Under financial pressure, the transitional syndicate has turned to sophisticated white-collar crimes such as corporate fraud, blackmail and phone scams – practices they once looked down upon
Feared Japanese crime group Yakuza are being forced into illegal trades they once considered taboo. Anti-Yakuza laws introduced into the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ have crippled the gangs traditional methods of generating revenue such as protection rackets and illegal gambling dens.
Under financial pressure, the transitional syndicate has turned to sophisticated white-collar crimes such as corporate fraud, blackmail and phone scams – practices they once looked down upon by the gang. Yakuza expert Jake Adelstein, who authored Tokyo Vice, said the laws have forced the gang to set up in other neighbouring countries.
He said: “And surprisingly, weirdly enough, Singapore is also a place where many organised crime companies set up business from Japan.” He added that Malaysia is a “bad place for business” for the Yakuza.
“They set up shop in Cambodia, Laos, maybe Singapore, but not Malaysia,” he said.
A report by Fraud Conference News on a speech by the investigative reporter read: “As traditional rackets like protection payments and gambling have become harder to sustain, the Yakuza have moved into fraud.
“Adelstein noted a rise in phone scams, blackmail rings and corporate fraud schemes orchestrated through front companies. He also highlighted the Olympus accounting scandal, where $1 billion in losses were hidden, some with help from organized crime groups.
“At one point, the Yakuza even took control of Japan’s equivalent of Classmates.com. According to Adelstein, the platform’s database of users and their personal information was ideal for blackmail.”
It comes as a Yakuza ganglord pleaded guilty to handling nuclear materials and seeking to sell it to facilitate arms deals. Member of the Japanese criminal underworld, Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, has pleaded guilty to the handling of nuclear materials sourced from Myanmar.
Prosecutors claimed Ebisawa “brazenly” moved materials containing uranium and weapons grade-plutonium alongside drugs from Myanmar. Ebisawa was charged in February of last year with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear materials and lethal narcotics from Myanmar to purchase military grade weapons.
The court proceeding came after Thai authorities assisted by US investigators in a Sting operation that seized two powdery yellow substances that the defendants described as “yellowcake”.
The department of justice has stated one of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators had claimed to be in possession of: “More than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 – referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as ‘yellowcake’.”
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