Japan’s yakuza mobsters becoming ‘Goldman Sachs with guns’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/01/japans-yakuza-mobsters-becoming-goldman-sachs-with-guns/



Japan’s yakuza mobsters becoming ‘Goldman Sachs with guns’
By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, December 1, 2013 10:17 EST

Japanese mobsters driving flash cars purchased with bank loans. Executives bowing in apology for loaning millions to those underworld figures. And high-level officials vowing to squash the crime syndicates, known as yakuza.

Japan Inc. is engulfed in its worst mob scandal in years and it’s shining a rare light on the links between big business and shadowy organised crime groups usually known for low-brow ventures like extortion and loan sharking.

But with membership falling as police ratchet up a crackdown, experts say the yakuza are branching far outside their traditional business into everything from insider trading to funding business startups.

“Insider trading has become huge — you can make much more money manipulating stocks” than extorting businesses, says Jake Adelstein, a crime writer whose bestselling memoir “Tokyo Vice” is set to become a Hollywood movie.