Neighbours oust Japanese gang in court action

HAVING one Japanese gang headquartered in their neighbourhood was bad enough. When a rival mob tried to move in, neighbours did something that was once almost unthinkable.

They organised, called the cops, went to court to evict the newcomers and won.

Japanese gangsters, known as yakuza, once operated from well-marked offices, often with signs out front and symbols of their trade such as lanterns and samurai swords visible through the windows. Yakuza – the word means good-for-nothing – were even romanticised as noble outlaws with a code of honour. That is evaporating, however.

“Civil action is growing across the country,” said Yasushi Murakami, a lawyer for 160 residents of Tokyo’s Akasaka district who, after a long battle, won a court- mediated settlement to keep out the 4,800-member Inagawa-kai syndicate.

The battle in Akasaka, an upscale business and entertainment district, underscores a sea change in the way Japanese regard the underworld. For decades, gangs were allowed a certain amount of swagger in exchange for co-operating with police to keep turf wars in check.

One reason for the public’s change of attitude is a spate of gang violence, underscored by the shooting of Iccho Ito, 61-year-old mayor of Nagasaki, as he campaigned for re-election outside a train station in 2007. The killer, a Yamaguchi-gumi gunman with a grievance against the city, is now under sentence of death.

The murder was seen by many as an attack on Japanese democracy. A month later a policeman was killed in a shooting rampage in central Japan, and last July came the fatal shooting of a loan company official outside his house in Fukuoka.

“What we worry about most is our children,” said Akasaka resident Takako Takemura. “We just do not want gangsters in our neighbourhood.”

The government has also tightened its gun and racketeering law.

The Akasaka settlement bars the Inagawa-kai, Japan’s third largest crime syndicate, from owning and moving into a three-story building a few blocks from the headquarters of the rival Sumiyoshi-kai, the second largest group.

But the larger gang may also be on the way out, because Minato ward’s assembly, which oversees Akasaka, has resolved to rid the neighbourhood of all gangs, and has disqualified gang members from renting public housing there.