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Subscribe to RSSTOKYO — A member of one of Japan's infamous "yakuza" organized crime syndicates has been arrested for illegally sending men to work at a construction company helping to clean-up the area around the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, police said Thursday.
Yoshinori Arai, 40, who allegedly belongs to the Sumiyoshikai crime group, was detained after he sent three workers to do decontamination work without proper permits in November, according to Yamagata police.
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported the three men aged in their 50s were paid about $164 to $186 a day, mainly for cutting grass and other decontamination work. A third of the pay went to Arai, according to the report.
Police said they were also investigating a similar case involving 10 other workers allegedly sent to the area in December.
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Wow, big time gangster! Gets arrested for raking in the princely sum of about $820, needs to find another line of income. Actually be easier to really work and earn an income than this pathetic attempt at crime!
Agree, but he is still getting a cut. If he has a few dozen people he is extorting from plus drugs, prostitution and maybe gaming it all adds up.
Its probably not what the 3 guys got paid, but that the cleanup contract was given to them. Must be more to the racket.
Although I'm not a fan of the Yakuza (was involved in a knife attack in the 80s by a low-level Yakuza member), there is something different about their involvement in Fukushima.
They were the first and only group to drive food and water aid into Fukushima, at great personal risk. They helped hundreds of people just outside the exclusion zone survive the 2 weeks until the government could start getting them supplies. To many, my friends included, they are heroes.
The Sumiyoshikai also have a long-standing history with the nuclear industry. They have supplied workers for years, thus they have close business ties with TEPCO that other Yakuza clans don't.
Check out http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/05/how-yakuza-and-japans-nuclear-industry-learned-love-each-other/52779/.
It's a great article about their involvement.
Too bad the article in NBC doesn't go into more details. A paragraph of context would have given the article more strength.
So these people came to him looking for work, and he found them work, then took a hefty cut of their pay? I don't see how this is any different from a temp service, or a labor union. Unless of course he forgot to pay a bribe to the biggest racketeer of them all, the Government.
Wow, mob business must be slow. He needs to watch the Sopranos to get some more racketing ideas.
What a "yucky" headline! Someone's spell check and editor weren't working in sync, were they?
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Considering the fact that Yakuza are involved in the nuclear industry in Japan from the top to the bottom this is no surprise at all. The point we SHOULD all be worried about is the blatant lie of decontamination. Cutting grass? That is the biggest joke I have ever heard in relation to radiation clean up. Cutting the grass will have zero effect on radiation levels... furthermore, there are no decontamination methods to this day that are proven to effectively decontaminate. Worry about the artificial radiation showing up in your food chain... that is the thing you need to be concerned over...
Re: "
Police: 'Yukuza' gangster tries to cash in on Fukushima disaster"
It is spelled 'yakuza' not 'yukuza.'
After 9-11, the trucking company used to haul away the metal from the WTC towers was mob controlled. Much of the metal disappeared. Seems mobs in every country take advantage of a crisis.
Or, only the mob is willing to take the risks.
No, in the case I mention it was simply for scrap metal melting for profit. Not that it really mattered where the metal went, but the mob sees profit opportunities.
The area is still highly contaminated. Please do not lie again. And it should not allow anyone in again in another decade or so, just llke Chernobyl disaster (http://www.ask.com/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster).
Japan government should have sealed off the whole area and post the sign "No Entry" and post guards, or they will be in jail or be shot for trepassing.
I can't speak to them being the "only" group that went into the city mentioned, but my son led a team of several dozen people (from his church near Tokyo) into the area around the site. He went in 3 times that I know of. And he commented about how many other groups were there, too......not just church groups.......but, people who were trying to help all in the immediate area, with food, water, medication, etc. That a mob boss would syphon off funds (read, steal) from those actually doing the work doesn't surprise me. The mob/gangs/etc are the lowest element in any society.....living off of the work of others, or off of illegal activities. (What Japan might do is develop a jail in the contaminated area, and put the gangsters in it. Won't clean up the radiation, but would clean up the Japanese society.