Arrests of a Yakuza Leader and Affiliates for Narcotics and Weapons Trafficking
justice.gov
justice.gov
Heroin is a normal crop in Afghanistan. Lots of US military equipment was abandoned during the US retreat, and a lot of Afghanistan army equipment (from the US) was seized at the time by the taliban.
Trading of such things to interested foreign buyers (such as Burma factions hoping to defend against government air forces) feels more like tragic normal world events than Bond movie villainry.
> In addition, EBISAWA and SINGHASIRI conspired to sell 500 kilograms of methamphetamine and 500 kilograms of heroin to UC-1 for distribution in New York
Again, obviously this person should be behind bars, but this method of manufacturing scenarios seems somewhat insane to me. Maybe I am misinterpreting the release but thats the way it seems.
The difference in numbers is how things are measured. Measure them the same way and Japan's rate is lower than the USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#:~:text=If%20m....
Another thing is even you are somehow found innocent, the prosecutor gets to immediately appeal and they are likely to win that appeal. You stay in jail/prison while all this plays out.
The US system is SUPPOSED to be based on its better to let the guilty go free than punish the innocent. (It fails at this but this is at least a lip service value) The Japanese system doesnt do this or really hold this as a major value.
"The security guard had been trying to meet a quota and felt that I, as a foreigner, would make an easy target."
I really like this whole series:
https://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-w...
How far can they go -- I suppose they'd stop if they start getting too much bad press
That term needs to die, my guess is plenty of people get nailed for committing minor crimes they might not have otherwise because someone (a cop) convinced them it’s not a big deal. (No clue how many cases like Jesse Snodgrass[0] there are but it’s wild that scenarios like this can even happen, there is always a real crime to be solved yet resources were wasted on this)
Along the same lines: “It’s never a hitman” (and now I suppose we can also add “You’re never buying a surface to air missile”)
[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-entrapment-of-jesse...
Common in fraud cases: it's never "I was hacked."
(ed. for clarification: identity fraud and other social engineering feats are not "hacking.")
I'm thinking about the police, in those cases, as the true criminals
So entrapment basically means you were coaxed into a committing a crime that you weren't predisposed to commit. So if an undercover FBI agent becomes your best friend and begs you, who are not in the business of selling drugs or any contraband, to help them score some cocaine, that's entrapment. But if they just become a business associate of yours and ask you to help them source some stolen goods and you say yes, that's not entrapment because it's probably just solicitation, not inducement. Or say you're out there slinging cocaine on a corner and an undercover cop walks up to you, but you smell something fishy and turn him down, but then he begs you to help him because he really needs his fix and is going nuts, and you give in and sell to him. That sounds like inducement but you were already predisposed to commit that crime, so no entrapment defense for you probably.
As I understand it, the Yakuza basically have their hands in everything related to entertainment (especially gambling and porn) in Japan, including the video game studios. There's a story about a certain four-letter video game studio that had a developer's sister kidnapped to keep them from working for Nintendo[0], a company that had its own Yakuza connections when it sold hanafuda cards and ran love hotels[1].
But... what's the point of being an organized crime syndicate that only obeys the law?
[0]https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/11/rumour_leading_jap...
Nintendo never stopped selling hanafuda cards. I have a set right now.
They touch a lot of land related business (construction, real estate market, worker groups), and will also front "grey" areas like non-bank loans, risky work contracting (sending workers to Fukushima...), credit card contracting, and as sister comment points out, entertainment and sexy work.
In short, they've well expanded into any area where shitty morals is a strong business advantage.
I guess that's most of those businesses if not all business then
They're active in politics too?
My understanding is that Yakuza are generally "Burakumin", which is basically a sub-ethnicity that has been discriminated against in Japan for hundreds of years. They have a strong cultural heritage of decorative tattoos, which is why people with tattoos aren't allowed in gyms or nice restaurants in Japan. It's illegal to discriminate against them in the workplace, but basically every company still does extensive family background checks looking for any sign of Burakumin heritage, and if discovered, they'll suddenly realize that you just aren't a good fit for the company.
This is why they're "born to lose". They can't get legitimate high paying jobs, so they build their own ecosystem that they can thrive in. Lots of criminal participation around the world comes directly as a result of systemic discrimination. These are often smart people making the best of a shitty situation that they were born into.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meth-syn...
But in general, this is not true or at least not true everywhere. Our local mafias and "black market" were not desperate people. They were people seeing opportunities and taking advantage of them to the max. Some of them generated desperate people among their victims, sure. But, those rarely turned into bosses or gang members.
Most of what they did were choices and not a result of "not having any other choice".
Eh I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate. Much like any other domain there's opportunity and cost. When an illegal enterprise is profitable, there's very little incentive to actually stop. These people aren't necessarily desperate, their business models are more directly... amoral. It's true that the underclass dominate petty crime, but that's not really an accurate description of the underground criminal enterprise. They're just the most visible victims, and in an industry that essentially tries to keep itself faceless and out of the limelight, it might appear to the untrained eye that there's only a little more beyond that.
The addict engaged in robbing your car is but one end link of a long chain of traffickers: transporters, producers, middlemen, and corrupt officials that lined their pockets with a little bit of the proceeds. Few or none of which even consume any of their product.
The only ways I could imagine it occurring is maybe trying to join big old Japanese companies (but a background check of that nature seems like it would still be - legally? - difficult) or perhaps marriage into a super traditional home which there can't be many of now.
I can't see it being too hard to get a copy of their koseki? Not that I've ever tried.
I'm willing to believe the charges are made up and that these people need to "go away" for other reasons.
That sort of shit happened after the Balkan wars, too. A lot of weaponry from that era, anything from WW1-era guns to modern grenades, found its way into virtually every major conflict zone in the world, and to this day, if you speak good enough Croatian and somewhat know whom to ask and how, you can buy all kinds of arms - just recently, a group connected to various factions of the German far-right got hauled in front of the courts for a weapons smuggling ring [1].
[1] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/prozess-in-muenchen-sta...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_French_Connection_(film)