The Los Angeles Times is reporting on a yakuza-related story which has recently come to light. Apparently in the early 2000s, four yakuza had liver transplants at UCLA Medical center in Los Angeles, California and then two donated $100,000 afterwards. Of course, paying for transplants of any kind can be illegal and is certainly controversial; especially when the money is tainted by crime.

The transplant recepient was identified by a law enforcement official as one of four Japanese men now barred from entering the United States because of their suspected gang affiliations, criminal records, or both. All four received new livers at UCLA between 2000 and 2004.

The surgeries took place at a time of persistent shortages of donor livers. In the year of Goto’s transplant, 186 patients on the list for livers died while waiting for the operation in the greater Los Angeles region.

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation, author Misha Glenny discusses his new book, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (audio).  Around the 15:00 mark he talks about the Yakuza for about 2 minutes.

A few tidbits from the interview: The author says that 80% of the women who entered Japan between 1990-2000 came on entertainment visas and most were prostitutes connected to the Yakuza.  The Yakuza maintain semi-legal status in Japan and submit a list of members and candidate members to Japanese police!  Lastly the aging population and globalization has affected the Yakuza, too; they now find it more difficult to recruit and are outsourcing some of the violence to Chinese gangs!

JAPUNDIT’s good friend Danny Bloom wrote in to alert us to a gaijin resident of a Japan named Benjamin Fulford.

The son of a Canadian diplomat, Benjamin Fulford rebelled against his upbringing and at the age of 17 made his way to the Amazon to live with a native tribe. Wanting to better understand Western society, he spent time in a community in Argentina before attending university in Japan.

Principled, brave, and still a diehard idealist, he resigned as Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief of Forbes Magazine after investigating a scandal the editor refused to report. As he researched global affairs further, he uncovered the complex web of global financial control at the hands of the Rockefellers and Rothschilds – and also the reality of racially targeted bioweapons such as SARS.

It was these plans for depopulation that upset some powerful factions in Japan, Taiwan and China. After being approached by a real-life Ninja, matters came to a head in 2007 when Fulford became the first Westerner for 500 years to be admitted into the Eastern Secret Societies, a group with 6 million members. As their spokesman, he delivered a simple message to the Illuminati:

Recognize that your time is over, step down without a fight, and allow the world to thrive – or face the consequences from 100,000 professional assassins.

Armed with an optimistic vision, Fulford is prepared to be the next Finance Minister of Japan. His plans to spend Japan’s $5 trillion of foreign reserves to end world poverty are inspiring as practical steps to repair generations of damage done by a ruthless ruling elite. This is a man with a deep understanding of both East and West, a global economic historian who thinks way outside of the box, a lover of peace unafraid to speak warrior words.

Now, if you think THAT was weird, check out the interviews that Fulford taped for Project Camelot.

Well, Japundits, what do you think?

“We believe that an individual member of a gang will find it difficult to personally pay a 30 million yen fine and his crime group will be required to cover the cost of the fine.”

National Police Agency Official on the government’s draft bill to beef up Japan’s already-strict gun laws.

Just before 8 o’clock this evening, it is reported, the Mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito was shot twice in the back by a man who was subdued and arrested at the scene. Mr Ito suffered heart failure and is in a critical condition in hospital.

Kyodo is reporting

The alleged shooter, Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, the police said, adding he is believed to be a member of a gang affiliated with Japan’s largest organized crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. The motive is unknown.

The Mainichi also has details of the story, which they will no doubt update as and when.

This is just surreal, particularly bearing in mind today’s news from the U.S. It’s not, however, the first time a Nagasaki mayor has been shot. In 1990, Motoshima Hitoshi was shot by a right-wing extremist for saying in a speech that Emperor Hirohito was partially to blame for World War II.

Update: It has been reported and confirmed that Ito Iccho has died of his wounds. Ito died early in the morning. He was on life support after undergoing an emergency operation. But public broadcaster NHK reported early Wednesday morning local time that Ito died of his injuries.

Japan’s Aichi government and police have both agreed not to sell prefectural land to or contract any public works from crime syndicates.

Although this piece of news may sound laughable, Aichi is the first prefectural government in Japan to take such steps!

Under the agreement, the prefectural government will not grant any public works contracts to crime syndicates, commission crime syndicate to provide services such as cleaning or sell publicly owned land lots to them.

Principal contractors for construction works will also be prohibited from subcontracting to gang-affiliated companies.

ABS-CBN is reporting that infamous Kazuyoshi Kudo is dead. Here is the article:

A top godfather of the Japanese underworld was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide in the wake of an unusually violent gang turf war in Tokyo, police said.
Kazuyoshi Kudo, 70, was found on his sofa in Tokyo when another gang member came to bring him breakfast. Kudo was head of the Kokusai gang, controlled by the Yamaguchi syndicate, one of Japan’s biggest gangs known as the yakuza, a police spokeswoman said.

She declined to provide further details, but media reports said Kudo apparently shot himself and that police were probing his connection to a recent gangland war.

Tokyo, which has little gun violence, witnessed a string of shootings earlier this month that left one gangster dead. The turf battle was linked to the rivalry between Yamaguchi, which is based in western Japan, and the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi, although the two mob groups have since been reported to have reached a ceasefire.