More yakuza groups sharing offices due to shortage of cash, members
(Mainichi Japan)
Yakuza groups are increasingly sharing offices due to difficulties in making money and a lack of gang members, investigative sources claim.
According to the Osaka and Hyogo prefectural police forces, there are 13 locations in Osaka Prefecture where multiple yakuza groups are using the same offices. There are also at least three locations in Hyogo Prefecture, which is the base for the well-known Yamaguchi-gumi and the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi gangs.
In one case, following a split-off of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi from the Yamaguchi-gumi in August last year, a group that joined the Kobe gang began operating in a building in Osaka's Minato Ward that also housed the office of another organization under the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi.
The group that newly moved in had previously had its own office in Minato Ward, but between the group dissolving after its removal from the Yamaguchi-gumi in 2012 and its later reformation, it lost that office.
A local anti-yakuza ordinance in the area forbids setting up new yakuza offices near public facilities such as schools. Businesses that knowingly sell property for yakuza offices in these locations face warnings from the local government, so yakuza groups in the area have effectively been prevented from setting up new offices in town.
In some cases, multiple subgroups of a yakuza organization share one office. In an office in Kobe's Chuo Ward, several groups under the Yamaken-gumi, a powerful subgroup of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, share the same space. They take turns on things like guard duty, janitorial duty and receiving visitors.
According to the National Police Agency, as of the end of 2015 there were around 20,100 yakuza members around the nation, the fewest on records stretching back to 1958. They say one yakuza member told investigators, "We don't have enough money or people. We have to cut our heating and electric bills."
A veteran investigator says, "For a yakuza group, their office is a sign of power. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable for them to share an office."
