Japan’s ‘new-wave yakuza’: tokuryu gangs take control of lucrative sex business

Tokyo police have arrested the suspected head of one of Japan’s largest tokuryu organised crime groups after a year-long manhunt, but analysts have warned that such gangs are typically resilient and can operate without their leaders.Horaki Obata, 40, was arrested on Monday on the island of Amami in Kagoshima prefecture in southern Japan following a tip-off, police said.Obata is accused of leading Natural, a tokuryu that scouts women on the streets of Tokyo for the sex industry. He has denied the charges against him and chosen to remain silent, according to a report by Fuji News Network.Short for tokumei ryudo, or anonymous and fluid, tokuryu 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 decade as authorities tightened laws aimed at crippling traditional yakuza syndicates.In contrast to the yakuza of old, which traditionally have a hierarchy and adhere to strict codes of conduct, tokuryu have little in the way of hierarchies, are flexible, and use technology to recruit members and communicate. This new approach to organised crime is seeing tokuryu edge their predecessors out, although there is still a degree of collaboration in some areas between the two criminal groups.According to police, Obata paid members of a subgroup of the Yamaguchi-gumi gang – a leading yakuza organisation – 600,000 yen (US$3,930) in cash in return for allowing his scouts to approach women in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.