the author in an interview that he had commissioned it.

Zappetti told Askenoff that being a Mafia boss was the highest that anyone from his background could aspire to.

Barry Nemcoff, press officer at the US Embassy (from 1963to 1968), affirmed in an author interview that throughout the 1960s Zappetti was still regarded as the Mafia Boss of Tokyo by US Embassy officials and Tokyo Police and that the prevailing belief was that Nick was still in the employ of the New York Mafia, looking after their interests in the Far East.