Sean Williams

I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

Danny Gold

So what's the problem?

Sean Williams

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

Danny Gold

Wow.

Sean Williams

You need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's laminate. Okay.

Danny Gold

Yeah.

Sean Williams

That's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch Sell your

Danny Gold

car today on Carvana.

Sean Williams

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Danny Gold

Satoru Takagaki is no bottom rung street thug. Tall and well built, with a penchant for sharp suits and crew cuts, the Kobe native has been an enforcer for the Yamaguchi Gumi, Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, for over 30 years. Rising from debt collector to personal bodyguard to the boss, Takagaki is old school. He prefers to do battle with a knife over a gun. But by 2005, he's getting tired of gang life. The Japanese state has turned the screws on what it calls boryokudan, or violent groups, curbing their access to finance. Only a handful of yakuza can now afford to live the high life. For the most part, foot soldiers, even experienced old hands like Takagaki, the have been forced to feed on criminal scraps. There are now fewer than 80,000 Yakuza. Where there were once almost 200,000, journalists and movies mocked them. Where once they'd have been cowed into silence. Worse still, young yakuza, those who still want to be gangsters despite the absence of old school glamour, are forgetting the traditions that made them as respected as they were feared. Of course, the majority of this has always been an elaborate lie. But Takagaki, at least in part, believed it. I joined, he tells a reporter, because I was attracted by the sense of honor that we had then, the sense of fighting for our community. But Things changed, and thus in middle age. Despite his high profile, Takagaki is considering a change of career. That's not easy for an underworld that, with a few exceptions, expects loyalty until death. But later, in 2005, the son of Takagaki's boss is gunned down in the street. It's the final straw. I was getting older and slowing down, he says. I decided it was time to leave. Takagaki knows it won't be an easy ride. And not long after he announces departure, five bullets are fired into his front door. He installs CCTV all round the building, and he sleeps with a wakazashi, a traditional short sword, beside his bed. Despite the fear, Takagaki's decision soon looks a wise one. In 2011, another set of laws battered the Yakuza, cutting them off from car purchases, public spaces, even SIM cards. The Yamaguchi Gumi, once the world's largest gang by membership, descends into civil war. In one uncharacteristically public display of violence, a faction leader is peppered with machine gun fire in the middle of a crowded shopping mall. The kids, they're not alright. And Takagaki knows there are more like him. Yakuza desperate to escape the life. It's diminishing prospects of wealth and far better odds of a bloody death. He knows too, how dimly Japan's public view execusa and how difficult it is for them to re enter society. So he moves from Kobe to nearby Himeji and launches an NGO called Gojinkai, providing homes and help for folks who've only known a life of crime. Shortly afterwards, a woman in her 50s shows up to one of the trash collecting drives Takagaki leads in Himeji. She is small and wafer thin, with long dyed hair and a body covered almost entirely in tattoos. The pair begin talking. She seems in awe of him. And as Takagaki learns about her incredible life, her rise as either the only or one of only two women ever to officially join the Yakuza, her turbulent affair with a rival gangster, and her lifelong struggle to kick drugs and the criminal life, he realizes she might just be one of the most valuable ex Yakuza he's ever met. The pair grow closer. The woman, Mako Nishimura, hasn't fully shaken the Yakuza, but she's desperate to. And before long, she's become Gokjinkaya's point woman in Gifu, her home city, helping to wean yakuza off crime. It's good timing. The syndicates are being steamrolled by younger Nimbler crews, ones that don't play by the old rules anymore. Informal, sometimes foreign led and part of a shadow economy of fraudsters and scammers that is in tandem with Southeast Asia's scam industry threatening to destroy the Yakuza altogether. This is the Underworld Podcast. Hello and welcome all to the weekly podcast that tells stories of lives beyond the law and folks you wouldn't want to come across in a dark and narrow alley. I am Sean Williams, a reporter and writer based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I am joined by friend, colleague and close, confident Danny Gold in New York City. We have covered conflicts from Mosul to Mogadishu county, gangs from Manila to Mexico City, and we put together a show every week about how crime truly works. If you get to the end of these shows and think, God, I'd love to hear more of these lovely young men interviewing reporters, experts and criminals about organized crime. Well, head over to our Patreon for bonuses, notes, ad free shows and the chance to contribute to my son's schooling. We've got merch@underworldpod.com and it's really expensive out here. Inflation is nuts. And you can get in touch with us directly@theunderworldpodcastmail.com which is honestly where about a quarter of our episode ideas are coming from these days. And we will reply to you. Can you tell me a brief anecdote about Your week in 10 seconds, Danny? We want to keep the banter short and sweet, even if it is in the words of one commenter. S tier.

Sean Williams

That's true. We did get a commenter saying that, you know, I've been experimenting with sleeping pills lately and it's a new hobby I really should not be having. But you know, it's hot out here, my AC is loud and you got to do what you got to do. So that's what we're dealing with, folks. How's that for a ten word summary Anecdote.

Danny Gold

Yeah, yeah, that was great. You're going to be on the after dinner speaking circuit in no time. Yeah, and it kind of tees up part of this episode as well. Anyway, the more aware of you will know that today's show is part two of the rise and fall of Mako Nishimura, by some accounts the only woman ever to officially joined Japan's yakuza. And by joined, I mean performed the sake sharing ritual that formerly makes a Yakuza gangster in a similar way to how Mafioso become made men or Mafiosi become made men. It's a fascinating Tale one I reported in October, in which the Guardian recently published as a long read. So if you didn't listen to part one, probably do that before listening to this. Or just like play it on some other family or friend's device constantly for a week. And if you want to know what Mashko Nishimura looks like, and given mako means devil's child in Japanese, you're going to want to see what she looks like. Check out the Guardian piece too. Link in Bio what makes Nishimura's story so great is the way that it traced the rise and fall of the yakuza itself. From swashbuckling gentlemen gangsters who had the public's backing to despised thugs to marginalized to where they are today, which is outclassed, outpaced and overrun by faster, smaller informal gangs called Tokuryu. More on that in a bit. First, we left off part one around 1992. Nishimura is a member of the Sugino Gumi, an offshoot of Tokyo Sumiyoshi Kai in her hometown of Gifu. She's making thousands of dollars selling drugs, girls and extorting businesses, but she's also addicted to methamphetamines and beginning to question her role in the gang. At the same time, Japan's government has just enacted a host of laws against so called boryokudan, which is a phrase used interchangeably by the government with yakuza, to prevent the groups changing stocks and accessing other parts high finance. They'll come into force the following year and these laws are a huge vital step in addressing yakuza that have grown well out of control since the end of the Second World War. But they don't initially work that well. Here is veteran of the POD Jake Adelstein, writing in his recent book the Last Yakuza Massive recommend, of course. Quote the laws were intended to immediately allow the police to crack down on yakuza activities, encourage members to leave and force them out of the public eye. But the laws were a complicated mess, full of holes and carried such light punishments that they seemed pointless. However, they did serve as a warning to Japan's 88,000 yakuza that times were changing and they gave the police a solid excuse to go in and out of the yakuza offices whenever they wanted, as well as to put a check on the visible presence of the gangs.

Sean Williams

Yeah, I think that's a major plot point in the TV show either that era or maybe there's a second one they do later on, but it really shows how they Kind of rework the laws to allow them to actually start cracking down and having an effect in Yakuza.

Danny Gold

Yeah, I think that might be the second group of laws which you're gonna talk to later, because I feel like Jake might have got out there like mid to late 90s.

Sean Williams

Yes, that might be too.

Danny Gold

Around that time, right? Yeah, yeah. But this, this stuff that he says in the book is like, really, really fascinating. And he goes on. I'm gonna quote him some more here. Quote, the laws forbade many type of Shinogi, Extortion, collecting, protection money, blackmail, debt collecting and other such staples were technically banned under the new laws. Whenever a Yakuza committed any of these acts, the victim could go to the police. The police would issue a cease and desist order to the yakuza in question. If they continued to do it, the police would issue a do not do this again preventive order. And if the Yakuza also ignored that, he faced arrest and. Or a fine up to a year in jail, or a fine of up to 50,000 yen, which isn't a huge amount, or both. However, it almost never went that far before the new laws came into effect. The police would build a case and make an arrest. But now they'd given the Yakuza a warning first to cease and desist. It was like baseball rules for them. Two strikes and you're out. For most Yakuza, the warning was enough. For some people, simply having the Yakuza go away was more than enough. Yeah.

Sean Williams

And I think, as we learned from arguably the best Simpsons episode of all time, Japanese prisons aren't even that bad. Like, they're. They're. They look fun. Although, to be honest, I think they actually are.

Danny Gold

Is this a super happy, shiny, fun.

Sean Williams

Yeah.

Danny Gold

Rainbow. Yeah.

Sean Williams

Yeah, one of the best. But I think they actually are. I mean, from. From what we've learned in stuff like this, they actually are kind of gnarly at points.

Danny Gold

Yeah, for sure. I mean, this whole thing about the police always being several steps behind the Yakuza, this came up a load in my. Like when I spoke to people in Japan. And in the story, there's one excerpt from the David Kaplan book Yakuza from 2003, which is like the Bible on loads of this stuff. I think he quotes a policeman who's basically saying, we have a 1940s police force trying to fight 1990s crime. And I also heard. I don't think I'm going to quote it further down the show, but there's a story that I heard more than once. In Gifu with the city of Nishimuramako, which is that there was a story about a judge who allow the cop to place a GPS tracker on a suspect's car, but only if he told the suspect first. Which kind of shows you how far behind the cops are. Like they're so institutionalized basically, yakuza, that it's just like, you know, they're happy to have them in place for the most part to stop other kinds of crime. J. Kadelstein actually adds that the term boryokudan incenses yakuza bosses because it is a term devoid of the kind of dignity and spirit the yakuza at least believe their actions are imbued in, which is deep Japan core. Some change their name to more corporate sounding ones and put more of their money into legitimate investments, which on one hand, yes, bad gangsters embedded in the economy, but on the other, if they're not actually doing crime, then is this progress? I guess in a way this is a really kind of interesting thought experiment. Like if Sinaloa gives up cocaine smuggling, stops murdering people and focuses on its energy on real estate, agriculture and fisheries, is that a good thing? Sort of unofficial amnesty on money made via said drugs and murder? I don't know.

Sean Williams

I mean, I think honestly with the level of murdering that they do. And it would have to be not just them, right? It would have to be the other cartels.

Danny Gold

Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean, how anything's got to be better than what is now?

Sean Williams

Anything is going to be better than like literally thousand tens of thousands of people being killed every year in this. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad I'm not in charge, but. Yeah, like what, what do you.

Danny Gold

We can't, we can't emphasize this enough. We're not in charge of these decisions.

Sean Williams

I mean, it's a great question that I've never really thought about, but like, how do you make the argument against it? Besides, I mean, obviously, like it's not an example of justice and it's not an example of people playing, but if you could Prevent an additional 10,000 murders every year by that. I don't know, man, I don't want to get into it. It's too early. Even though it's what, 1:30 right now?

Danny Gold

Tell us what you think in the comments. Let's get some like disgusting arguments going for, for the Spotify comments. Yeah, let's move on, I think. Yeah, yeah, great, great hypothesis. Well said by both. Before any of this stuff that we just mentioned hits the Sugino gumi though, Remember, that is the gang that Makanishimura is in. She is flying high. She's completed her probation period, this strange two year probationary period where she's walking dogs and making potato salad and she's making bank in the sex and drug scenes. But she's also getting very, very high on her own supply. Sometimes she's so messed up she can't even do any of the bookkeeping for illegal operations. And she starts hallucinating stuff, hearing voices in the rain or people in the shadows. She can't sleep and she begins to go mad, which sounds like a crowded house lyric, but it's not. It's bad drug addiction. What's more, there is an official embargo on drug taking by Sugino san, the clan's boss. But Nishimura's apartment is basically a stash house. It welcomes a rotating cast of meth addicted gangsters who freebase or inject the drug, leaving paraphernalia lying about for days. When Sugino finds out half his men are meth heads, he orders Nishimura to apologise on their behalf the yakuza way, by severing the top of her little finger, a process known as yubitsume or finger shortening. And nobody quite knows where yubitsume came from, but the leading theory is that it originated in the early days of the Bakuto wandering gamblers who were the predecessors of the Yakuza. In fact, we mentioned this several times before. The name yakuza comes from gambling too. It's a hand in a traditional card game consisting of Ya8, Ku9 and Za3, totalling 20, which is apparently a worthless hand. The yubitsumi is supposedly a form of debt repayment if the gambler doesn't have any money, a payment in flesh, which also affects the victim's ability to hold a sword and therefore defend the honour of him or his boss. And Nishimura, she doesn't think twice when Sugino tells her to commit yubitsumi. Here's an excerpt from Martina Baradel's book Yakuza Blues quote. Someone had to take responsibility and apologize. Mako was chosen, so she took a nihonto, the Japanese short sword, and prepared to perform Yubitsume. She placed her hand on the floor, rested the blade on her finger and pushed with her foot. But given her light weight, the cut wasn't clean. So having no other choice and demonstrating remarkable composure, she struck it repeatedly with a sword until it was severed. Then, as per procedure, she wrapped the stump in paper and went to the hospital where they filed down the bone and stitched the wound. Returning to the office, she handed over the phalanx and the matter was considered resolved. After that episode. She was often asked to cut off members fingers during Yoritsumi. So she developed a foolproof technique. She would prepare a wooden cutting board, place the blade on the finger and dropping something heavy on the knife, she would cut it clean off. Her brothers usually thanked her and left a tip. Now this sort of odd conveyor belt of finger cutting curries Nishimura a ton of favor with Sugino san and her fellow Yakuza. And it's another example of the way she effectively appropriates or even advances the kind of ultra violent acts normally associated with men. Another aspect of that is her willingness to victimize other women on behalf of the mob. As I hinted at in the previous episode, Nishimura particularly grows wealthy selling girls to an island 50 miles south of Gifu called Watakanu, a half square mile cluster of brothels and go bars that earns it, unsurprisingly the nickname of Prostitute Island. According to the vice writer Hanako Montgomery, quote, Watakana was once hailed as a mini sex paradise in its prime. From the late 70s to mid-80s, Japanese civil servants, policemen and salarymen from the nearest main island would take a three minute boat ride to this carnal wonderland where a quarter of its 270 residents were sex workers. Watakano's sex industry is healthy enough that some girls there can make the equivalent of over $30,000 a day in today's money. Pretty incredible cash. And obviously a big cash cow for the organized criminals who run the trade. Yeah, it's like this is, I mean it's like peak Japanese economic miracle as well. So people are just running around with tons of cash. Nishimura hunts down talent for Watakano yakuza and pimps, searching among Gifu's homeless and drug addicted for the chance to bag a big advance.

Sean Williams

30,000 a day is. I mean we should do. If we could make $30,000 a day, I think both of us would be doing, doing this at this point.

Danny Gold

Well, you could do it. I mean I could. You can, you can kick me up, you know, part of the profit.

Sean Williams

You would take the. You take this to the 40% or the 60%? Jesus, that's insane. Japanese tiger was no joke. That economy must have been insane.

Danny Gold

Yeah, I would take quite a lot less than that actually. Yeah, you could, you could probably keep decreasing that amount.

Sean Williams

You got to hold out for 30,000, yeah.

Danny Gold

Anyway, things don't always go according to to plan, just like our careers. On one occasion, according to a memoir, Nishimura finds a girl named Reiko. But she runs away before Nishimura can deliver her to Watakano. So Nishimura works for her criminal contacts and she tracks the girl to Osaka, Japan's second city. She hires a local yakuza to kidnap Reiko again, then picks her up in a Mercedes, adding travel expenses, food and the cost of Reiko's meth to her supposed debts, to be paid off in flesh. You have to clean up after yourself, Nishimura tells the girl. At this point, Nishimura adds, reiko was on the chopping board. She was so scared she couldn't say anything. Nishimura then drives the girl down to the Watakano ferry and hands her over to one of the island's pimps for a big fee. But the guy allegedly then injects Reiko with meth in her neck, partially paralyzing her face. Nishimura beats the offending guy with a stool leg. This is just pretty nuts. But the damage is done. She meets the girls years later, but she is vacant. Doesn't remember anything about the kidnapping. Here's Martina Baradel, the academic and author on this particular episode, and what it says about Nishimura and the Japanese mob.

Martina Baradel

I think it's the exception that proves the rule if you have some skills and if you have these. Also the fact a woman who wants to become a yakuza, very rare. So one condition, second condition, a boss who, because he needs, because he wants, or whatever reason, he accepts a woman as a member. Also very rare condition. When you have these two conditions aligned, you can have a woman who enters the group. But again, you really need two very rare conditions to align to have it. And so that is why we only have these two examples in the history of the Akuda. Of course, if you want to talk about women who are health, yakuza, girlfriend, wealth and. And this kind of informal network and settings, of course, we have a lot of cases there. We have a lot of cases in other masha groups of women, wealth, the group as externals. But then I think we're talking about something else.

Sean Williams

Geez. I mean, that whole thing, like, it's like an updated, extremely dark version of Memoirs of a Gaisha, which is a fantastic book. But this is like. And has a lot of darkness in it too. But this is just brutal, dude. Brutal.

Danny Gold

It's pretty. It's pretty grim stuff, right? I mean, it's not like, yeah, a lot of this, like, career of Nishimura's is pretty gross, actually. The stuff she has to get down and dirty with. And at this time, like at around this time, cops raid Nishimura's Gifu apartment. They discover drugs, and she is eventually sentenced to two and a half years in prison for assault and drug possession. The state sends her to Kasamatsu Prison, a women's facility just south of Gifu City famous for its vocational training, which includes a beauty salon open to the public. Partly because of the way she looks, inmates start rumors that Nishimura is locked up for murder and she does nothing to quell the gossip suits her. Basically, she studies a business law degree behind bars and learns about scam artistry from an inmate who's been convicted of fraud. Quote I thought that a repeat con artist is really clever, and it made me think of con artists as in a new light. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll

Sean Williams

love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to

Danny Gold

bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to

Sean Williams

hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster.

Danny Gold

When you listen to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, the comedy podcast, you learn stuff. I've been learning to throw a boomerang

Martina Baradel

because this is the kind of thing

Sean Williams

that really gets the listeners engaged. You know, interviews with people who will make you smarter.

Martina Baradel

Does the amount that you learn protect

Sean Williams

you from cognitive decline?

Danny Gold

Paula, don't catch that.

Sean Williams

Can't people just listen listen to the show.

Danny Gold

Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse full of information? And I think I'm bleeding.

Sean Williams

Join us and be a nobody.

Danny Gold

If you sold somebody a loaded gun who you knew was in a vulnerable state and they shot themselves, I think it is murder. Just because you're using the Internet doesn't mean you get away with murder.

Sean Williams

I'm Damon Fairless, host of Hunting Warhead. This season, I take you inside the business of suicide and the places desperate

Danny Gold

people go when they can't find what they need in the real world. Hunting the Suicide Salesman, available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, that quote is pretty strange. What we're going to learn soon. But besides the camming, Nishimura learned some concrete skills without the overbearing presence of her father, who by now has told her never to go home again again. The study, Nishimura says, gave my prison life meaning. But she doesn't exactly ditch the yakuza life. In fact, she maintains status inside by becoming what she admits was a bully, beating up and victimizing fellow inmates. When Nishimura's release date arrives at age 24, something quite spectacular happens. Lined up at the prison front gates are rows of Sugino Gumi gangsters who form a guard of honor. They then drive Nishimura to gang HQ in downtown Gifu, dress her in a brand new suit, and hand her a million yen, around seven and a half grand today. And then everyone has a feast. And of course, they get wasted. This is something called demukai, a quote, important rite of passage for the Yakuza member. According to a 1981 academic paper, it was a symbol that the state's rehabilitation efforts had failed. Nishimura had actually gotten clean in prison. But the moment she's out, she starts using again and slips further into meth, addiction and desperation. At this exact time, Japan's economic bubble bursts. It wipes 60% off the value of the Nikkei stock index and the yen tanks. Yakuza are hit just as hard as anybody else by this, and they lose massive casino, real estate and golf club building projects all over the world. This is like when I think I earn okay, then I go to New York and I realize I can't afford a salad. You just stay in your lane. Which is exactly what the Yakuza do. Retreating from the world stage and leaving criminal voids to be filled by gangs from China, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other emerging hubs of organized crime. At the same time, Southeast Asian and Chinese triad gangs are cornering the market in meth, while cocaine and other party drugs coming out of Latin America and the Middle east are squashing Yakuza profits in those markets. Then come the 1992 Anti Yakuza laws. As J. Kadistein wrote in his earlier extract, this doesn't push the Yakuza out altogether. In fact, they migrate to more legal markets and still make bank getting paid to extort and intimidate on behalf of regular Japanese businesses and individuals. I mean, some of the biggest corporations in the country, rather, are like, using Yakuza explicitly to carry out intimidation, like scaring tenants in like, high rise projects and stuff like this. But Yakuza violence is increasingly spilling onto the streets and even show business. Once commanded by Yakuza kingpins like Kazuo Toyoka of the Yamaguchi Gumi has flipped on its head. Where in the 1960s, films depicted Yakuza as debonair, smart suited gentlemen thieves, it now mocks them and exposes their cruelty. 1992's Minba no Honor or Mob Woman features a female protagonist who face down the gangs and humiliates them. Soon after the movie's release, three yakuza visit the home of its director Juzo Itami, and slash him across the face with knives. Itami recovers, but the attack outrages Japan's public and further erodes this false story they've been peddling the country for over a century about being noble Robin Hood ex figures. Itami, by the way, he dies by suicide in 1997, although a leading yakuza later claims his men had murdered him.

Sean Williams

This is a wild episode. I mean, the story of the Japanese filmmaker himself is just like, could be its own thing. And those guys. Japanese filmmakers take really bold risks, huh? Aren't there a few of them have been attacked by the Yakuza?

Danny Gold

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not the only one. It just happened to coincide with these laws. But there are. There are other stories. I think this might also be a jake scoop that I think he spoke to. Is it Tadamasi Goto?

Sean Williams

Yeah.

Danny Gold

Who like main character who's still alive. I think he lives on pen. On pen, which is really weird now, but he told him, I think Itami, if I'm getting it right, jumped out of his high, high, like story window. But he didn't even know there was other like really weird things about his death. And yeah, I think Goto later said that his men had murdered him, which, you know, I believe by this time the yakuza's numbers are down from almost 200,000 to way half of that. They are even getting outsmarted by foreigners on their home turf. Here's David E. Kaplan in his seminal 2003 book Yakuza, quote. In 1993, rightists in Tokyo plastered the city with swastika marks posters calling for the expulsion of all immigrants. One flyer warned that foreign workers were, quote, threatening our culture, history and lifestyle and vowed to, quote, take action against them. Sensational media reports told of how ruthless Chinese thugs had pushed the Yakuza out of their old haunt of Kabukicho, a sleazy nightlife district in Tokyo. Kabuchiko. Kabuchiko. Oh my God. You're doing great, Kabukicho. Yeah, whatever. That place, asserted one breathless tabloid, is no longer part of Japan. Added the weekly Sunday My Nichi. The day when Japan is run by the world's gangsters may not be far off. I did go there on my trip. I don't like that place. It is pretty weird. No, it's not cool. It's actually around this time that some young Yakuza, seeing the writing on the wall, not the swastikas or maybe, I don't know, basically learned to code. Remember that phrase? What's the Gen Z equivalent? I don't know. Learn to bet all your money on political speeches or learn to fall in love with a chat bot. Am I. Am I young and relevant?

Sean Williams

No, no, neither type of those things.

Danny Gold

Okay, I'm sorry, neither am I. Wright's Kaplan quote. Okay, okay, cut it back. Okay. Ego. Yeah, writes Kaplan quote. In one worrisome marriage, gangsters made deals with the Otaku, Japan's fervent high tech youngsters to do freelance hacking. Of course, Nishimura doesn't learn to code. She carries on trucking with sex and drugs. Doing well financially, but becoming a meth addicted wreck on the inside.

Sean Williams

I mean, you gotta love a traditionalist, you know?

Danny Gold

Yeah, I mean, we have to say that. But all that changes in 1995. Age 29, she meets the member of a rival yakuza clan, a subsect of the Yakut Yamaguchi Gumi, at a dinner party in Gifu. Yes, rival yakuza have dinner parties. He's 15 years her senior and he's married. But they start an affair and six months later Nishimura gets pregnant. When she has the kid, a boy, everything changes. I never thought I would die for anyone, she told me. But when I had children, I started to think I could die for them. The boy's father had been on bail when they met. And a judge orders him to return to prison soon afterwards for breaking the terms of that bail. So Nishimura is alone, she quits meth and she breaks off contact with the Sugino Gumi.

Sean Williams

No, I see a lot of similarities with. With this when, you know, her having a son and making these sacrifices. And you. When you had a son and sort of quit your windowless Berlin basement lifestyle,

Danny Gold

you know, I. I wondered when you were going to come in. It's a good place to come in. It is.

Sean Williams

I try to keep it to like one every other or every third episode now, but that's. I mean, come on.

Danny Gold

Well, which softened the blow. But you know, I am going to go to Amsterdam next month with a couple of friends and we are making plans for some merriment. So I might try and probably Wouldn't recapture my old life. Okay, What I mean. What I mean is staying out past midnight, going to Van Gogh Museum. I'm going to do that. Yeah, it's going to be great.

Sean Williams

Had a revelation there on mushrooms.

Danny Gold

I genuinely. That was the first thing I said to my friend. He's like, are you fucking joking? So, yeah, I'm cool. Anyway. By this point, Nishimura's father has died. But she reignites a relationship with her mother, Hiroko. And for a while, they spend good time together, reveling in the family's latest addition. A year later, the boy's dad gets out of prison. But he refuses to ditch the gang life. So Nishimura ditches him and she moves from Gifu to a city closer to her mother. For a few years afterwards, Nishimura stays out of trouble. But despite its obvious highs, motherhood doesn't offer the same thrills as the Yakuza. For a while, Nishimura writes, quote, life seemed to stand still. In the child's final year of kindergarten. The dad asks if they can give their relationship another go. Nishimura says yes, and the family move into a Gifu apartment. But she struggles to make money legitimately. Whenever employers hear about her past, see her tats or a missing pinky finger, they'll find the way to get rid of her. So she gets back into crime. First by running a massage parlour like she had in her early days. Then by sourcing high grade meth from Tokyo and selling it in Gifu. One meth deal can bring in several times the money a single month of legitimate work can. And she ramps up her drug dealing operation. At the same time, she assumes the role of anisan, or gangster's wife, an official position we discussed in the previous part of this doubleheader. Nishimura cooks and cleans for her husband's Yamaguchi Gumi colleagues. Even though her drug operation is bringing in way more money. The couple fight, sometimes violently, and their young son often sides with his dad. Aged 39, Nishimura has a second boy. This whole time, she's steered clear of meth. But she instead gets hooked on prescription sleeping pills. And she's under increasing levels of surveillance from the cops for the meth dealing she's doing out of their apartment. One day, cops raid the place, releasing Nishimura after 10 days when they discover nothing but suspicious shipping labels. But once again, her life is in a downward spiral. And this is all coinciding with a second, even more devastating period for the Yakuza. At Large Remember Satori Takagaki from the Cold Open? He ditches the mob in 2005, not only because the son of his boss is gunned down in broad daylight, but because young yakuza seem to have ditched the principles of their predecessors. Some are deep into digital romance scams and other crimes directly targeting regular citizens. For the whole of the 20th century, Yakuza have lived by a creed not to harm, so called Katagi no Shu, or citizens under the sun, basically regular people. But as their access to wealth has been cut off by the state, that creed goes clean out the window. As one financial crime reporter told me in Tokyo last year, quote, the old time yakuza had a strict rule not to involve ordinary people in crime. The rules are gone. There are no rules. So Takagaki decides to leave the Yakuza, even though yakuza gangsters take Sakazuki supposedly until death. There are some ways to leave the gangs, but obviously, as we heard in the Cold Open, members often don't take too kindly to fellow yakuza who want out, despite these loopholes. So Takagaki is threatened, shot at, intimidated. Only this makes him even more resolved to provide an off ramp for men like him who want to go straight. So he sets up Gojinkai, an NGO to help ex yakuza get jobs, get a roof over their heads and get on with their lives outside the gangs. In 2011, the Japanese state goes after the yakuza even harder, outlawing any financial transaction with them.

Sean Williams

You know, that actually might be the plot point I was talking about in

Danny Gold

that era, but probably is. Yeah.

Sean Williams

I want to add to the NGO thing is such a classic, like worldwide get out of a gang thing. Let me start an NGO to, to help other gang members. Sometimes it's real. A lot of times.

Danny Gold

Sometimes.

Sean Williams

Sometimes it's real. A lot of the times it's. It's a way to siphon money and recruit and stay involved.

Danny Gold

There is a guy who used to be a yakuza who lives in like northern Tokyo, now runs church like one of these like happy clappy churches. And he's like that guy. And I think there might be something more to his story. I didn't get a chance to like me.

Sean Williams

I did, you know, I did a documentary years ago in El Salvador for the Guardian. Yeah. About a. A guy who run or two multiple pastors who run churches that helped get members of Ms. 13 and 18th street out of the gangs because the only way to leave without, you know, dying or that that was it. You could either get Killed or died. That was. It was to become a born again Christian and then they would let you leave. But you couldn't really fake it because the gangs really keep an eye on you. Like if you say you're. No, I'm serious. If you say you're, you're, you're converted or whatever it is and you're, you're born again Christian, you're, you're on it and they see you like out at night. This is back in the day when El Salvador was a very different country

Danny Gold

than it is right now.

Sean Williams

They see you out at night and you're like, you know, getting hammered with girls, all that sort of stuff. Like they would get killed.

Danny Gold

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Williams

And then also, you know, the police never took it seriously either. So they were always after them for any little infraction or stuff like that. So you really had to be. It wasn't like, you know, a lot of these NGOs in the States, the guys who lead them like will get. Go down after five or 10 years for various infractions. You couldn't really play that hand too much in El Salvador in that.

Danny Gold

Yeah. That was for the Guardian as well, right? They've done pretty well.

Sean Williams

Yeah, I think that's got. Let me just check that out. I think that did like millions of hits on YouTube.

Danny Gold

Yeah, that was huge. That's so good as well. We should leave that on the notes for this one.

Sean Williams

I haven't uploaded the notes in a while. You gotta stop saying that.

Danny Gold

I just say Linkin bio. I don't even know what linkin bio means. Oh yeah.

Sean Williams

4.4 million views. Seven years ago, the El Salvador pastors saving Ms. 13 gang members. The only way out is through Jesus. 4.4 million. How about that long form too. 12 minutes. Well, not long form, medium form.

Danny Gold

That's great, man. Congratulations.

Sean Williams

Thanks, bud. Appreciate it. Saw zero dollars from that 12 point whatever million.

Danny Gold

Oh, no, no, no. We don't need to mention that kind of stuff. No, no, no. Journalism's great. Yeah. So like we said in 2011, they introduced this second raft of laws that really kind of crippled them even further. So here's J.K. elston again in the last accuser quote. On October 1, 2011, Tokyo finally passed an exclusionary ordinance against organized crime. It promulgated a number of matters, but it principally made paying off the Yakuza or working with them a crime that had never been done before. Not across the board. There was a serious problem in Japan beforehand in that because there was no penalty for those who used the Yakuza to solve problems, the yakuza stayed in business. Getting paid off was how they earned money. The police realized that in order to put the yakuza out of business, they also had to punish those who did business with them. And the 2011 ordinances made that principle systematic and universal. We've spoken about this on the POD before, but these 2011 ordinances are a hammer blow to the yakuza. They blocked the gang's prime source of income, being used as hired muscle or extortionists, or both. And not only that, but because it's now a crime to pay any yakuza at all, they struggle to buy homes, cars, or even a SIM card. Gone is the promise of a glitzy gangster life. The 1960s are a distant memory, and tons of disaffected yakuza come to Satoru Takagaki and Gojinkai for help. By 2014, Mako Nishimura's prescription pill addiction has grown chronic. She doesn't know how to live without the drugs, taking as much as a whole sheet of them each day. And later that year, at age 48, Nishimura takes enough of the pills that they paralyze her. She's laying on her bed, unable to move. Quote like I was tied to it. Nishimura is hospitalized and she recovers. But decades of drug abuse and violent crime have taken a huge toll, and her partner gets custody of the two boys. She reaches out to the Sugino Gumi one more time, but like a lot of yakuza syndicates, they are a shambles. Her closest ex colleague is now an alcoholic, and the gang are knee deep in financial scams. The quote responsibility to fight the bullies to help the weak. She told me, seeming to forget that that A she quite like scams when she was in prison, and B has spent her life victimizing poor and drug adder women. Quote is the core of Yakuza fault. If it's not like that, I don't like it. She quits the gang for good soon after.

Sean Williams

Yeah, I mean, that's the exact opposite of what she was doing.

Danny Gold

Yeah, yeah. The stories people tell themselves are always good anyway. Nishimura then drifts for a series of dead end jobs, getting increasingly lonely and depressed, missing her sons, but also her mother Hiroku, who she hasn't seen for years. But in 2020, she meets Satoru Takagaki, who by this point is often quoted in the media as saying the yakuza are on their last legs. Nishimura is instantly enamored with Takagaki, this huge former bodyguard to the Yamaguchi Gumi boss, now on a rampage against organized crime. She joins him on one of the monthly trash collecting drives they do. It's quote, wonderful to see such a big shot in the past taking the initiative to pick up trash. She writes. Nishimura is poor, alone and desperately sad. But she says if Takagaki can rebuild his life, quote, so can I. Before long, Nishimura convinces Takagaki to let her open a branch of Gojinkai in Gifu. And she dedicates the lion's share of her time to helping former gangsters quit the life and oftentimes also drugs. On one occasion, this goes very, very wrong. A young meth addicted gangster attacks her and she suffers some pretty horrific injuries, but she carries on. By the way, she also beats the crap out of him in that story. The COVID pandemic then hits the world. And one particular episode exposes just how weak the yakuza have become. Now you all remember that cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, that had a Covid outbreak on board and got stuck in Yokohama near Tokyo for about a month. After a couple of weeks, things are getting smelly on the boat. So up rock a bunch of aging yakuza who often to scrub the ship's decks. Humans like us should do the dirty job. One of them tells the media, harking back to another of the Yakuza myths, that they come out of low caste, so called burakumin, Japan's untouchables. Which is also partly bs, but it's also attempt to win PR points with the public.

Sean Williams

I mean, some of them do come out of the low cast, right? It's a lot of like people of Korean descent or have Korean descent were cast out. But also I think the PR thing kind of worked, right. I remember seeing a bunch of articles about it. And haven't they. They did stuff like that before too, right? Tsunami recovery, Fukushima.

Danny Gold

Yeah.

Sean Williams

Weren't they really big using their logistics and, and sold just to go out there and like give out goods and, and just help people.

Danny Gold

Yeah. And they also offered to clean up all of the toxic waste that came out of the nuclear.

Sean Williams

I did not know that. Would not. I mean that's a, that's a, that's a typical organized crime scandal, right? Isn't that a big thing with Italy that they, the Italian. I don't know if it's the Calabrians or the Sicilians, but they always, we're gonna dispose of your toxic waste. And they just dump it in the ocean.

Danny Gold

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Plus the earthquake stuff, right? Didn't they? We did an episode on the Cosa Nostra and they like, offered to clean up or like clean up the rubble of one of the cities in Sicily after a massive earthquake there. I think that's part of their story as well. Maybe it's in Calabria, I'm not sure. But yeah, this is like. This is what the Yakuza have to do at this point, right? They don't have the. I guess they have implied power, but they don't have much actual power because by this point, there are fewer than 30,000 of them. And they're getting steamrolled by foreign gangs at home and abroad to the point where they're offering to scrub actual shit off a cruise ship. At the same time, the Japanese underworld is going through a huge restructuring. Because while the Yakuza's fortunes are fading faster than a sideburn in an Istanbul barbershop, crime hasn't just gone away. Okay, Nailed it. Okay, yeah, no, that was.

Sean Williams

That was. It was worth the buildup.

Danny Gold

Sincerely apologize for that, everyone.

Sean Williams

No, I was. Do not apologize. The fans want more. Say one more time, just so we get it all.

Danny Gold

Okay, I'll just repeat that. Because while the Yakuza's fortunes are fading faster than a sideburn in an Istanbul barbershop, crime hasn't just gone away.

Sean Williams

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See full terms@mintmobile.com Japan is still a rich nation. Instead, crimes are being committed by so called Tokuryu gangs. Less hierarchical groups composed of folks from all kinds of backgrounds and definitely with none of the rituals or baggage or tradition the Yakuza have been steeped in for centuries. Here is a South China Morning Post quote, short for Tokume Ryudo or anonymous and fluid. Tokuryo are a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan's underworld. The term was first used by the country's National Police Agency to describe loose networks that have emerged over the past decades as authorities tighten laws aimed at crippling traditional Yakuza syndicates. In contrast to The Yakuza revolt, which traditionally have a hierarchy and adhere to a strict code of conduct. Tokuryu have little in the way of hierarchies, are flexible and use technology to recruit members and communicate. This new approach to organized crime is seeing Tokuryu edge their predecessors out, although there is still a degree of collaboration in some areas between the two criminal groups. Martina Baradel has written her latest book, 21st Century Yakuza, on this phenomenon. Here she is once more speaking about the Yakuza's spectacular fall from grace.

Martina Baradel

Yes, so the Tokuryu is a phenomenon that started, I mean, a few years ago, I think. So we are talking about very different things, because the Yakuza is a mafia group which is rooted in the territory, is rooted in physical market, while the Tokuryu is something which is more in the digital world. So I don't think that we have a new technology. Some people exploit the technology to do crimes. And I don't think that even if the Yakuza were super strong now, they could limit people going online and doing Internet scams. This is something that nobody can limit, unfortunately. So I think we are looking at two different criminal groups. Tokuryu are not really a group. Tokoryu are individual entrepreneurs that sometimes come together to organize a criminal action, a criminal plan, and sometimes they hire other people to, you know, to bring forward this plan. But it is not the Yakuza can really control. So the Yakuza, what they can control is when these groups, online formed groups, they intervene in their territory. So we have had cases in which yakuza groups, groups are ideologically, let's say, against Tokuryu, because yakuza groups, at least, you know, of course we have Yakuza who do frauds and who do predatory activities. But the Yakuza, their reputation is about protecting their territory, being a good force of society in their minds, of course. So we have cases in which yap. The groups were, you know, sending out or putting out bulletin boards and saying, in our territory, we are going to be very careful. If there are people who do frauds or people who do burglars, we will control that and we will limit that. So they can do that. They can control that in their area, there are not people coming in to steal and to rob and so on and so forth. And they try to do that. If they have the strength to do it, they try to do it. But on whatever is done online, I think they do not have any authority to. To stop these groups. And these groups also, they, if you see, you Know, these Tokuryu groups, usually they tend to be much younger people who are involved in these sorts of frauds or online crime. They are much younger than the average age of the Yakuza, which is now very old. We are talking about two, two different words, I think. But this is a worry which again, as I said, I don't think that the Yakuza could limit the Tokoryu. But it has been a very constant worry, I think for a part of the police as well, for the population too, that, you know, it's better, the common idea is it's better that we have the Yakuza rather than having. And according, you know, it was before it was Chinese gangs because there were a couple of cases in Tokyo of Chinese groups who had some fights, very big fights. And so, you know, okay, maybe it's better to have the Yakuza than having Chinese gangs coming in, than having James Gang coming in. There is, you know, this idea that the Yakuza is still there, is still connected to Japanese values. So it's better to have the Yakuza that we know and we can talk to and have our same way of life rather than having groups from abroad who do not respect anything, do not respect our rules and you know, they do what they want. I think this is a wider fear and a wider discussion that probably Japanese society should have have about xenophobia and you know, fear of foreigners coming in that especially in the past two and three years. You know, if you now turn on the, the TV in Japan, you will probably see this news about a married couple, 20, 25 year old Japanese who hired 4, 16 years old to go and do a burglary, which of course ended up in a murder because you're putting in experts, very people who've never done a crime. 16 years old, you put, put them up to do, you know, a burglary. And then they found the woman who was living in the house. She was in the house, something goes wrong and. And then she was killed. No. So you have also a lot of younger Japanese generations that get involved in crime. In the past they would go to the Yakuza. And now the Yakuza is not really a very good prospect because you will be limited in everything in your life. So you will have problems to have a bank account, you will have problems to rent a house, to have a fun. Anything you can think of. The Yakuza. Now yakuza members have a lot of limitations in their daily life. So you have this problem. You have the problem that the Yakuza revenues have fallen, so you will probably not make a lot of money. And so probably, if you think rationally about your economic prospects, it's better to join up another gang, join up a group which is not Yakuza, which doesn't have. Have all these limitations. On the other hand, the Yakos still has, I think in some parts, in some parts, in cities, depending on the group, depending on the leadership, which in Jakos is very important, the Yakos still has, can operate a little bit of fascination on some people. So as I said, in my field work, I've also met very young, very young men, like 20 years old, who are training to join the local group. So some people still find it fascinating, the Yakuza, maybe it's a very small turf, but in that neighborhood, in that part of the city, they are someone. And young people who maybe, you know, didn't graduate school, do not have a very solid household, are alone. It can be for somebody, it can still be family, you know, group that you can join, where you can be protected, where you can have an older brother who helps you out, who trains you, who, you know, you can feel part of something. So I think that was very much more common in the past, and now it's true only for a few selected cases.

Danny Gold

Let's get back to Mako Nishimura, though. Through her work with Gojinkai, she manages to shake the pills in the criminal life, seemingly for good. And while she misses the thrill, the hierarchy and the camaraderie of Yakuza life, she realizes she's now in a far better place. And slowly she begins to pull the pieces of her life back together. Which brings us to the point at which I met her last October, when she took me to an ancient shrine in downtown Gifu. And I'm going to close out the episode by quoting my own story for the Guardian, because I wrote it so I can do that.

Sean Williams

I mean, you're properly citing yourself too. I mean, the only, the only journalist left with any integrity and ethics, Sean Williams doing it.

Danny Gold

I am his own. Well, you know, we both are. We both do good work, don't we? All of the time, anyway. Yes. Quote the Kugane shrine in Gifu is a complex dedicated to Shinto, Japan's indigenous animist faith. Some version of the shrine has stood on the same spot for almost 2,000 years, though it has been destroyed and rebuilt through a series of national calamities, from an 1891 earthquake to Allied fire bombing campaigns. Shinto has also become a key part of Mako Nishimura's post yakuza reinvention. And on a chilly Sunday morning last October, she invited me to join her at Kagani. As she paid her respects alongside a white robed priest, Nishimura's younger brother and mother joined us on the visit. Hiroku is even tinier than her daughter, with rosy cheeks and cropped, graying hair. She had kept secret her sporadic visits with Nishimura over the years. But in December 2024, alongside Martina Baradel, the author, mother and daughter sat together in the family home in Tajimi for the first time in decades, making sure to do so while Nishimura's younger brother was at work. In spring 2025, mother, daughter and brother met at a gifu cafe. They spoke for three straight hours. We had to cry, said Nishimura. She apologized for the years of hurt. She called her brother. He is too missing a little finger. He claims he was only a yakuza for a short time and went back to driving trucks after a year. He spoke about their childhood. Hiroku would fight their father, telling him not to be so harsh on the kids. He told me when Nishimura stopped coming home around the age of 14, he added, it was hell. By the time of the reunion, they hadn't even seen each other for over two decades. Years of secrets and sputtering contact with her children had taken their toll on Hiroku. I was missing them, she said, bursting into tears, anxious, worried about what they would do. Nishimura, sitting opposite, wiped away a tear of her own. Nishimura meets occasionally with her older son, now 29. His younger brother, 21, isn't yet ready. For now, reuniting with Hiroko and her brother will have to do. If she feels sad, she knows she can call him. I've realized how important family is, she told me.

Sean Williams

Me.

Danny Gold

She shrugged, then offered a rare hint that her sex had in fact protected her in her life of crime. If I was a man, she said, I'd have been killed already. Hiroko beamed. I didn't even see it in my dreams that she'd even share a moment with her kids like this. She told me, I'm so happy every day. I was thinking about her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She pointed at Nishimura, the prodigal daughter, her painted hands wrapped around a coffee cup and laughed. Because she's so cute. That's pretty nice, huh? Everyone was crying at that moment as well. It's like really emotionally intense. Anyway, if you want to read the whole thing, we'll link to it in the show notes or somewhere. I'll just like read out a hyperlink or something in my bathroom. Maybe you can hear that. I don't know. And like I said in part one, you want to hear this. And like I said in part one, you are going to want to see the pictures of Maka Nishimura and incredible tattoos. But yeah, that is the story of the only woman to have been an official made member of the Yakuta. Or perhaps the second. But let's not worry about that. Thanks for listening dude.

Sean Williams

That was beautiful stuff. I mean. Sean Williams, true long form writer, one of the few left. Wonderfully done man. Wonderfully done.

Danny Gold

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