Crime does pay but gets arrested for it.

These days it seems like we’re asked to make an account or subscribe for everything in daily life from Baskin Robbins to public television. This makes things hard for members of Japan’s many yakuza clans as the Organized Crime Exclusion Ordinances have made it illegal for any company to enter into a contract with a known member of an organized crime group.

Whenever you sign up for some service in Japan, the application usually has some sort of fine-print clause wherein by signing you are declaring that you do not belong to any criminal groups. This creates a catch-22 for those who are members of such groups because signing the document would be clear evidence of fraud with their name written all over it.

As a result, police have been nabbing key members while doing seemingly innocuous things like buying mobile phones or watching baseball games. And on 15 April, the latest such occurrence happened when a high-ranking member of the Sumiyoshi-kai was arrested simply for renting a car.

▼ Whether it’s traveling on a budget or not getting arrested, Japan’s public transportation really can’t be beat.

The 43-year-old man is accused of renting a car in Wako, Saitama Prefecture for two days and one night to get a little R&R back in September 2022. He then returned the car, paid the fee of roughly 10,000 yen (US$70), and went on his way.

Given the length of time from offense to arrest, it would seem that the police were looking for a reason to pick this suspect up and went digging for any kind of streaming subscription or point club offer they could nab him on. These types of arrests on charges of fraud are very useful for police as they allow them to launch investigations into yakuza business dealings and find other criminal activity. The suspect is currently refusing to speak with police.

The reaction in online comments was a mix of surprise and confusion about why someone would be arrested for renting a car and paying for it properly, even if that person is a gangster. Others were left wondering what a yakuza boss was doing renting a car in the first place.

“They can’t buy anything in their own name.”
“Yakuza don’t seem to have human rights.”
“He rented a car?! That fiend!”
“How did the police even find that out?”
“5,000 yen a day is pretty cheap. Did he get a compact?”
“He’s a yakuza boss and he doesn’t even have a car?”
“Is renting a car bad? What about buying one?”
“Can they renew their driver’s licenses?”

For the record, yakuza members can renew their driver’s license since no commercial contract is made there.

As for buying cars, it’s possible but very tricky. The key point of the Organized Crime Exclusion Ordinances is that contract can’t be made that involve members of a criminal organization, so most dealership purchases would be out of the question. Yakuza members also wouldn’t be able to get bank loans to finance a car purchase and insurance would be a major hurdle because even if they got policies before the ordinance was enacted in 2011, those would be subject to review periodically and whenever cars were changed.

Organized crime members would generally have to get a car in someone else’s name or in the name of a company that acts as a front, but this still makes them vulnerable to fraud charges. The bottom line is that yakuza members in Japan have a hard time doing most everyday things we take for granted.

Source: Saitama Shimbun, Itai News
Top image: Pakutaso
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