Fluid gangs fill void left by yakuza
‘‘The biggest challenge is [the gangs] have no real coherence . . . They come together, and then disperse immediately after a crime.’’ Superintendent Masakazu Yamaguchi, Fukuoka police
The eclipse of the yakuza, Japan’s organised crime gangs, seemed for a while to be one of the great triumphs of modern crime fighting.
For years, they controlled drugs, sex businesses and loan sharking – but in little more than a decade, vigorous policing and new laws have forced them into retreat. In 2011, there were 33,000 fully fledged yakuza – in 2020, according to police figures, there were 13,000.
But as their numbers have dwindled and their bosses have been sent to prison, a new threat has filled the void: The hangure.
The word means ‘‘quasi-delinquents’’, and describes shadowy criminal gangs that are as different from the old-fashioned yakuza as hip-hop is from Elvis Presley. They reject the hierarchical structure of the old gangster syndicates in favour of a creed that puts money above all else.
The gangs recruit and communicate using digital technology. They form and disperse at their own convenience.
Police are baffled by their shape-shifting character and indifference to the old yakuza code of honour, while ordinary Japanese are alarmed by their cruel and outrageous crimes.
In the past few weeks, the country has been transfixed by a spate of robberies in Tokyo, targeting old people who kept large sums of money in their homes. Thieves have walked away with hauls of cash as big as ¥35 million (NZ$422,000).
Last month, a gang ran amok in a house in the western suburb of Komae, tying up and killing its occupant, a 90-year-old woman.
According to police, the phones of arrested suspects have revealed that they were recruited through online advertisements by a Japanese master criminal nicknamed ‘‘Luffy’’, who is in
prison in the Philippines, where he bribed guards to allow him a phone.
Police in Tokyo and the southern city of Fukuoka have set up anti-hangure units. Some of the larger gangs have established identities, and names such as Kanto League, Ota League, Chinese Dragon, and Uchikoshi Spectre.
However, Superintendent Masakazu Yamaguchi of Fukuoka police says the force struggles to identify gangs and members.
‘‘The biggest challenge is acting against groups that have no real coherence,’’ he said. ‘‘They come together, and then disperse immediately after a crime.
‘‘Sometimes we think someone’s in one group, and they’re in another. Compared to the yakuza, we have no idea of who they are
and what they are.’’
The yakuza spread misery through drug dealing and human trafficking, but even at their worst they were highly organised. Until the crackdown, they had practical, and even cooperative, relations with the police.
The hangure have none of this institutional character. ‘‘It’s like a business,’’ Yamaguchi said. ‘‘If they’re making money, they’ll stay together – if they’re not, they’ll disperse.’’
An online advertisement captures the spirit of the hangure. ‘‘Job coming up very soon for high reward. High risk, high return, but will support. ¥5-¥15m (NZ$60,300-NZ$180,900) plus bonus.’’
For all their brutality, the yakuza had a warped code of
honour, by which gang members were forbidden from hurting women, children and the elderly. By contrast, hangure crime consciously preys on the weak.
Their speciality is ‘‘ore-ore sagi’’ or ‘It’s me’ fraud. A con man telephones a confused old person, pretending to be a young relative in debt to violent people. A ‘‘friend’’ is sent to collect the cash, and the pensioner never sees the money again.
The police have made arrests that, according to organised crime expert Noboru Hirosue, indicate an interesting trend – many hangure members are former yakuza.
‘‘The yakuza try to use the hangure, and absorb them,’’ he said. ‘‘The hangure are like stray dogs, but yakuza are still the wolves.’’