Silence Is the Cost of Freezing a Yakuza Group's U.S. Assets
The U.S. Department of Treasury on Wednesday announced sanctions against Japan’s third-largest crime syndicate the Inagawa-kai and its leaders.
.The U.S. Department of Treasury on Wednesday announced sanctions against Japan’s third-largest crime syndicate the Inagawa-kai and its leaders. In a 2010 White Paper [pdf] published by the National Police Agency of Japan said it had 4,700 members. Together with the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Ginza-based Sumiyoshi-kai, the U.S. Treasury says, “the top three clans account for approximately 72.4 percent of the Yakuza membership.”
The move by the Treasury Department means that the government is freezing any assets that the Inagawa-kai has within the jurisdiction of the United States. By designating them a transnational criminal organization, the government also prohibits U.S. citizens from doing business with the group.
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Become a SubscriberThe group's leaders, are Jiro Kiyota aka Sin Bon-Gyu, the Chairman, and his and second-in-command Kazuo Uchibori, the Chairman of the Board. That's Uchibori pictured above on the cover of the June 2011 issue of yakuza fanzine Jitsuwa Jiho. Japanese police, due to Kiyota’s poor health and other factors, considers Uchibori the de facto leader of the group.
