Yesterday morning at 10am in the well-to-do area of Tokyo’s Nishi Azabu, a member of one Yakuza gang (the Yamaguchi-gumi, 山口組) shot and killed a very senior member (a 幹部 or kanbu, which roughly translates to “director”) of another Yakuza gang (the Sumiyoshi-kai, 住吉会) on the side of the main road between Roppongi and Shibuya, all in broad daylight. This has lit a match of dangerous and lethal proportions, escalating a rift that has been brewing in Tokyo for some time now, starting the much feared “Yakuza war” in central Tokyo, that many have been predicting since the end of 2005.
This is directly relevant for a few of us who write for Stippy, because it has all happened literally right on our doorstep. One of the things we all like and respect about Japan – it’s shiny reputation as a “safe” country – seems to have become tarnished and is somewhat crumbling at the sides. Many of us (and I suppose our avid readers) live around this lively and busy area of Tokyo, and the shock certainly hit home yesterday with the scene of the drive-by shooting being outside my local Seijo Ishii supermarket, a stone’s throw from where several of us live, and even more of us work. This is just not meant to happen in Japan – it seems so surreal.
The incident went as follows: Just after 10am, gun shots were heard along Roppongi Street in Nishi-Azabu 4 Chome. 
The fuzz arrived to find a rough looking, but well dressed guy inside a USD$110k black Toyota “Century” (pictured, the favoured car of the nationalistic Yakuza) dead. He had been shot three times in the head and stomach at point blank range, at 10am on a weekday morning on one of the busiest inner city thoroughfares of Tokyo in front of more than 50 or 60 onlookers (most who soon fled the scene for fear of being tangled in more than they can handle).
After investigation by the Central Anti-Organized Crime Unit (警視庁組織犯罪対策課）and the local police, they determined that the murdered man was a member of the well-known Sumiyoshi-kai Yakuza Gang (these gangs are more commonly referred to as 暴力団 , “boryokudan”, which means literally “violence gang” in Japanese). The eye witnesses that were brave enough to stick around for police and reporters that soon swarmed upon the area, said that 2 men wearing motorbike helmets had approached the parked car, and fired three rounds through the back window of the car, and killing the kanbu, who’s name was Ryoichi Sugiura (杉浦良一, 43 years old). 
The two assassins then fled, and soon after a handgun and their motorbike were found ditched very close to the crime scene, which was in between Kowa Building (a building that houses about 10 embassies of mainly South American nations) and the headquarters of Novartis Pharma. This highly prized living area is considered to be quite upper-class, and normally very quiet, despite it’s close proximity to Roppongi and Azabujyuban, both notorious for their pinnings to the Tokyo underworld (and both considered “dangerous” – or maybe just yabai – places to be by normal Japanese people.)
About two hours after the incident, I left our office building (near Novartis) and headed back toward Nishi Azabu crossing for lunch with a colleague, and by that time, the area was surrounded by TV cameras and flashing lights. There were at least 20 detective cars (unmarked with just the proverbial removable red light atop their roof), and at least as many news trucks, from every TV station I could think of, and more. Helicopters were circling the skies, trying to get scoop footage of the scene from above. The whole area was wrapped in yellow “Crime Scene – Keep Out” police tape, and while being generally under control, people were on a tight string, and the atmosphere was one of orderly mayhem.
Roppongi-dori closed off for all traffic by Police (click to enlarge)
The last time I saw a scene like that was the evening Takafumi Horie from Livedoor got arrested at Roppongi Hills, where I also happened to be walking past at the time. I was expecting this to be just a similar incident, maybe another big media arrest, or another company being raided by Police for yet another financial scandal – until a scattered and panicked Japanese guy ran up to us (2 gaijins) and proceeded to tell us that one of the Yamaguchi-gumi (Japan’s largest Yakuza group originating in Kansai), had shot a member of the Sumiyoshi-kai (the second largest group, based traditionally in Tokyo) and that there would “repercussions”, and that the whole neighbourhood was in danger. He scuttled on. We were next approached by a young guy from NHK, Japan’s national TV and radio network asking if we were from one of the the embassies in Kowa Building – nope, strike one. Did we live in the adjacent building – nope, strike two. Did we hear the shots – nope, strike three. Well, would we like to do an interview about how safe Nishi Azabu is? Nope, definitely not.
Gunmen fired from here at the parked car (click to enlarge)
Turf-wars（縄張り）between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai gangs have been increasing in recent years. The whole story is actually quite complicated, and is much harder to understand than the American “gang warfare” that we see in Hollywood movies. Indeed, Yakuza is far flung from the breed of gangs that fight in other countries – a true underworld, where the public is rarely aware of what is actually going on, and even more rarely affected or dragged into their constant fighting. There is no racial tension (they are all as pure as Japanese people come) and unlike gang members in the west, these guys are rich, filthy rich, and run many questionable, but lucrative businesses in Japan, including Pachinko and many of the chains of Japan’s famous love hotels.
When we go a little further into history of the Yakuza in the Roppongi-Azabu area of Tokyo, until quite recently, this whole area was originally controlled by the 国粋会 (Kokusui-kai) gang. The Kokusui-kai was on relatively good terms with the Sumiyoshi-kai (and it’s subset, the Kobayashi-kai), and were “lending” the turf in this area for them to control. In September 2005 however, Kokusui-kai was absorbed by the Yamaguchi-gumi, starting the current turf war for the areas between Roppongi and Shibuya. The Yamaguchi-gumi thought it was high time the whole area was returned to Kokusui-Yamaguchi control, and this is when things started to get interesting.
In August 2005, part of the nightclub region of Roppongi come under the control of Yamaguchi-gumi. They also succeeded around the same time, in acquiring some lucrative areas around Ginza, the famous shopping district of Tokyo. All this was, as mentioned above, while they were in the process of absorbing the 500 member strong Tokyo-based gang Kokusui-kai. Since then, the Kokusui-kai under Yamaguchi-gumi has been in a number of tussles with the Kobayashi-kai of the Sumiyoshi-kai over Nishi-Azabu and Roppongi turf rights. One of the explanations floating around is that the kanbu who was shot yesterday (Sugiura) was in charge of negotiations of turf boundaries for the Sumiyoshi-kai, and that he drew the wrong line in the sand with the Yamaguchi people. The media is reporting that this will turn into a long running「血のバランスシート」(a “Blood Balance Sheet”), claiming that the battle to claim back turf and pride is measured in how much blood of the rival’s top level kanbu is split, and are warning that the war could span over many years to come.
Police outside the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters (click to enlarge)
The Yamaguchi-gumi is one of the largest criminal organization in the world. Estimates put the number of active members at just over 39,000, with thousands more having strong associations. It is, by far, the largest of the Yakuza group, and its membership encompasses roughly 45% of the 87,000 Yakuza in the Japanese underworld. However, the Yamaguchi-gumi are from the Kansai region, having their headquarters in Kobe. The current kumi-cho（組長） or Godfather of the Yamaguchi-gumi is known as Shinobu Tsukasa. He became the 6th boss of this group in 2005, and under his leadership the Yamaguchi-gumi has undertaken an expansionist policy into Tokyo, which is not traditionally a Yamaguchi-gumi stronghold. And their actions are upsetting the tradition Tokyo local gangs.
The Sumiyoshi-kai, is the second-largest Yakuza gang in Japan with an estimated 10,000 members. It is a confederation of smaller gangs, and its current sosai (総裁), or leader, is Shigeo Nishiguchi. Structurally, the Sumiyoshi-kai differs from its main rival, the Yamaguchi-gumi as it is more of a federation, has a looser chain of command and although Nishiguchi is still the supreme Godfather, he shares some powers with several other men.
Yamaguchi-gumi repercussion shooting in Shibuya (click to enlarge)
Unfortunately it seems like the scattered and panicked Japanese guy that stumbled into us was right – there would be repercussions, and they have been occurring constantly since the initial shooting. Merely one hour later at just after 11am, the Yamaguchi-gumi’s main Tokyo office in Azabu-Juban 1, about 1.5 kilometers from Nishi-Azabu, was riddled with bullets in retaliation. Also, at 6am this morning, shots were heard in a Yamaguchi-related apartment building in Shibuya, and police arrived to find 3 holes in the door of one of the apartments. Around the same time, the door of a Yamaguchi-gumi member’s apartment in Toshima-ku was also sprayed with bullets. However there were no casualties in any of these attacks.
In should be noted that guns are illegal in Japan. In 2006, in the entire country, there were only 53 incidents involving guns, and only 2 deaths, the least in recorded history. And last year, 2006 was the only year on police record in which no one had been killed in Yakuza turf wars. 2007 has already failed at maintaining that record.
It remains to see what the outcome of this war will be, and how large it will become. But there are definitely more long black cars with tinted-black windows carrying bad-ass looking dudes with black glasses, and short blue and white cars with flashing red lights carrying not-so-bad-ass looking dudes with yellow armbands around Nishi Azabu than I have seen before. The chef over lunch said yesterday, 俺たち関係ないよ (“this doesn’t concern us, it has nothing to do with us”) – Good.
If you have any more Yakuza details, or insights (or corrections) regarding the Yakuza groups mentioned in the article, please share them in the comments!
Stippy has added a follow-up article about the ongoing Yakuza Wars. For the latest update, click to read “Big Boss Falls on Sword in Tokyo Yakuza Wars”.
Wow, nice to see a timely story with the background on this! I actually work at the Novartis building you mention, and we heard the gun shots! Of course, being Japan, nobody even imagined that the noise was gunfire and automatically assumed they were backfires from car exhausts on the highway below. But, several minutes after the incident, we heard dozens of emergency vehicles screaming to the site! A look out the window showed the total confusion of the situation, and it was only then that it clicked that the the explosions we heard may have been gunfire! Being the busybody I am, I rushed to the scene, just in time to see the car being covered with a blue tarpaulin (nothing gory in sight by the time I got there).
This reminds me of the Triad back in Hong Kong. A couple of year’s back the mob trampled into my favorite yum cha restaurant (Luk Yu Tea House) – in the middle of daylight – and pulled a similar job on the boss of a warring gang while he was eating his prawn dumpling.
Rumor is that – somewhat different to Tokyo – everyone just kept on eating their lunch and pretended that nothing happened. When the cops arrived on the scene half an hour later, noone owned up to having seen anything (and just kept on eating). Go figure.
* * *
Since then the restaurant has been more famous than ever and is packed to the seems every weekend – only in Hong Kong! Stippy, what’s the story in Nishi-Azabu? Are the restaurants near by still doing business?
Re: Luk Yu Tea House
Luk Yu Tea House 陸羽茶室 has always been famous in Hong Kong, like for decades. Most local folks don’t even know about or remember the shooting, even though it happened in 2002.
The restaurants are doing fine around Nishi-Azabu. After all this is a Yakuza related event and little danger to the general public except for the odd stray bullet. From what I can see, its business as usual.
Okay then, I have a question: If there is no effect on local businesses, how exactly do Yakuza make money in Japan? Do they not extort from the locals, like on Sopranos? (For example…)
Great post. I lived in Tokyo from 1989-91, and it was always easy to spot the Yakuza crowd. It’s hard to imagine that things have degenerated to this point.
Stay safe!
Wow – yeah I saw a snippet of this story on the news late last night. Full on. Every few years there are some good Yakuza shootings it seems. One in Hanzomon a few years back, I think involved some samurai swords as well.
I heard the Yakuza have been in decline for the past decade and are losing members left right and center. Forced to fight it out for members and for business – a lot in construction it seems. A friend tells me he’s bumped into them all through the wine importer channels as well. he gave up trying that side business.
As a more gangster style job, I guess they do a lot of the human trafficking you hear about in the papers like hostesses who get their passports taken off them upon arrival and are made to be slaves in Mizu-shobai.
“as racially-pure as they come”?? I thought many of the yakuza gangs in Japan were welcoming of so-called Korean Japanese?
Good write up, a lot easier to understand then the babble on the news, where it’s degenerated into Yakuza Wars Apocalypse 2007 blah blah with the forecasting.
To tell the truth, it’s almost a little relieving to see some “normal” violence in Japan lately as opposed to the rather horrifying dismembering murders from December and January (The Morgan Stanley dude cut up by his wife for DV and the sister cut up by her brother over pressure).
I am almost morbidly interested in seeing if this will actually escalate into the Yakuza Wars that they are talking about.
All the more reason to be careful about who you hang out with in Roppongi eh? Now we know who’s behind those 1000 yen beers. That’s how they line them pockets!
Awesome article!….frontline reporting at its stippy best! look forward to fresh updates on the situation.
Great post. You guys do a better job reporting the news than any of the English-language papers here in Tokyo with all the background info you provide.
I heard the fight was over bad sushi
Niceee.. We need a neo-Mario Puzo to make a novel out of this
good post! keep it up.
Trevor, thanks so much for your comment! We never thought we’d ever be compared to the likes of the prestigious Japan Times, or Herald Tribune etc. Thats a huge compliment to a humble and young site like ours. We just enjoying writing articles about interesting things happening in Japan, and are glad that our readers are getting some enjoyment from the site!
For a short update on the local Yakuza situation, the shootings seem to have subsided over the last day or two, but there is still a lot of action. There is a long black car full of big looking dudes permanently parked at the site of the killing. There is a cop car permanantly flashing its lights outside a couple of local apartment buildings. And this morning the local Almond cafe was closed to the regular public, and full of black suits.
We stopped in at the local pub last night which is just down the from where it happened. Since the shooting, gaijins have stopped coming in, they said. They have had a number of booking cancellations etc. However interestingly, there has not been a drop in the Japanese customers at all. Business as usual as far as Japanese are concerned.
As long as humanity remains mortal, the ultimate way to gain power over mankind will be by killing people.
As long as anyone has a desire for power, no place will ever be safe.
Trouble is, there are well-documented consequences of eliminating the will to power, as many communes have tried to do. I shudder to think of the most easily imaginable consequences of eliminating mortality.
So let’s make what safety we can as individuals, better for our children than for ourselves, and hope it is enough.
Update from the Japantimes, it seems that the two rival Yakuza gangs have settled this already. We may not see any action for a while, but it will probably flare up again sooner or later:
A funny aside on the yakuza in Nishi Azabu. They have offices in 3 and 4 chomes Nishi Azabu. The ones in 3 chome use the Enos gasoline stand almost as their private parking lot in the last 2 or 3 years. Funny thing is the local cops also fill their cars up at the same stand but I wonder if they have notice all the yakuza cars parked there? The numbers of the cars have a childish kind of similarity. Many of them have combinations of 11-88 which in Japanese can read as ‘good daddy’ (いいパパ) but all are obvious yakuza cars.
The workers at the stand are quite open about the fact that all the yakuza cars are parked there.
Howver, if you were to ask if you could leave your car at this stand for a while after filling up with gasoline you would be told to get lost. It happended to me.
Found this on Japan Today:
So then, does anyone know if Sumiyoshi still have control?
how did the Yakuza start? I need to know.
Yakuza started in 1784 WHEN THE BASTARD CALLED MR.MOSING KILLED ONE OF THE CHINESE NIGGAZ
I heard they were formed from groups of Ronin, masterless samurai, that loaned their skills out for hire and eventually began to organise into groups for hire……
This movie is about yakuza.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFTMjoeuT8
Stippy has added a follow-up article about the ongoing Yakuza Wars. Visit the top page to read about: “Big Boss Falls on Sword in Tokyo Yakuza Wars”.
Hey is there still a yakuza gang??? in japan????
If so can u tell me??? i really want to know…
Hey I gotta say a few things. You know I went to school with the daughter of one of these bossses. SOmething i didn;t figure out until it was almost too late. Like everyother young guy in college i dream of meeting a cute girl and falling in love. My disadvantage is i am still a …well..virgin…and not experienced. So i am thinking more of love than just carnal stuff.
ok off topic but a little background.
I get to know a girl who seems to be into me.After a lot of ups and downs, i kind of well insult here somehow through no culture knowledge of my own. I like Japan, and other aspects of other countries as well. i always consider myself wordly. LOL.
ok you probably want the good stuff. Well after insulting her indirectly i want to add. I start noticing odd htings happening to me and my money and my things. Dangerous things. I feared for my life.
thinking i was going crazy, i finally confronted her about somethings and we left on good terms. After she explained how people sometimes die, i kind of made two and two = 4. Well another girl told me about how this particular girls father is one of the richest guys in TOkyo an a Yakuza.
My stupidity got me into it and sheer will got me out of it, but had i been an asshole like most other guys my age, i might not be able to write this.
-Keeping it in the pants since birth
let me just say…that oyu know. i read a lot of articles on here, and noticed things, both in the guy who writes things and the peoples comments.
I am going to sound rude and that is what usually gets me in trouble. But you people seem to not even realize much about japan. I mean the whole aids thing and how he thought the country was a sort iof duisneyland. you must have lived a very sheltered life. Or just that you can;t put a lot of stuff on the site that is offenseive or don;t want to.
but just as a picture is worth a thousand words so is walk on the street. maybe it ireally is true that ignorance is bliss, but you walk in and out of dangerous situation every second whether oyu realize it or not. this whole shooting thing is nothing. you can notice it all around you whether oyu look or not is up to you.
Needless to say i would like to comment i love the site.
but I suggest as the author points out how people expected this from 2005, there is more to it than just that. By reading what you write an what others write it says a lot about them. and i love the site.
but the whole yakuza thing is frightening to say the least.
-need to relax
Exactly! as BONE writes “business as usual for the japanese…” you are on to somehting there.
looks like your yakuza are running out of things to do:
Insider Trading Yakuza Style”
“these guys are rich, filthy rich,”
Dude I think u got ur facts wrong..
As with most things here the western press glorifies the whole image of Mafia here and everywhere else.
Having been married to the daughter of an Osaka Boss and seeing first hand how they tend to be more like nickel and dime type of operations there is nothing to glorify here or least of all call them filthy rich. Most are in debt up to their eyeballs and the system is like a giant pyramid scheme. Every little bit of money earned gets pushed up to the top of the pyramid thus what is left is very little.
Sure some can be rich for a short time but over a lifespan they mostly have been broke and rich countless times…..
i cant stand the fighting
I am completely surrounded by these guys and to be honest, they are good neighbors.
If you want real terror…try getting on the bad side of a family of Samoans/Tongans. They don’t want money. They just want to rip your face off.
I have a response to Bignose Bill when he asks:
If there is no effect (from the violence) on local businesses, how exactly do Yakuza make money in Japan? Do they not extort from the locals, like on Sopranos?
The answer is that the Yakuza are mostly involved in a combination of gambling, prostitution, gun running, human slave trade, and drug trafficing and selling. They also have a strong foothold in legitimate businesses, but use illegal tactics to gain an unfair advantage over other legitimate businesses. They do use the practice of extortion, directly translated as “protection.” However, it makes up a small percentage of their overall profits. Besides, unlike many other criminal organizations, they actually do provide protection to those who pay them protection money. And yes, people have witnessed and recorded proof of this strangely equal reciprocity. A tourist was enjoying himself in one of the many strip clubs in Kabukicho when a drunk customer became violent with the staff. Most Japanese people hate confrontation, so the manager made a call. Within five minutes a local yakuza boss with more than a few of his men in tow arrived to “escort” the unruly patron out. Though there are Japanese businesses, such as travel agencies, who suffer unwanted yakuza pressuring, many businesses are actually willing to pay protection money, since they do receive protection. Still dangerous, still thugs, but a bit different from our own. Heh.
Hope this little tidbit helps.
Oh come on people can’t jus b afraid of these people, i mean some 1 has to do something with these ass heads.
Nice one…I currently own a ’96 Toyota Century. All black, slammed with 20s. I’m currently in the process of getting it shipped back to the states.
Japan needs to call on the God of Death, Kenshiro and the Fist of the North Star to eliminate all the Yakuza, and then take care of the occupying forces as well! Bansai!!!!!!
Hi
Sounds good to know. I heard also that some labor union in japan is connected to yakuza. Since then I decided not to join any labor union , nambu, tozen or even general.
Yakuzas now-a-days do not look for small extortion. They, usually oyabuns, work with politicians and large corporations as targets. Kobusn, bottom members may have pachinko parlors. They may operate illegal gambling houses to collect commissions on each game, They are not good in gamblings because the customers are more statistically trained in their schoolsl. Yakuzas usually play with themselves. They are polite to their customers – regular citizens. When large yakuza wars or gurentai (wanna be yakuza rough groups) wars happen, local police heads ask bigger yakuza or shinnokai (not yakuza but small itinelant merchant group) to have truce ceremony. Shinnokai (tekiya) members are crippled people (used to be WW 1, then WW 11 veterans, later victims of WW !! bombings) whom Japanese Government neglected. They were originally organized by local ninja descendants. Japan is very discriminatory country. Samurai descendants joined them after they lost their farm lands. Yakuzas stayed awaqy to fight with tekiyas believing tekiyas were good for martial arts. Tekiyas included anyone regardless of their social ranks so that shinno-kai could collect their union fees beside doing business. Ninja people did not drink sake in order to be efficient in their spy activity. They did not wear armors like movie. They had short sword om their left side so that they could go underneath of floor. Yakuzas were scared of ninjas – tkiyas. Yakuzas have been considered that they are cowards in Japan because they always behave with their peers. That is why Japanese people are not scared of yakuzas. The earthquake or tsunami comes, people expect yakuzas to rescue people. otherwise, yakuzas will be ostracized in japan. Japan has strange culture. Women do not kill themsleves when they are mistreated by their husbands or raped now-a-days. Yakuzas do not brag but women laying on railroad tracks to die, yakuzas used to rescue. Yakuzas sometimes kill themselves. Killing non-yakuza (katagi) is no no. Anyway, Fukushima people did not have food and Japanese Government did not give foode to them. Japanese Government are going to make momey for earthquake and tsunami discovery by legalizing gambling, I hope the government will help people first. Las Vegas type casino-hotel.
Excuse my broken English and misspellings. In my time, I had to study English by books.
Thank you for your insightful comment toshiko san, it is very appreciated. Domo. I also hope people in Fuushima are being helped sufficiently, insteady of buying new fighter airplanes, Japanese government should help Fukushima and Sendai area.
KENSHIRO-SAN, Yakuzas have tattoos to show off. Tekiyas hardly tattoo themselves. Women are included in their associations. Yakuzas do not. Tekiyas’ business includes entertainment, Sumou shows, Kabuki shows in their local area. They tend to have commercial high school graduated people (long time ago) so that they could keep their books right. Their children usually go to more than legal school (8th) and many goto colleges. Yakuzas are different. Yakuzas have business of /sou-kai-ya. Soukaiya yell at stock holders meetings as soon as it starts, “We agree!” or “We don’t agree.” Tekiyas sokaiyas read all before and attend. That is why Yakuza sokaiyas were hated by corporations that can’t stand to pay extortion money. it is about time yakuzas should be rehabilitated. In Las Vegas, Mafia bosses were all gone. Moe Daliz contributed to University of Las Vegas and did other charitable donations to needed organization. Chicago mob’s enforcer Spilotro’s nephew is an attorney in Clark county Nevada. Oscar Goodman had been a Las Vegas Mayor and he used to defend mobs. His wife is the Mayor now. Japan should have plans to rehabilitate yakuzas, too. If Las Vegas got rid of mobs, with those gambles, Japan should wipe out yakuza type organizations. Otherwise, Japan’s plan to make tax money on Las Vegas invested hotel casions would not work at all. You are right. Japan does not need to waste money on out-of-dated airplanes.
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Toshiko-San thank you again for your sharing your knowledge with people like myself that are interested in learning many things about Japan. You also know quite a lot about US history in terms of former organized mafia. Do you have you tube channel or e-mail? I would like to ask other questions which might be too sensitive for public view. Domo for your answers and sharing your insight. It is appreciated.