Hitting the Yakuza in their pockets
THE Tokyo District Court recently ordered designated organised crime group Kyokuto-kai’s former boss and two others to pay a total of about ¥200 million (RM8.03mil) in damages.
The court ruling can be described as a financial blow to the crime syndicate, making it a potential weapon to fight and eliminate organised crime groups in Japan.
The sentence came after a lawsuit had been filed by 27 hearing-impaired people who had accused two men, including a member of Kyokuto-kai’s subordinate group, of extorting money from them.
They filed the suit against not only these two men but also the former Kyokuto-kai head to pay damages based on the Anti-gang Law.
The sentence concluded that the action taken by the gangster to tell the victims that he was a member of a crime syndicate and then extort money constituted the act of raising funds through the use of iryoku or intimidation – the kind of conduct defined in the Anti-gang Law when it was revised in 2008.
Based on this acknowledgment, the latest ruling has applied for the first time the stipulation that a crime syndicate chief can be held responsible for paying damages.
It has been judged that the former crime syndicate chief must be held responsible as the representative of an organisation for having funds collected by using the force of his organisation.
Although rank-and-file gangsters are often poorly financed, chiefs of designated crime syndicates have the capability to pay compensation in many cases. The latest ruling is significant for aiding victims.
In lawsuits based on employer liability under the Civil Code, plaintiffs were previously required to prove in minute detail the responsibility of the nature of such matters as the chain of command at a criminal organisation and the flow of money paid to the group.
A good part of internal information about criminal organisations can only be gathered by police.
The burden of proof was extremely onerous in a case like the latest one, which has not been treated as a criminal case.
Under the revised Anti-gang Law, the head of a gangster organisation can be held responsible if it has been proved that the group was engaged in acquiring funds through the use of its force.
Lessening the burden of proof in this respect has led to the expansion of opportunity for plaintiffs to recover damages.
There have been a considerable number of lawsuits in which compromises were reached between plaintiffs and those representing gangster organisations as they were loath to have their legal liability acknowledged through court rulings.
In some cases, the amount of money paid to settle pertinent matters came to tens of millions of yen. Given this, it can be said that the amended Antigang Law has accomplished certain results.
The latest ruling took a narrow view regarding the definition of iryoku by gangsters, which it said signifies “the act of spontaneously showing people that they are members of an organised crime group and menacing them.”
Gangsters’ activities aimed at acquiring funds are becoming more and more diversified and cunning. There are very few cases in which perpetrators of such crimes as so-called special fraud, by which damage totalling more than ¥40bil (RM1.6bil) has been incurred annually, tell victims that they are gangsters.
It will be necessary to flexibly review the Anti-gang Law in the future, too, so new types of crimes can be dealt with.
Many victims hesitate to file suits against gangsters for fear of retaliation. It is important for the police to take thorough measures to provide personal protection for such people. It is also necessary to consider creating a system by which a public institution would file suits against gangsters on behalf of the victims.