An attractive residential backstreet, a highly desirable postcode and a hugely provocative bit of corporate relocation could unleash a murderous gang war on the streets of Tokyo.

Veteran observers of Japanese organised crime are predicting a sharp increase in violence in the coming weeks as two rival yakuza crime syndicates threaten to battle it out for supremacy of the protection, prostitution and drugs rackets in the centre of the city.

The stakes are rising fast. With many of their business interests such as property and construction battered by the country’s deepening recession, the gangs are scrambling more aggressively for the profits from rackets such as blackmail and loan-sharking, which thrive in the more glamorous districts of Tokyo, according to one authority on the yakuza.

The immediate risk, said police sources, arises from a short strip of road in the glitzy Akasaka district of Tokyo and potentially explosive relations between the long-term residents and the new neighbours.

On one of the narrow streets in the sought-after area, which boasts foreign embassies, television studios, chic boutiques, schools and five-star hotels, are the headquarters of the ruthless Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate. Like the premises of other yakuza gangs throughout Japan, they are warily tolerated by the authorities. The Sumiyoshi-kai’s dominance of the area has stood more or less unchallenged for many years, as has its very profitable share of the rackets it controls in the Akasaka and Roppongi entertainment districts.

This week, however, new neighbours, the Inagawa-kai – the dominant force in Yokohama and the Tokyo suburbs – moved into a three-storey apartment block a couple of hundred metres away. Police say that the gang is calling the building its “Tokyo liaison office”.

The heightened tensions and risk of a bloody “land grab” for Tokyo rackets comes after the worst year for Japanese shares – investments to which the syndicates are said to be very exposed.

The brazen proximity of the two gang offices poses significant risks, police fear. The Inagawa-kai and Sumiyoshi-kai are evenly matched in terms of numbers – both have about 10,000 members – but the former has the backing of the western-Japan based Yamaguchi-gumi, which eclipses them all with 40,000 loyal followers.

Police also believe that crime groups have begun arming themselves more heavily, with weaponry such as hand-grenades and antipersonnel mines.

The theory among yakuza-watchers is that the Yamaguchi-gumi, in an attempt to gain a stronger foothold in Tokyo, may be using its ties with the Inagawa clan to spearhead a turf war with the Sumiyoshi-kai.

“If the Sumiyoshi look at this office move by the Inagawa as a move by the Yamaguchi-gumi, they are going to feel very threatened and will react,” said Joshua Adelstein, an expert on Japanese organised crime. “Financially there is a very big deal at stake in Akasaka because the rackets in central Tokyo make so much money; the Sumiyoshi-kai can be expected to fight very hard to hold on to its position.”

He added that the potential for things to get bloody in gangland was already beginning to show, with several killings in broad daylight last year, exposing the fragility of relations between the leading yakuza groups.

The Metropolitan Police Department has also expressed concerns about an increase in gang violence, posting permanent patrols around the Inagawa-kai’s building and forming a panel to examine ways of removing the rival gangs from the area completely.

Taking a gamble

— The term yakuza reflects the criminal organisations’ origins in the gambling industry. Ya, ku, za means “eight, nine, three”, the losing hand in the traditional Japanese card game oicho-kabu

— The Japanese National Police Agency estimates that the yakuza have almost 80,000 members

— The most powerful faction, the Yamaguchi-gumi, which is known as “the Wal-Mart of the yakuza”, is said to have nearly 40,000 members

— In Tokyo, police have identified more than 800 yakuza front companies, many being investment and auditing businesses, construction companies and pastry shops

— In May Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission had an index of more than 50 listed companies with ties to organised crime

— Osaka Securities Exchange officials decided in March that they would review all listed companies and expel those found to have links with the yakuza

Sources: dictionary.reference.com, Times archives

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