As police strengthen their efforts to crack down on fund-raising activities by organized crime groups, they are seeing a rising trend in groups trying to push overpriced products such as Viagra tablets on convenience store owners.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) suspects that organized crime groups are now trying to tap into community-based businesses as they find it more difficult to collect money through the old-fashioned way -- "protection money" from restaurants and bars -- amid the lingering economic recession.
According to investigators, a 51-year-old gangster affiliated with the Inagawa-kai crime syndicate visited a total of 11 convenience stores, beauty salons and drug stores in Tokyo's Setagaya and Shibuya wards in February this year. The man reportedly showed a business card with the name of his yakuza clan printed on it in front of shop assistants, and then showed a flyer which read: "We accept telephone orders for Viagra, available for 12,000 yen for five tablets; 20,000 yen for 10 tablets and 38,000 yen for 20 tablets."
When one of the shop clerks rejected his offer, the man insisted, saying "Customers will appreciate it if you give them the tablets secretly, and more people will come to visit your shop through word-of-mouth. We have underground porn videos too." But no one at the 11 stores bought anything from the man, police said.
After receiving a series of similar complaints, the MPD's Organized Crime Control Section in April ordered the man to halt his soliciting under authority of the Act on Prevention of Unjust Acts by Organized Crime Group Members (Anti-Organized Crime Act).
The Viagra he offered to the shops was about 40 percent more expensive than products out on the market, and police suspect that the price difference was meant to function as protection money.
According to the organized crime control section, in addition to established fund-raising practices such as forcing restaurants and bars in their territory to buy commodities such as New Year's decorations and air fresheners and demanding protection money, gangs have recently begun inviting shop clerks to join events such as expensive dinner cruises on private houseboats. Crime organizations seem to be adopting a strategy of collecting smaller amounts of money, but from a broader range of businesses.
In 2009, the MPD issued a record 532 orders to gang members who demanded protection money from food service operators and other businesses in Tokyo to halt such activities -- an increase of 62 cases from 2008. It was the highest number among all prefectures. Without the orders, an estimated 340 million yen could have filtered through to crime groups.
A 2008 revision to the Anti-Organized Crime Act stipulates that if a gang member tries to extort money under the name of a crime syndicate, its leader will also be held responsible for the act and ordered to pay damages. Several crime groups have reportedly invited lawyers and other experts to hold study sessions about the revised law.
One organized crime group created a list of shops they have been ordered by police not to visit again and instructed its members to stay away from the shops on the list. Another organization has reportedly drawn up guidelines for its members, telling them to "avoid wearing yakuza-like clothing" and that "mistakes by members will be settled financially rather than by cutting off fingers."
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20100529p2a00m0na010000c.html
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