YAKUZA: THE WARLORDS OF JAPANESE ORGANIZED CRIME

The power of the yakuza, Japan's legendary crime syndicates,
reaches into all areas of Japan's economic life and
politics. Composed of some 3,000 separate, tightly-knit
gangs, with over 80,000 members, the yakuza survive despite
Japan's 1992 Anti-gang law and other government
measures. While the range of their traditional activities
has been somewhat reduced, they have compensated by
turning to more sophisticated types of crime and by expanding
their operations abroad - mostly to Southeast
Asia, parts of Latin America, and the U.S. Estimates of
their annual income from criminal activities and their
25,000 legitimate "front" organizations run to as high as
70 billion dollars, with some 500 million dollars traced
to the U.S. The author examines the history, societal context,
organizational structure, activities and tactics of the
yakuza and concludes with an assessment of how, and
the extent to which their power and criminal operations
can be curbed.