For the first time in history, a Japanese Yakuza mafia boss has recently been sentenced to death by a Japanese court. Satoru Nomura, the leader of the Kudo-kai group in Fukuoka, was found guilty of murder and 3 gun attacks after a trial held without a jury, for fear of possible threats.
If the appeal confirms this decision, Nomura will be executed by hanging. What makes this process stand out is that no evidence was presented in court that directly links Nomura to the crimes he was charged with.
However, the judge concluded that they were carried out on his orders, so he was determined to impose a capital sentence on him. This case marks a new decline in the prestige of the once fearsome Japanese mafia. At its peak in the 1960s, the Yakuza boasted of having 180,000 members scattered across more than 20 mafia families.
They flourished in the chaotic post-World War II years, controlling black markets, entertainment and gambling, before penetrating the construction, real estate and Japanese politics sectors.
The longest-running party in ruling Japan in recent decades, the LDP, was funded in its early years by the notorious gangster Yoshio Kodama. A symbol of their great influence, was the fact that thousands of Yakuza members served as bodyguards during US President Eisenhower’s planned visit to Japan in 1960.
Allegations of links of this criminal group with the ministers, even the prime ministers of the country, have appeared periodically in the media. Interesting is the fact that the Yakuza acted more or less in legal forms. They have offices named after them, are officially shareholders in businesses, and some of them are even recruited by the police.
They considered themselves as guardians of public order and not as criminals. And occasionally they volunteered to do good deeds, such as helping residents after the earthquake that struck the city of Kobe in 1995, as well as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The traditional member of the Yakuza who was also the leader of this mafia group stood out from the others because of his appearance, with dyed hair, special costumes, sunburned, with colorful shirts unbuttoned to expose some of symbolic tattoos that stretched all over the body.
The distinctive appearance showed not only physical strength, but also served as a brand of grouping.
Their main businesses: drugs, gambling, lending money and prostitution, attracted those who acted themselves within the bounds of legality. As long as they were confined to that sphere of action, they were allowed to act with impunity.
But the years of glory are already a history of the past. The number of Yakuza members has been gradually declining over the decades, and today is around 25,000. And those who still remain part of this mafia are increasingly older men. More than half of them are over 50 years old.
The yakuza are no longer so visible on the streets of Japan. The most common explanation for their decline is that the Yakuza exaggerated, moving from petty street crimes, to the realm of managing large corporations.
This violated the unwritten and tacit agreement with the state, and threatened businesses and political elites. The latter passed a tough new anti-Yakuza law in the early 1990s, targeting not only gangsters but also anyone with ties to them.
Longer prison sentences and confiscation of assets demotivated potential recruits and shrunk the organization’s ranks. But it may be more true to say simply that the time of the Yakuza and their usefulness to the elites is over.
Some have argued that the former Yakuza was a necessary evil, and that some kind of illegal force capable of doing things quickly was valid in the desperate post-war period.
The Yakuza helped facilitate the reconstruction of Japan, just as the giant Commodore Vanderbilt once built America’s railroad network, by any means necessary. Had everything been left in the hands of bureaucrats, progress could have been much slower.
It has also been claimed that with their hierarchical structure and strict codes of conduct, this gang helped bring existing crime under control. This was very important in the difficult post-war years, when opportunities for poor youth were very limited.
Without gangs, those who might have been inclined to have an illegal lifestyle could have ended up as independent criminals, threatening ordinary citizens on a much more serious scale.
But now with an advanced economy, a more stable society, modern technology, and an improvement in police forces, old-style criminal networks have become a burden. The yakuza still exists and still remains scary, but unlike it once was, it is no longer necessary. / (By Philip Patrick – – “The Spectator” – Bota.al)
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