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August 13, 2026
 

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YAKUZA

The Fukuoka Prefectural Police obtained a notice Kudokai had sent to other groups saying its leader, Satoru Nomura, had retired.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 16, 2026
Kudokai yakuza group undergoes leadership change
Satoru Nomura, who became Kudokai¡¯s leader in 2011 and has been given a life sentence over attacks on citizens, will be replaced by Fumio Tanoue, the group¡¯s chairman.
Yukio Tanaka, 59, is accused of shooting Takayuki Ohigashi, the Ohsho Food Service president, who was 72 at the time, to death in Kyoto.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2026
Prosecutors seek life sentence over 2013 Ohsho president murder
The defendant, Yukio Tanaka, is accused of shooting Takayuki Ohigashi, the Ohsho president who was 72 at the time, to death in Kyoto.
Tokyo police have arrested three more men in connection with a robbery in the capital's Ueno district in January in which a group of men lost suitcases full of cash amounting to ?423 million.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 3, 2026
Three more arrested over January¡¯s suitcase robbery in Tokyo
The three men are believed to have close ties with major crime syndicates.
Koshi Mizukami (right) plays a rookie police detective who teams up with a South Korean counterpart (Jung Yunho) to tackle an international crime syndicate in the Kabukicho red-light district.
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2026
Crime and comic antics abound in ¡®Tokyo Burst: The Roundup¡¯
Set in the same universe as a hit South Korean series, ¡°Tokyo Burst: The Roundup¡± mashes up a cartoonish aesthetic with gripping violence.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has set up a special task force to intensify its crackdown on the Kohei-ikka, a Sumiyoshi-kai-affiliated designated crime group suspected of deepening its involvement with <i>tokury¨±</i> networks, including special fraud linked to illegal job schemes.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 23, 2026
Yakuza membership fell to record low in 2025
Authorities attribute the decline to an aging population within the criminal groups, tighter enforcement and a nationwide rollout of anti-gang ordinances.
Jinryu Kano, a member of a group affiliated with Yamaguchi-gumi, is taken to the Metropolitan Police Department's Ueno police station in Tokyo on Saturday following his arrest.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 16, 2026
Tokyo robbery suspects bought luxury items with stolen money, police say
Seven were arrested Saturday for allegedly stealing three suitcases containing ?423 million in cash on a street in the Taito Ward and assaulting a 43-year-old man.
Seven individuals were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of stealing three suitcases containing a total of ?423 million in cash from a group of people in Tokyo in January.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2026
Seven arrested over robbery of ?423 million in Tokyo
Senior members of groups linked to the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicates were among those arrested.
Takeshi Ebisawa, a member of a yakuza crime group, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York court on Tuesday after being convicted of trafficking nuclear material, drugs and weapons.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 4, 2026
U.S. court convicts Japanese man of trafficking nuclear material
Takeshi Ebisawa, 61, pleaded guilty to a total of six charges in January 2025.
Hiroaki Obata
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 27, 2026
Police arrest head of Natural, Â鶹´«Ã½ largest sex worker scouting ring
Hiroaki Obata, 40, was taken into custody on the island of Amami Oshima, Kagoshima Prefecture, after police publicly listed him as a wanted suspect.
A vehicle carrying defendant Yukio Tanaka enters the Kyoto District Court for the first hearing of a trial over the fatal shooting of the president of Gyoza no Osho, in Kyoto on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 26, 2025
Yakuza executive pleads not guilty over Osho president shooting
¡°I¡¯m definitely not the culprit¡± in shooting Osho Food Service President Takayuki Ohigashi, said Yukio Tanaka.
Retired yakuza Mako Nishimura sorts fallen leaves during a clean-up activity at the Gifu Gokoku shrine in Gifu Prefecture on Sept. 28.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 21, 2025
Rare female yakuza walks path to redemption in Japan
Heavily inked Mako Nishimura, 58, spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society.
Akira Otani's genre-bending novel "The Night of Baba Yaga" takes place in Â鶹´«Ã½ 1970s yakuza underworld and centers on the daughter of a mob boss and a ruthless martial arts fighter who serves as her bodyguard.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jul 4, 2025
Queer-coded yakuza story wins prestigious U.K. crime writing award
With ¡°The Night of Baba Yaga,¡± Akira Otani is the first Japanese writer to win the Crime Writers¡¯ Association Dagger Award for crime fiction in translation.
A damages lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Fukuoka District Court, names four defendants including the group¡¯s boss, 83-year-old Kenichi Shinoda and his second-in-command, 77-year-old Kiyoshi Takayama.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 16, 2025
Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza boss sued over fraud scheme in Fukuoka
The lawsuit names four defendants including the group¡¯s boss, 83-year-old Kenichi Shinoda, better known as Shinobu Tsukasa.
Yamaguchi-gumi executives (center and right) leave the Hyogo Prefectural Police headquarters in Kobe after submitting a pledge to end turf battles on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 8, 2025
Yamaguchi-gumi pledges end to yakuza war
The crime syndicate has been involved in turf battles with the rival Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, formed by more than a dozen gangs that splintered from it, since 2015.
Among those arrested, 1,011 were ringleaders or individuals who gave instructions. About 90% were perpetrators, including people who received defrauded money, and around 40% became involved in the crimes through recruitment via social media.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 3, 2025
New ¡®³Ù´Ç°ì³Ü°ù²â¨±¡¯ crime groups outpace yakuza in arrests
The term was coined by the National Police Agency to describe a new form of criminal group that has emerged as an alternative to traditional yakuza organizations.
Police officers from the Metropolitan Police Department conduct a search at the premises of Natural, one of Japan's biggest sex worker scout groups, on Monday in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 28, 2025
Tokyo police arrest members of major sex worker scout group
The group had up to about 1,500 scouts nationwide, and its annual revenue is believed to have reached about ?5 billion.
Takeshi Ebisawa poses with a rocket launcher during a meeting with an informant and two undercover Danish police officers at a warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark on Feb. 3, 2021.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 9, 2025
Yakuza leader pleads guilty in U.S. court to conspiring to sell nuclear material
The leader was charged in February 2024 with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Myanmar and purchasing military weaponry.
Ten people are suspected of forcibly entering a club in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on Dec. 17 last year and assaulting a male security guard.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 6, 2024
Alleged operator of anonymous X account arrested over club assault
Z-Ri, a pun on the name of the kung-fu actor Jet Li, is an influential account that posts about the inner workings of Â鶹´«Ã½ underworld.
Violin, a day care center for the elderly, is housed in a building that used be an office of the Kudokai crime syndicate in the city of Kitakyushu. It retains the original look of the Kudokai facility, with its thick steel-plated front door, glittering chandelier and marble floor.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Oct 28, 2024
Former yakuza office repurposed to become elderly care facility
The building that houses Violin, a day care center for the elderly, was once one of the main facilities for the Kudokai syndicate.
Ryoma Takeuchi (right) is perfectly cast as Kazuma Kiryu, a Jack Reacher-esque character of impermeable physicality in Amazon Prime¡¯s new series ¡°Like a Dragon: Yakuza.¡±
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Oct 25, 2024
Amazon¡¯s ¡®Like a Dragon: Yakuza¡¯ pulls its biggest punch
Amazon¡¯s new series based on the long-running Ryu Ga Gotoku games flattens the quirkiest elements of the Kamurocho red-light district for a run-of-the-mill crime drama.
Toyoko Kids: The lonely street children of Tokyo
Many young people who feel neglected at home flock to the Toyoko area to find a community where they can fit in.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Â鶹´«Ã½ anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend ¡ª or want to pay off their debts ¡ª at host clubs.
Japan unveils new overtourism countermeasures
The majority of tourists in Japan tend to stay in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto, resulting in overcrowding in popular tourist spots and a strain on transportation systems.
South Korea couple beat same-sex barriers to parenthood
South Korean lesbian couple Kim Kyu-jin (left) and her wife, Kim Sae-yeon, pose with a "pregnant woman" badge during an interview in Seoul last month.
Opportunities await the bold in the Year of the Wood Dragon
2024 marks the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, with the year predicted to be a good time for fresh starts.
Where do foreign residents in Japan want to die?
The Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery is one of the few cemeteries in Japan that allows burials, albeit with conditions for the deceased, including foreign nationality and permanent residency in Kanagawa Prefecture.
¡®Total whiplash¡¯: Foreign residents react to Â鶹´«Ã½ changing permanent residency rules
The entrance to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in March. For some foreign residents of Japan, tightening measures for permanent residency have become one factor in a broader calculation over whether remaining in the country makes financial sense over the long term.
As Â鶹´«Ã½ concrete jungles sizzle, urban forestry offers an all-natural fix
People and birds find relief from the sun in Tokyo&#039;s Nakano Ward earlier this month. While experts agree that urban greening is crucial to mitigating the impact of climate change, trees are becoming even more scarce in Japanese cities.
Â鶹´«Ã½ brewers experiment with a secret ingredient: music
At Smoke Craft, a craft beer brewery in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, music isn&#039;t just a background to the brewing process ¡ª it&#039;s an ingredient.
As countries ban social media for children, Japan mulls a different approach
Data from NTT Docomo¡¯s Mobile Society Research Institute released in June found that 55% of respondents across all age groups said they fiddled with their phones when they had nothing to do, even when another person was in front of them.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

Disaster relief workers Taichi Kato (left) and Seiji Yoshimura enter the collapsed living quarters at Kyuganji temple in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture.
What Kumamoto revealed about Â鶹´«Ã½ earthquake readiness
By Alex K.T. Martin

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