Inside the Tokyo Mafia

We in the West tend to imagine Japanese culture as a polite, regimented, law-abiding and peaceful one. But not every business exchange there ends with a bow. Scratch that reserved surface and you’ll find a vast and powerful underworld.

Mobs are legal entities in Japan. There are fan magazines devoted to the shadowy yakuza, as the Japanese mafia is called. Yakuza bosses socialize with politicians and public officials. The yakuza operatives are like modern-day samurai, with full-body tattoos. Many have missing pinkies - they lop them off themselves as penance. It’s a world largely unseen by foreigners.

Except for Jake Adelstein. At 19 years old, he became the first American to be hired as a staff writer for a Japanese newspaper. He was assigned to the cops beat, and for twelve years he tracked down serial killers, extortionists, child pornographers, and sex traffickers. He’s written a book about his experiences that’s out now. It’s called Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. He joins us from New York with more.

(Photo by elmimmo via Flickr/Creative Commons)