Customer Reviews

Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, Expanded Edition

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a solid reference work, and expands and updates on the earlier work that was itself a classic. It examines structured corruption in which organized crime, organized politics, and secretive corporate conglomerates, all help one another become wealthy at the expense of the public.

There are a number of fine points across the book that merit emphasis here, and one of the earliest is that of how the CIA and the Army G-2 deliberately nurtured Japanese criminal organizations during the occupation, because they were "anti-communist."

There is an excellent section of the book that focuses on how the US government fostering of political corruption in Japan in turn led to US corporate corruption, to include the funding of separate US corporate foreign policies anti-thetical to those Congress was trying to foster in the days before Congress abdicated its responsibilities.

Lee Kuan Yew would like this book. He says the only antidote to organized crime is strong extended families--natural families whose kinship equates to ethics. The book documents the spread of crime in Japan to every aspect of life, and one can only be saddened to see how the concepts of samurai honor and loyalty have been turned upside down.

Three ideas keep running through my mind as I read the book, two of them from the author and the third my own. First, the authors focused on the importance of following the money. He knew and wrote about this in the mid-1980's, but today the US Government is still marginally able to follow money, especially informal money that the FBI only discovered in the late 1990's with help from Dick Clarke (see my review of "Against All Enemies"). Following the money is *the* intelligence challenge of the 21st Century, and it is not something CIA can do--we have to find means of integrating all seven tribes, and especially business and banks as well as law enforcement at every level. Second, the author documents the weakness of Japanese law enforcement in a manner that highlights the weakness of US law enforcement at the state and local levels. Think of this book as traveling back in time to Japan, and then forward in time to the US, where we are now suffering many of the same problems. Finally, being a fan of Special Operations properly done, I realized that 21st Century warfare is going to be about man-hunts. It is going to be about tribal and criminal orders of battle, and about decapitating terrorist and criminal gangs without mercy.

The book spends some time on how US forces overseas are in fact a major stimulant and catalyst for crime, especially drugs and trade in women and children. By sending our forces and their money into austere conditions, we have actually created 750 "crime magnets" all over the world. And if you think our secret bases overseas are secret from anyone other than the US public, think again--one has only to ask the prostitutes. There is another important aspect of GI (Government Issue) life overseas: too many of our naive GI's get sucked into crime, first from small loans, then being asked to smuggle small things, then big things, to pay off the loan, and then being tracked down, after returning home, to be brought into international crime within the USA. I realized from this that DoD needs a crime counterintelligence and amnesty program, and we need to out-brief every GI on how to handle criminal blackmail when they encounter it, both overseas, at home, and post-service.

The book ends with a fascinating and thoughtfully-selected series of vignettes on the spread of Yakuza crime to 21 countries. The study of their passports is especially interesting, and makes us wonder why the US Treasury is still spending most of its time, two years after 9-11, trying to harass those trading with Cuba, instead of going after terrorist and criminal money.

Toward the end of the book there is a useful professional discussion of how inept governments are at identifying correct names and name variants when trying to spot and monitor criminals. This is a real problem. Within the US Intelligence Community, there is no standard for international names, each agency doing its own thing, with the result that even if we were to connect all the databases, the decades of unstandardized data entry across the archipelago makes many of our records too hard to use--almost as if we have to start from scratch.

One final point that really jumped out at me: the authors do a great job of identifying the real experts on Yakuza, across many countries, and what struck me was that they exist but no one has figured out how to create a virtual community of interest with the Internet such that all of them are security in touch with one another, sharing name databases, libraries, photograph archives, etcetera. The obsession with secrecy and national control remains the greatest obstacle to actually doing well against crime, and we appear to need regional information sharing systems that are NOT secret (just secure), and multinational regional "stations" against crime.

Closing comment: the book documents the incompetence of the US approach to manning its Embassies, especially in the law enforcement arena, where individuals are not language qualified, have no idea of the culture or history, and rotate every two years just as they are finally getting wise. We need a "long haul" manning strategy, and in my view should start thinking in terms of 10-year assignments with every second person coming in at the 5-year mark for solid continuity of intelligence and counterintelligence against these clear and present threats to national security and prosperity.

Outstanding book. A classic relevant to any country, any business, any government, at any level.

I have been interested in the topic of transnational organized crime for about four years now. Most research on the topic that you will find today concentrates on the more sensational groups like the Russian (Eurasian) groups, the Colombian drug trafficking organizations, and of course the "traditional" OC groups from Sicily and mainland Italy. Very little work has focused exclusively on Asian groups, most especially the Yakuza. Kaplan and Dubro's work helps to fill that gap immensely. Their work is undoubtedly the best material on the Yakuza available. For a more comprehensive look at Asian OC in general, Bertil Lintner's "Blood Brothers" is excellent as well.

Not as gory or glamorous as I expected, this book does paint a very vivid and true to life picture of the yakuza. Recommended if you have an interest in the underworld.

"Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld" is a book that is almost criminally enthralling.

In the United States the world of organized crime tends to be viewed as entirely exclusive to Anglo-European or Eastern European groups. Whether it be the Cosa Nostra or the Armenian mob little is generally known about the criminal organizations of the East. Particularly Japan's Yakuza.

How many of you knew that the pervasiveness of methanphetamines throughout the world is thanks to the Yakuza? Also, how many of you knew that the Yakuza is so widely integrated into Japanese society that they have often held press conferences announcing the end of gang conflicts or that they even have their own offices? How many of you knew that the Yakuza was allowed to survive and thrive after WWII thanks to the American occupation of Japan? Did you also know that the CIA employed some Yakuza as spies against the left wing in Japan after the war? ...and that these same people that they employed and let gain power...were the same people they put in prison for Class A war crimes?

These are just a few of the interesting and altogether jaw-dropping facts you'll learn by reading this book, a very thoroughly researched study on the fairly little known but globally expansive criminal organizations of Japan. If there aren't at least a dozen parts in this book that don't shock and amaze you I would be very surprised. I could go on and on about all of the interesting facts on the Yakuza covered in this book (from its vaguely noble beginnings to its rather uncertain future) but I think if you are interested in knowing about them you should read this book firsthand. You will NOT be disappointed.

A fantastic book.

Yakuza is jam-packed with information, no question. I learned a great deal from it, anyway. For instance, I'd never heard of the bakuto-tekiya dichotomy, had no clue about how politically influential the yakuza have been, and certainly wouldn't have even imagined how financially successful they are.

But Yakuza's learnedness is as much a con as it is a pro, because it reads like a dissertation. That's not the authors' fault, I suppose: I'm guessing they set out to write the standard reference, and they've succeeded, to be sure. I was just expecting something a little juicier, given the subject matter.

Another thing: Yakuza is only near-comprehensive. It doesn't, for example, even touch on how the yakuza fare in prison, or what the noneconomic consequences of some of their rackets have been. (E.g., since the yakuza control a lot of the construction in Japan, does Japan have any kind of problems resulting from shoddily built structures or anything? Also, since the yakuza are heavily involved in gambling, and also have their fingers in the pro sports pie, have the Japanese faced any Eight Men Out-like scandals?) And the authors, while they mention the gurentai, don't really explain where or how this third type of yakuza originated, or how it's integrated with the two original types (the aforementioned tekiya and bakuto).

All in all, if you're doing research on the yakuza, Yakuza could be a great jumping-off point for you. And if you're patient and want to learn all about the Japanese underworld and its tentacles, you might find this tome highly edifying. But if you're looking for light reading with a little flair to it, you might want to look elsewhere.

Since this book was originally published in 1986 it has been the standard reference work on organized crime in Japan. This new, greatly expanded edition only adds to its status. Organized crime in any country tends to share certain similarities. Their activities concentrate on gambling, prostitution, drugs, extortion, and smuggling. Also, they are usually very right-wing and nationalistic. The Yakuza are no exception, but there are some differences, "...it is as if the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia formed an enduring, politically potent alliance." The symbiotic relationship between Japan's political system, Big Business, and the Yakuza is a disturbing indication of the depth and prevalence of corruption and bribery in the world's second-largest economy. The authors (both American journalists) trace the roots of the Yakuza to its medieval beginnings, but most of the book concentrates on the period since the American Occupation, when the present form of Yakuza organization solidified (and also exposes the involvement of the CIA with the Yakuza's post-war growth). It documents the rise of the Yakuza into a multi-billion dollar enterprise with worldwide investments in real estate, art, big business and more. The original book ended before the bursting of the "Bubble Economy", and this new version picks up the story and shows how the Yakuza have adapted since then to the new economic climate. The authors also cover extensively the internationalization of the Yakuza, particularly their various attempts to move into America. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Japan and Japanese politics.

There aren't many non-fiction books in English about the Yakuza, and this one is the probably the best history of the secret society. The Yakuza is often compared to the Mafia, which can be misleading. Japanese gangsters are involved in different kinds of rackets and are more ingrained in mainstream Japanese life than the Mafia ever was in America. The authors do a good job explaining the history and customs of this group and showing why they are unique among criminal organizations. Highly recommended.

The Yakuza are a mysterious group. One goes to Japan and sees very little of its presence in any obvious manner. Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, exposes much of what the organization does and engages in, its hierarchy structure, its depth of influence and its history. This book was more in depth and informative than I had expected and shed light on many dark areas.

The book starts with the history of the Yakuza and how they started from their original business lines of gambling and various retail sales businesses. It describes the Yakuza's perspective of their noble origin and humble goals. How the Yakuza fit into the war effort is discussed along with their post-war metamorphasis into a reactionary group pushing for resurrection of Japan's imperialist past. Major Yakuza leaders are described in detail: their origins and personal histories as well as some of the details of their financial transactions.

The book goes on to describe the hierarchies and cultural dynamics of yakuza groups. The yakuza tributary system is described in detail as well as the wage earing capabilities of members at various positions within the group. THere are definately som inconsistencies in the authors details about the money involved and the quantities of people. In some cases members of the yakuza from bottom to near top earn in the range of 40k US-600k US but then estimates on net profits and number involved imply everyone is making 600k-1 million US, on one of their many business lines. It appears many of the estimates are quite exaggerated. To talk about Yakuza gambline being on some notional amount with their cuts being in the single digit percentage means often they are using numbers for dazzle effect rather than giving perspective on what business lines actually earn.

The book goes into the modern day with most analysis really ending in the late 90s. The bubble economy is explored and the extent to which yakuza were able to have a strong financial backing during the period is very remarkable. The "globalization" of the yakuza is described and how they have entered into South East asia as well as western US and hawaii. All in all one gets a lot out of this. There is a lot of sensationalism in this book though which is why i didnt give it 5 stars, but that aside, one gets a lot out of this book.

I love this book. It's crime reporting at its finest, mixing history with sociology and bringing the reader up to speed. To a point, at least - the updated version of this book is almost ten years old. Nonetheless, if you want to know a good hundred plus years of history, explaining the integration of Yakuza into virtually every aspect of political, business, and personal life in Japan. Not many books on organized crime are this thorough and this interesting at the same time. This is definitely required reading for students of organized crime, criminology, and Japanese culture.

Now how about another update, guys?

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Japanese organized crime. The book is very thorough, covering all aspects of the yakuza from their roots up to the modern day. That being said the book is not long winded.