ミロ・ミヤトビッチ Vs ヤクザ - オーストラリアの全国紙 "The Australian" の記事

日本のホテルの一室に監禁され、こめかみにベレッタ9mmのピストルを押し当てられ、オーストラリア国籍のビジネスマン、ミロ・ミヤトビッチ氏は心の中で生死をめぐる悲痛な計算を始めていた。状況から言って、死に至る可能性もあるが、確かとは言えなかった。
「私は身長が1m98cmあるので、これくらい大きな死体となるとホテルから運び出すのも大変だろうと見越していたのです。」と彼は振り返る。

ミヤトビッチ氏は部屋の隅の椅子にどっしりと座っていた。時間がどんどん過ぎていき、部屋にはヤクザ（日本のマフィア）が引切りなしに吸うタバコの煙と、彼の冷や汗の嫌な匂いが充満していた。「時々、［リーダー格の男が］感情を爆発させ、テーブルをドンと叩き「お前は自分が何をやっているのかわかってない！」と怒鳴り出しました。」とミヤトビッチ氏は回想する。

格闘技プロモーターだったミヤトビッチ氏は、3日間にわたり、このように拘束され、ブームに沸く格闘技業界の「敏腕代理人」の役割を放棄するようヤクザに迫られた。自分が担当するファイターをヤクザに譲り渡すことに合意署名して初めて、国外に永久退去するという条件付きで無傷で解放された。水泳のイアン・ソープ選手の日本での世話役も務めていたミヤトビッチ氏は、国外に脱出する代わりに警察に行って捜査を始めてもらい、それが莫大な利益をもたらす日本の格闘技試合の崩壊につながった。

殺し屋から身を隠して過ごした数年間を経て、ミヤトビッチ氏はついにヤクザとどう対峙したか明らかにする覚悟ができ、日本最大のスポーツ不祥事のひとつを暴露した。「私を脅した2つの暴力団は、もう解散してしまいました。」とミヤトビッチ氏は、ザ・オーストラリアン東京支社に拉致の話をしに来た折に、ウィークエンド・オーストラリアン・マガジンに話してくれた。彼は、警察の組織的活動が暴力団に打撃を与え、それが自らの体験を語る後押しとなったと語った。

日本社会におけるヤクザの役割は複雑である。刺青があって、ことによると小指をつめている悪党というイメージは、暴力団員に対する一般的な認識であり、売春やみかじめ料徴収へのヤクザの関与は広く報告されている。あまり知られていないのは、日本の文化面、政治面、商業面での生活にいかに組み込まれているかという点だ。やくざ者に対する暗黙の容認は、日本では1600年代の出現当初から続いており、暴力団が名刺を持ち、暴力団名義の建物を持って自由に商売をすることができるようになっている。

しかし、これがすべて変わり始めている。ミヤトビッチ氏は、2010年に暴力団対策を専門とする猪狩俊郎弁護士がマニラのホテルで殺されたとみられる事件（2007年の暴力団幹部による長崎市長射殺事件に続いて）が、自治体の間に今だかつてない結束を呼び起こし、日本中で同様の暴力団対策法が成立したとしている。「あれは、本当に多数の暴力団を骨抜きにしました。」と彼は言う。ヤクザは生存をかけた闘争とでも言うべきものを続け、従来からの犯罪拠点である九州では最も激しいが、彼らの栄光の日々は本当に終わったというコンセンサスが高まってきている。

「私は過去10年間にわたり、日本社会の変化を見てきました。」とミヤトビッチ氏は言う。彼は現在も日本を拠点として、東京でホテルおよびスポーツマネジメント会社を経営している。「人質に取られた2003年か2004年頃、日本では、暴力団は避けがたい現実としてそれなりに受け入れられていました。」

最も恐れられている暴力団山口組の分派の手にかかった試練を回想し、ふさふさした黒髪を手でなでつけて、「あのとき、髪はほとんど抜けてしまいました。」と茶化したように笑って言う。

ミヤトビッチ氏（45）は、シドニーの西に当たる郊外ペンリスで、クロアチアからのブルーカラーの移民家庭で育った。背が高くてスポーツが得意な子どもだったから、ケンカはほとんど回避できたが、ケンカになった場合には彼に有利な結果に終わった。両親は彼と弟を地元のカトリック系の学校に行かせるためにせっせと働いた。ミヤトビッチ氏は、マッコーリー大学法学部に入学し、より良い人生のチケットを手にした。

最終学年のクラスでは首席になって、トヨタや三井物産などの日本の一流企業をクライアントに持つ法律事務所に就職した。東京に異動になり、アジアでの大規模な資源・インフラプロジェクトの法務を担当するキャリアへとつながった。目まぐるしい7年間が過ぎ、その間に一度結婚に失敗して、世の中に嫌気がさしたミヤトビッチ氏は、すでに長年暮らした東京で、新たなスタートを切ろうと模索していた。

それで、スポーツプロモーションをやってみることにし、水泳のソープ選手の日本での世話役を始めた。ソープは2001年に福岡で開催された世界水泳選手権で電撃的な活躍をし、日本で非常に人気を集めていた。その後、ミヤトビッチ氏は、2002年日韓共催FIFAワールドカップ開催中にクロアチア代表サッカーチームの世話をした。そして、ついに同じクロアチア出身の髪を短く刈り込んだ自信たっぷりの総合格闘技のファイターに出会ったのである。ミルコ・“クロコップ”・フィリポビッチのマネジメントを引き受けたことで、ミヤトビッチ氏は、旧東側諸国出身の無愛想で、素手で人を殺せそうな筋骨隆々の男たちがひしめくいかがわしいウオッカ浸りの環境に入っていくことになったのである。

秩序ある穏やかな戦後の日本が、プライドやK-1といった総合格闘技団体が興行するこのような野蛮で反則規定のない「ケージファイト」のハブになったことは、信じがたいことである。しかし、この国で暮らしてきた誰もが言うように、日本にはいくつもの違う顔があり、それらは一見ほとんど互いに関係のないパラレルワールドである。当時、日本の民放テレビ局6局中3局が、金曜夜のプライムタイムに総合格闘技かキックボクシングの試合を放送していた。日本の何百万もの世帯に試合を放送し、業界のトップ争いをしていたのである。
「当時、日本では（格闘技が）野球、相撲、その他各種のメジャースポーツと同じくらい人気があったのです。」とミヤトビッチ氏は言う。大金の魅力が、格闘家を旧ソ連やバルカン半島から東京へと引き寄せた。しかし、ミルコ・フィリポビッチを含め、ほとんどの格闘家が、最大の分け前はプロモーターが確保するか、他の者に持っていかれてしまうことに気付いた。

「ミルコは、K-1のマネジメントに関して問題を抱えていたのです。私がマネジメントを引き継ぎ、彼を日本で一番ホットな格闘家にしたのです。」とミヤトビッチ氏は振り返る。程なく他の不当に扱われていた外国人格闘家と契約を結び、やがて､2003年大晦日に、恐れられている山口組の本拠地・神戸市で開催される格闘技イベントのテレビ中継の計画をめぐる暴力団との衝突へのコースを確実に歩み始めたのである。

「もっとよく目を見開いていれば、［格闘技試合には］そういった人たちが関与しているとわかったはずなのですが。」とミヤトビッチ氏は認める。「彼らが最初にしたのは、私のファイターへの妨害でした。ファイターが負傷するようにファイターを買収し始めたのです。報復として彼らのファイターと契約を結び始めたのですが、それによって手に負えない事態になりました。12月には、脅迫されるようになりました。日本人はたぶん、私がヤクザを怒らせたと言うでしょう。事態はエスカレートして、私のところにやって来て、保護してやると言う者までいたものでした。試合が近づくにつれ、あからさまに脅しをかけてくるようになりました。」

ミヤトビッチ氏は自宅を離れ、44,000人の観客を呼び込むイベントを開催するために時間を確保しようと密かにホテルにチェックインした。イベントの2日後、暴力団は行動を起こした。「基本的に私を捕まえて、3日間人質として拘束したのです。」

ミヤトビッチ氏は、襲撃者に（法的理由により名前は明かせない）プライドの主催企業にファイターを引き渡せと言われたという。「私がそのような契約書に反対し、署名を拒否すると、私の右手にいた男が、ホルスターからピストルを取り出して、テーブルに置きました。契約書への署名を拒否し続けると、ピストルを持ち上げて、「署名しないなら、どうなるかわかっているな。」と言いました。そのとき、私はこう思いました。おそらくそれは正しかったと思います。撃つとしても、ホテルでは撃たないだろう。撃ったら厄介なことになる・・・それに私のような巨体を運び出したりすれば、目立つはずだ。」

ミヤトビッチ氏は、契約書を英語で書き直してほしいと言い張った。そうして時間を稼いだのだ。しかし、3日経つとヤクザの我慢が限界を超え、彼はファイターをめぐる契約に無理やり署名させられた。翌日、家族を連れてシドニーに帰った。「あの男たちがいなくなるや否や、私たちは飛行機に飛び乗ったのです。生後1カ月の子どもがいましたから。」
ミヤトビッチ氏は怖いとは思っても、屈しようとは思わなかった。社会人生活のほぼすべてを日本で過ごしてきて、こういった輩がただ力ずくで彼のものを横取りしていった。さらに悪いことには、ビジネスパートナーが神戸でのイベントの売上金100万ドルを持ち逃げし、彼を破産寸前に追い込んだのである。徐々に彼の怖れは怒りへと形を変えていった。オーストラリアで1カ月過ごした後、報復を決意して日本に戻った。「基本的に私はプライドに関して警察のおとりになったのです。翌年丸一年間、プライド打倒のために警察に協力しました。」

ミヤトビッチ氏は、乳飲み子を抱える日本人妻にはほとんどの実情を隠し、二人をオーストラリアに留まらせた。また、都内にある米国、ロシア、中国大使館の厳重なセキュリティの恩恵を享受すべく、その近くにアパートをいくつか借りて、その間を飛び回った。ヤクザが彼の命を狙っていることを知っていたのである。

ミヤトビッチ氏によると、警察の捜査で明らかになったことのひとつは、彼が監禁されたホテルの部屋は、山口組幹部、高山清司のクレジットカードで予約されていたということである。高山は日本で最も悪名高いヤクザのひとりで、片目である（刀傷により片目を失った）。高山は2010年に警官140人態勢の捜索を受け、建設会社から50万ドルを恐喝した容疑で逮捕された。

「警察の注意は、突然 、私が追っていた男から、警察が追っていた男に移りました。」とミヤトビッチ氏は言う。「私は本当のところ、この国一番のマフィアのボスを倒す男に突然なろうなんて思っていない、と警察に告げました。私が何をしようと、それがおそらく運命を左右する決定になるとわかっていました。警察は私とヤクザとの停戦のような取引を仲介してくれました。私にとって、それは十分に公正なものでした。私はこうしてここで生きています。すばらしい成果です。」

暴力団対策で知られた故猪狩俊郎弁護士は、ミヤトビッチ氏が警察に訴え、試練を終わらせる取引を仲介するのを助けた。彼の死後に出版された本の中に、ミヤトビッチ氏の拉致監禁のことが書かれていた。同書は、ミヤトビッチ氏がウィークエンド・オーストラリアン・マガジンに語った話を裏付けている。取引により、ミヤトビッチ氏の命を狙う件はご破算になった。ただし、彼は格闘技試合に戻らないこと、また、拉致監禁に関して刑事告訴しないことに合意しなければならなかった。

総合格闘技プライドは放送打ち切りとなり、2007年にケージファイトのプロモーションをやめた。しかし、ヤクザは、他のもっと利益になる話にいろいろ手を出していた。相撲や他のスポーツへの関与は、まだ全貌が明らかになっていない。

伝統的にヤクザは、一部の、警察さえも含む日本人の間にある「旧知の悪」の方がいいという一般的な見方に立脚して商売をしてきた。すなわち、日本の暴力団は少なくとも構造を地下に置いていて、より残忍で冷酷な外国の犯罪シンジケートによる被害が社会に及ばないようにしているという見方である。

また、ヤクザは、悪評も吹き飛ばした。1995年の阪神大震災の際に、山口組がヘリコプター1機を含む自前の資源を動員して正規の緊急救援サービスよりも迅速な危機対応を行い、政府当局に勝る働きをして以来、悪評は大きくなっていない。

しかし、暴力団撲滅運動の猪狩弁護士の死に対する一般市民の怒りのおかげもあって、日本の法執行機関は、暴力団との闘いを宣言した。「ヤクザの不文律は、政治家を殺さないこと、警察や検察には手を出さないこと。」とミヤビッチは言う。「この一線を越えたので、日本の機関からの反発と新たな暴力団対策法が生まれたのです。」

昨年10月まで日本の警察庁長官を務めた安藤隆春氏は、国から組織犯罪を排除することを定期的に固く約束することで、新たなムードを総括してきた。また、バラク・オバマ政権は、海外でのヤクザの活動に圧力をかけ、オバマ大統領は、山口組、並びに高山と山口組組長・篠田健市に経済制裁を課す大統領命令に署名した。

東京弁護士会民事介入暴力対策特別委員の井上俊一弁護士は、この新法は暴力団にとって死活問題となったという点でミヤトビッチ氏に同意している。「日本の組織犯罪が、最近 ひどい苦境にあるのは間違いない。」と井上弁護士は言う「この新法に関して重要なことは、市民や企業に組織犯罪と取引しないことに責任を負わせている点である。したがって、主要企業は、供給業者や請負業者に組織犯罪に関わっていないことを保証するように圧力をかけており、企業はビジネスパートナーが関わる可能性のあるつながりについて積極的に調査し始めている。

暴力団に対する抑制にもかかわらず、暴力団は数の上では依然として強い。警察庁は全国で約70,000人と推定している。九州では、警察が暴力団関連の暴力を鎮圧しようという取り組みで何千人もの組員との闘いを繰り広げている。

また、取材ジャーナリストでヤクザを専門とする鈴木智彦氏によれば、昨年の福島第一原発での災害は、ヤクザに待ち望んでいた頼みの綱を与えたという。鈴木氏は、災害を受けた原発に潜入し、ヤクザが日雇い労働者を供給している証拠を手にして現れた。このような人々は、ヤクザにちょうど借金があったのである。記者会見で、鈴木氏は、原発作業員の10人に1人がヤクザと関係があり、震災直後に放射線レベルが非常に高い中、原子炉の冷却に尽力した伝説的な「フクシマ50」の3人も含まれていると述べた。

このように機会を迅速に捉える能力を持つのがヤクザであり、それこそが、現在非常に不利な状況にあるにもかかわらず、彼らが常に形を変えて存続していく可能性がある理由のひとつである。 「あいつらは、ゴキブリのようなものだ。」と、ヤクザがどのように商売をしているか間近で見た東京のビジネスマンは言う。「何が起ころうと、全滅させることはできない。」

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fight-club/story-e6frg6n6-1226532019774

What Happened at Carval Investors Japan?

Following on from questions raised about governance issues at Carval Tokyo by Alchemy Japan in relation to the Cargill yakuza love hotel scandal - see: alchemy japan asks questions to cargill - we have been looking into some of the issues raised.

In true vulture fund style, in June 2011, Carval Investors announced that it was raising a US$500million Japan fund, to which its parent Cargill had already committed US$200m, to take advantage of "opportunities" and "distress" created by the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011.

From Reuters

U.S. investment firm CarVal Investors is planning to launch its first Japan real estate fund in a few months to raise about $500 million as it sees growing distressed opportunities in property assets and non-performing loans, a company executive said.
Its parent company, agribusiness giant Cargill Inc CARG.UL, has already committed $200 million of seed money and the fund will have a life of total five years including two years of investment period, said Yojiro Koizumi, representative in Japan for CarVal Investors.
"I think there are opportunities in non-performing loans such as CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) or non-recourse loans or those performing loans that cannot be refinanced," Koizumi told the Reuters Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit in Singapore on Tuesday.
"Distressed cases are increasing," said Koizumi, who is a senior partner at CarVal Investors.
He also said B-class or C-class assets might come onto the market while prime quality assets will likely be tightly held by local players.
The number of bankruptcies in Japan rose in May for the first time since July 2009, largely due to the massive quake in March, according to research firm Tokyo Shoko Research.
The Japanese property market also faces some debt refinancing issues. Property research firm DTZ estimates debt that cannot be funded in Japan is more than $80 billion.
CarVal Investors targets opportunistic property investments. It has invested nearly $10 billion globally, about 10 percent of which has been allocated in real estate, Koizumi said.
Koizumi said the fund will aim for a 15 percent internal rate of return (IRR) with a short investment period to boost returns.
"We usually buy assets which are at distressed prices for whatever the reason is and repair it and exit it in two years," Koizumi said.
Last year, CarVal Investors was one of the bidders to buy failed Japanese apartment developer Anabuki Construction Inc, according to sources.
Koizumi said despite some concerns about the economic prospects, Japan remains one of the world's largest creditors and should be able to bankroll the cost to rebuild after the quake.
"Not many people understand about Japan's net credit position," he said.
"The best time and interesting time to invest is when no one buys."

http://www.startribune.com/business/124391644.html

Cargill's Minnetonka investment subsidiary, CarVal Investors, is planning a $500 million Japanese real estate fund to buy distressed properties and underperforming loans in the wake of Japan's March earthquake.
Corporate bankruptcies in Japan increased last month, and many attribute it to the financial aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. But even before the earthquake, Tokyo property values had been declining sharply for two years, leading to expectations that distressed property assets would become available at fire-sale prices.
Cargill has committed $200 million to the fund, which would focus on commercial mortgage-backed securities and loans that can't be refinanced, CarVal representatives said. The Japanese real estate market is ripe for this type of investment, CarVal said.
"The level of distress that hit Japan post-2008 in the real estate sector was as severe -- if not more so -- than what hit the U.S.," said Tim Clark, CarVal's CIO of Real Estate. "Since 2008, the Japanese property market has faced debt refinancing issues and there have been persistent capital vacuums."
Following the March earthquake, the real estate market was essentially frozen for six to eight weeks, but that problem has abated somewhat, Clark said. "Today, there are still volumes of assets which financial institutions need to purge from their balance sheets."
CarVal Investors has been investing in Tokyo since the mid-1990s, said spokeswoman Anna Lovely.
CarVal Investors, founded by Cargill in 1987, manages commercial credit and real estate investments and has 275 employees worldwide. It currently has $11 billion in assets under management. 

A little over 3 months after these announcements, according to publicly available corporate documents, on 30 September 2011, Mr Joe Koizumi was removed from his post as representative of Cargill and Carval group companies and made a "special advisor". According to sources close to Carval's Tokyo office; the fund was never funded by Cargill nor was any third party money raised due to serious issues with corporate governance and compliance in Carval's Tokyo office which led to a wholesale termination of Carval Japanese staff in September 2011 and liquidation of all Carval's Japanese assets. The Japanese office was originally established by Peter Vorbrich in 1998, and Peter Vorbrich went on to head Carval's real estate activities globally. Indeed, Peter Vorbrich and Yojiro Koizumi were the originators of Cargill's investment into Love Hotels while Peter Vorbrich is the only survivor of this investment decision.

Mr Joe Koizumi was replaced as representative of Carval Tokyo by Mr Takashi Nishiki a former partner of colorful Singaporean businessman, Mr Adrian Chua, in Round Hill Capital.

Mr Takashi Nishiki was, 11 months later, on 31 August 2012, removed as representative of Carval Tokyo and also joined Mr Joe Koizumi as a "special advisor". UPDATE Jan 15 2013 - Yojiro Koizumi and Takashi Nishiki no longer appear on Carval's website as "Special Advisors"

Mr Takashi Nishiki was replaced by 2 representatives - which in itself is unusual in Japan - Mr Michio Izawa and Ms Nozomi Kaneko.

UPDATE - 9th September 2012 - very soon as after his removal as Carval Tokyo Managing Director, Takashi Nishiki and Adrian Chua registered a branch office of APAC CAPITAL PARTNERS PTE LTD in Tokyo with Takashi Nishiki as the head. Adrian Chua and Takashi Nishiki are offering investors 5-6% yields with no acquisition or disposal fees and minimal ongoing asset management fees and raising money based on their previous record. Although this may be a tough sell after Takashi Nishiki sold Carval's Love Hotel assets, acquired for a total equity investment of overJPY6billion (US$60m) for an amount of JPY500m (US$5m), after repayment of debt, leaving Carval Investors facing massive claims from its asset manager for breach of contract and other allegations of misconduct covered in the New York Times  New York Times Article  Japanese - NYT Article - Japanese Translation

More recently, Takashi Nishiki joined  GMCM, founded in 2009 by Gabriel Moey, GMCM as a Registered Fund Management Company, as defined by the Securities & Futures Act issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Takashi Nishiki also is involved in real estate through West Wood Capital KK.
 GMCM - Our Team 

So, Peter Vorbrich, Joe Koizumi and Takashi Nishiki overtake Seth FIscher as setting a record for the worst investment decision in this asset class and certainly set the record for the biggest single loss of equity:- Japan Leisure Hotels Investment  Minority Investor Appalled at Seth Fischer Investment Decision - this all despite, in the case of Cargill's love hotels, the fact that Alchemy Japan had achieved rising revenues and cash flow and so had successfully turned around Cargill's love hotels after taking over from Cargill's original manager:- Alchemy Japan Q1 2012 Revenue and Earning Growth Alchemy Japan 2011 Revenue and Earnings Growth

UPDATE Jan 30 2013 - some interesting posts by whistleblower with documents which cover the dispute between Alchemy Japan and Carval Investors in detail. We also understand that Alchemy Japan and Carval Investors are now involved in litigation resulting from this dispute; we shall attempt to obtain further documents and post those when available- 
Carval Japan Report on Cargill Japanese Love Hotel Investment
Alchemy Japan Letter to Carval Investors Attempting to Avoid Dispute
アルケミージャパンからのカーバルインベスターズ宛て書簡 – カーバルのレジャーホテル投資

UPDATE Jan 10 2014 - Alchemy Japan commenced legal proceedings in the Tokyo District Court against Carval Investors, and its shell companies, seeking to recover almost JPY300 million (US$3million) in damages resulting from Carval's sale of Cargill's Love Hotels to entities and persons suspected by Kroll Advisory Solutions of ties to Japanese organized crime, the yakuza.

An English translation of the Japanese Statement of Claim can be found at -
Alchemy Japan vs Carval Investors - English Translation of Japanese Law Suit

UPDATE May 2015 - Kato Pleasure Group (KPG) is leaving the Love Hotel industry having placed all of its love hotels on the market. The portfolio includes the Cargill Love Hotels which KPG acquired from Cargill for ¥1.5bn; which now KPG is selling for ¥4bn; or looking to almost triple the money he paid to Cargill.

Miro Mijatovic Fight Back Against the Yakuza

IMPRISONED in a Japanese hotel room with a Beretta 9mm pistol pressed against his temple, a grim calculus of life and death began to play out in the mind of Australian businessman Miro Mijatovic. Death, as he saw it, was a possibility but not a certainty.

"I am 6'6" [1.98m] and I was pretty sure they were going to struggle to deal with getting a body the size of mine out of the hotel," he recalls.

The hours rolled by as Mijatovic sat slumped in a chair in a corner of the room, the air filled with cigarette smoke from the chain-smoking yakuza - as Japan's mafiosi are known - and the sour scent of his own fear-induced sweat. "Every now and again [their leader] would just explode and start screaming, 'You don't know what you are up against!' and thumping the table," recalls Mijatovic.

For three days the martial arts fight promoter was held like this while the yakuza demanded he relinquish his role as "power agent" in the booming fight industry. It was only when he agreed to sign his fighters over to the yakuza that he was released unharmed on the proviso that he flee the country for good. Instead, Mijatovic, who at one time looked after swimmer Ian Thorpe's interests in Japan, went to the police and launched a probe that resulted in the collapse of the hugely lucrative Japanese fight game.

After several years spent in hiding with a contract out on his life, Mijatovic is finally prepared to reveal how he took on the yakuza and exposed one of Japan's largest sporting scandals. "The two yakuza groups involved in extorting me have now been broken up," Mijatovic told The Weekend Australian Magazine when he arrived at The Australian's Tokyo bureau to tell the story of his abduction. As he sees it, a concerted campaign from law enforcement is hurting the gangs and that has encouraged him to give his personal account.

The yakuza's role in Japanese society is complex. The image of the tattooed gangster, perhaps with a missing little finger, is a popular perception of gang members, and the yakuza's involvement in the sex trade and protection rackets is widely documented. Less well known is the extent of its integration into Japan's cultural, political and commercial life. A tacit tolerance of the yakuza has evolved in Japan since its emergence in the 1600s, allowing gangs to operate openly with official business cards and premises bearing their name.

But that is all beginning to change. Mijatovic says the suspected murder of anti-yakuza lawyer Toshiro Igari in a Manila hotel room in 2010 (which followed the killing of Nagasaki's mayor by a yakuza chief in 2007) sparked unprecedented unity among municipal governments, which have passed uniform anti-yakuza laws across Japan."That has really emasculated a lot of the yakuza groups," he says. The yakuza are continuing to wage what amounts to an existential struggle, which is at its most intense in the traditional crime stronghold of Kyushu in southwestern Japan, but there is a growing consensus their glory days are well and truly over.

"I have seen a change in Japanese society over the past 10 years," says Mijatovic, who is still based in Japan and now runs a hotel and sports management business in Tokyo. "Back in 2003 or 2004 - when I was held hostage by them - they were pretty much accepted as a fact of life here."

He runs his hand through his dark mane as he recalls his ordeal at the hands of an offshoot of the most feared yakuza group, the Yamaguchi-gumi. "Almost all my hair fell out during that period," he says with a wry smile.

Mijatovic, 45, grew up in a blue-collar migrant family from Croatia, in the tough western Sydney suburb of Penrith. As a tall kid who was good at sport he managed to dodge most scraps, and those he got into were mostly settled in his favour. His parents worked hard to send him and his brother to the local Catholic school and Mijatovic booked his ticket to bigger and better things by getting into law at Macquarie University.

He topped the class in his final year and found work at a firm with a blue-chip list of Japanese clients including Toyota and Mitsui, which led to a secondment in Tokyo and a career handling legal work on big resource and infrastructure projects in Asia. Seven frenetic years and one failed marriage later, a more world-weary Mijatovic - by now a longterm Tokyo resident - was seeking a fresh start.

That's when he chanced into sports promotion and began looking after Thorpe in Japan, where the swimmer enjoyed huge popularity after he blitzed the Fukuoka World Championships in 2001. After that, Mijatovic looked after the Croatian soccer team during the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Eventually, his path crossed with that of a shaven-headed, cocksure mixed martial arts fighter who also hailed from Croatia. Taking on the management of Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic was a move that would transplant Mijatovic into a shady, vodka-soaked milieu filled with sullen, musclebound men from the former Eastern bloc who could kill with their bare hands.

It's hard to believe that orderly and gentle postwar Japan had become such a hub for the brutal, almost no-holds-barred "cage fights" staged by mixed martial arts organisations such as Pride and K-1. But as anyone who has lived here will say, there are many different Japans - parallel worlds that superficially bear little relation to each other. At the time, three of the six mainstream free-to-air TV stations in Japan were showing mixed martial arts or kickboxing bouts on Friday nights in prime time, beaming the fights into millions of Japanese homes and vying to become the dominant player in the industry.

"It was just as big as baseball, sumo and various other major league sports here at that time," Mijatovic says. The lure of big money drew fighters from the former USSR and the Balkans to Tokyo. But most, including Mirko Filipovic, found the lion's share was retained by the promoters or skimmed off by others.

"Mirko was having problems with the management of K-1. I took over his management and turned him into the hottest fighting property in all of Japan," Mijatovic recalls. He soon signed up other aggrieved foreign fighters and then put himself firmly on a collision course with the yakuza with his plans for a televised New Year's Eve fight event in the city of Kobe, the base of the feared Yamaguchi-gumi, in 2003.

"Had I opened my eyes a bit more I might have seen that those guys were involved [in the fight game]," Mijatovic concedes. "The first thing they did was interfere with my fighters. They started paying them to get injured. I started to retaliate by signing up their fighters, and that's when it got out of hand. In December I started getting threats. Japanese people would tell me I was pissing off the yakuza. Things started to escalate and I would have guys showing up and offering me protection. The closer it got to the fight, the more they started making explicit threats."

Mijatovic moved out of his home and secretly checked into a hotel to buy himself time to hold the event, which attracted a crowd of 44,000. Two days after the event, the yakuza made their move. "They basically grabbed me and held me hostage for three days," Mijatovic says.

He says he was told by his assailants - who cannot be named for legal reasons - to hand over his fighters to a company aligned with the Pride organisation. "When I pushed back and refused to sign those contracts, the guy on my right-hand side pulled his pistol out of his holster and put it on the table. When I continued to push back on signing the contracts, he raised the gun and said, 'If you don't sign, you know what happens next.' At that time I believed - probably rightly - that if they were going to shoot me, they weren't going to shoot me in the hotel. That would have been pretty messy ... and carting out a big body like mine would have been pretty obvious."

Mijatovic insisted they redraft the contracts in English. That bought him some time, but after three days the yakuza lost patience and he was forced to sign his fighters over. He took his family back to Sydney the next day. "As soon as these guys left we jumped on a plane ... I had a young baby, one month old, at the time," he says.

While Mijatovic was scared, he wasn't keen to give in. He had spent almost all his working life in Japan and these guys had simply muscled in on what was his. To make things worse, his business partner had run away with $1 million of the proceeds from the Kobe event, leaving him nearly broke. Little by little his fear crystallised into anger. After a month in Australia he returned to Japan, determined to take revenge. "I basically became a police plant into Pride and I started working with the police for the whole next year to bring the organisation down," he says.

Mijatovic kept most of his ordeal secret from his Japanese wife, who was still breastfeeding their first child, and made sure they remained in Australia. Meanwhile, he flitted between several rented apartments in Tokyo near the US, Russian and Chinese embassies, taking advantage of the heavy security presence. He knew the yakuza had a contract out on his life.

Mijatovic says that one of the discoveries made during the police investigation was that the hotel room where he'd been held hostage was booked on the credit card of Kiyoshi Takayama, a top leader within the Yamaguchi-gumi and one of Japan's most notorious gangsters. Takayama, who has only one eye (having lost the other in a sword fight), was arrested in a raid by more than 140 police in 2010 and charged with extorting $500,000 from a construction firm.

"The police attention suddenly turned away from the guys I was after, to the guys they were after," Mijatovic says. "I told the police I wasn't really that keen on suddenly becoming the guy taking down the number one mafia boss in this country. I knew that no matter what I did, that would probably be a fatal decision. The police then brokered a deal that was sort of like a ceasefire between me and the yakuza. For me, that was enough justice. Here I am - still alive, which is a pretty good result."

The late anti-yakuza lawyer Toshiro Igari, who aided Mijatovic in making his complaint to the police and helped broker the deal that ended his ordeal, wrote about Mijatovic's abduction in a book published posthumously; that book corroborates the key details of Mijatovic's story as told to The Weekend Australian Magazine. The deal saw the contract on Mijatovic's life scrapped, although he had to agree not to return to the fight game and to cease pressing his criminal complaint over his abduction.

The mixed martial arts organisation Pride was taken off-air, and in 2007 ceased to promote cage fights. But the yakuza still had plenty of fingers in other more lucrative pies, and its involvement in sumo and other sports was yet to come to light fully.

Traditionally, yakuza have traded on the prevailing view among some Japanese - even police - that it's better the devil you know; home-grown gangsters at least impose a structure on the underworld and spare society from the menace of more brutal and ruthless crime syndicates from abroad.

The yakuza have also pulled off publicity coups, none greater than after the 1995 Kobe earthquake when the Yamaguchi-gumi trumped authorities by mobilising their own resources, including a helicopter, to provide a more rapid crisis response than the regular emergency services.

Now, though, thanks in part to public outrage over the death of the crusading lawyer Igari, Japanese law enforcement has declared war on the yakuza. "The unwritten rule for yakuza is you don't kill politicians and you don't touch police or prosecutors," says Mijatovic. "Once we had seen those lines crossed, we saw the pushback from the Japanese institutions and the new anti-yakuza laws."

The man who headed Japan's National Police Agency until October last year, Takaharu Ando, summed up the new mood by regularly vowing to cleanse the nation of organised crime. Meanwhile, Barack Obama's administration has put the squeeze on yakuza operations abroad and the US president has signed an executive order placing financial sanctions on the Yamaguchi-gumi, as well as Takayama and the group's godfather, Kenichi Shinoda.

Shunichi Inoue, a member of the Tokyo Bar Association's anti-organised crime committee, agrees with Mijatovic that the new laws have the yakuza groups fighting for their lives. "There is no doubt that Japanese organised crime is in dire straits these days," says Inoue. "What is significant about these new laws is that they put the onus on civilians and companies not to deal with organised crime. So major companies started pressing their suppliers and contractors to guarantee they were not associated with organised crime and companies began to proactively research the links that their business partners might hold."

Despite the setbacks for the yakuza they are still strong in number. The National Police Agency estimates there are about 70,000 in Japan. On the southwestern island of Kyushu police are battling thousands of gang members in an attempt to suppress yakuza-related violence.

And the disaster last year at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to investigative journalist and yakuza specialist Tomohiko Suzuki, has given the yakuza a much-needed lifeline. Suzuki worked undercover at the stricken nuclear plant and emerged with evidence that yakuza were supplying it with day labourers; these people also happened to owe the yakuza money. In a press conference, Suzuki said one in 10 workers at the plant, including three of the fabled "Fukushima 50" who braved massive radiation levels to try to stabilise the reactors soon after the quake, had yakuza connections.

The ability to rapidly seize on opportunities such as this defines the yakuza, and is one reason why, even though the odds are now stacked against them, they are likely to always exist in one form or another. "These guys are like cockroaches," says a Tokyo businessman who has seen up close how they operate. "Whatever happens, you'll never kill them off."


Miro Mijatovic Fight Back Against the Yakuza Full article

Link to article in the Weekend Australian Newspaper

The Japanese Fight Industry

IMPRISONED in a Japanese hotel room with a Beretta 9mm pistol pressed against his temple, a grim calculus of life and death began to play out in the mind of Australian businessman Miro Mijatovic. Death, as he saw it, was a possibility but not a certainty.

"I am 6'6" [1.98m] and I was pretty sure they were going to struggle to deal with getting a body the size of mine out of the hotel," he recalls.

The hours rolled by as Mijatovic sat slumped in a chair in a corner of the room, the air filled with cigarette smoke from the chain-smoking yakuza - as Japan's mafiosi are known - and the sour scent of his own fear-induced sweat. "Every now and again [their leader] would just explode and start screaming, 'You don't know what you are up against!' and thumping the table," recalls Mijatovic.
For three days the martial arts fight promoter was held like this while the yakuza demanded he relinquish his role as "power agent" in the booming fight industry. It was only when he agreed to sign his fighters over to the yakuza that he was released unharmed on the proviso that he flee the country for good. Instead, Mijatovic, who at one time looked after swimmer Ian Thorpe's interests in Japan, went to the police and launched a probe that resulted in the collapse of the hugely lucrative Japanese fight game.

After several years spent in hiding with a contract out on his life, Mijatovic is finally prepared to reveal how he took on the yakuza and exposed one of Japan's largest sporting scandals. "The two yakuza groups involved in extorting me have now been broken up," Mijatovic told The Weekend Australian Magazine when he arrived at The Australian's Tokyo bureau to tell the story of his abduction. As he sees it, a concerted campaign from law enforcement is hurting the gangs and that has encouraged him to give his personal account.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fight-club/story-e6frg6n6-1226532019774

ラブホテル王 カトープレジャー加藤友康

 http://i.youku.com/u/id_UNTMwNTc3NDgw

テレビ「ソロモン流」で伝説の再生請負人、加藤友康、と紹介され、『世界一楽しい仕事「事業不敗」 のヒント』（幻冬舎出版）等の著書も出し、若きベンチャー実業家としてメディアでも注目されていたカトープレジャーグループCEO加藤友康氏は先月出演予 定だった「カンブリア宮殿」の放送中止が余程ショックだったようである。
それもそのはず、プロ野球球団をも持つオリックスとタッグを組んで表沙汰にしないで、経営しているラブホテル関連の事件があったからだ。

オリックスが高利で金を貸し付けているラブホテルが返済に困ると借金の形にホテルを取り上げ、その後のプロデュースをカトープレジャーが行っていることが明るみになってきた。

少年達の憧れであるプロ野球球団を保有するオリックスも、六本木では夏木マリと共同経営し、連日若い女の子で溢れ返るうどん屋「つるとんたん」や温泉やリゾートホテル等を経営するカトープレジャーグループもラブホテルという「エロ産業」を生業にしていることを表沙汰にしたくない。ましてや、加藤友康氏は相当プライドが高いらしく、ご自慢のプロデュース業において、ラブホテルを隠そう隠そうとしている。それが証拠にカトープレジャーグループの会社案内ではラブホテル事業が記されていない。記されているのは、表向きの綺麗な事業ばかりである。

ある元カトープレジャーグループ幹部曰く
「当グループの稼ぎ頭は間違いなくラブホテルのプロデュース。資金はオリックスがジャンジャン出してくれ、あとは私どもが旧いラブホテルを創り変えるだけ」

カトープレジャーグループのホテルの特長は外観がディズニーランドを彷彿させるようなメルヘンチックな造り、中は派手でなく、普段生活している部屋の雰囲気を出している。その理由は、最近の若い男の子はバブル時のような派手な内装の部屋ではナニが勃たないらしい…。

食事もシェフがイタリアン料理を調理して、部屋まで運んでくれる。クリスマスの時には何時間待ちもザラである。プロデュースは、さすがはベンチャー企業成功者の手腕であるが、ホテルを取得する経緯に問題がある。

今般の「カンブリア宮殿」出演中止のきっかけとなったオリックスとカトープレジャーの強引なホテルの占有乗っ取りの映像が流出し、アメリカのメディアでも物議を醸した。そして、もう一つグレーな事業が存在する。

大阪府岸和田市、京都府南丹市、長崎市伊王島等の三カ所の温泉である。この三事業はいずれも公共事情の運営に携わったものであり、裏で野中広務元官房長官やその秘書、そして野中氏の実弟等が暗躍してカトープレジャーが関与したものとされている。野中氏だけでなく「政界のジジ殺し」と言われる加藤友康氏は多くの大物政治家と癒着している疑惑がある。

「世界一楽しい仕事」である「エロ産業」でバカ儲け！

利害が一致したオリックスとカトープレジャーの表沙汰に出来ないラブホテル運営、大物政治家の力を借り、公共事業の失敗を破格値で手にしている温泉経営等が稼ぎ頭であるカトープレジャーグループCEO加藤友康氏の「事業不敗のヒント」はここにあるのか？

ＪＣ－記者・・・「カンブリア宮殿」見てみたかったですね。平成１５年の長崎県からの５億もの過疎債のその後を調査してます。
当時の自民党の大物議員だった野中広務氏の秘書だった鈴木氏の名前が浮上してますね。何らかの関与があったんでしょうか。

http://n-seikei.jp/2012/11/post-12735.html