On NPR’s Talk of the Nation, author Misha Glenny discusses his new book, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (audio). Around the 15:00 mark he talks about the Yakuza for about 2 minutes.
A few tidbits from the interview: The author says that 80% of the women who entered Japan between 1990-2000 came on entertainment visas and most were prostitutes connected to the Yakuza. The Yakuza maintain semi-legal status in Japan and submit a list of members and candidate members to Japanese police! Lastly the aging population and globalization has affected the Yakuza, too; they now find it more difficult to recruit and are outsourcing some of the violence to Chinese gangs!
“The Yakuza maintain semi-legal status in Japan and submit a list of members and candidate members to Japanese police!”
The Japanese can’t even break the law right! Even many law-abiding Americans would make the Yakuza piss their pants.