Yamaguchi-gumi

• 1. Introduction

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  The Sixth Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest yakuza organization in Japan, and it takes its name from a founder called Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its roots lie in a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe, formed before the Second World War. Today its headquarters are still in Kobe, yet it operates across Japan and has overseas operations too. How does a union of dockworkers grow into one of the wealthiest gangster organizations in the world? What happens to such a group when its bosses keep being killed or jailed? And why would an organization that profits from crime also hand out food after earthquakes, and publish a newsletter with a fishing column?

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• 2. The Taoka Blueprint

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  When Kazuo Taoka became the third kumichō, or boss, in 1946, the Yamaguchi-gumi was merely a local family with a few dozen members. Before him came Harukichi Yamaguchi, who led from 1915 to 1925, and then his son Noboru Yamaguchi, who led from 1925 to 1942.

  Taoka held the title until 1981, and in that time he turned a modest family into the largest criminal organization in Japan. He urged his underlings to run legitimate businesses. He also allowed them to start families of their own, which became quasi-subsidiary families of the Yamaguchi-gumi.

  Taoka gave the organization a formal structure as well. Underbosses, called wakagashira, were elected to serve beside the kumichō. Some powerful members were elected as wakagashira-hosa, meaning deputy underbosses. The first real test of this system came after Taoka's reign ended in 1981.

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• 3. War of Succession

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  Kenichi Yamamoto, the kumichō of the Yamaken-gumi, was Taoka's heir apparent, and he was serving a prison sentence when the old boss's time ended. He died of liver failure shortly afterward. Taoka's wife, Fumiko Taoka, stepped forward to fill the gap until a council of eight top-level bosses could choose a new leader.

  In 1984, the elders picked Masahisa Takenaka, kumichō of the Takenaka-gumi, as the fourth kumichō. One of the other contenders was Hiroshi Yamamoto, kumichō of the Yamahiro-gumi. He walked away with many powerful members and more than 3,000 soldiers, and he founded the Ichiwa-kai.

  The two sides nursed a bitter rivalry. In 1985, the Ichiwa-kai assassinated Takenaka and his wakagashira, Katsumasa Nakayama. That killing set off an all-out conflict known as the Yama-Ichi War.

  Across the war years, acting kumichō Kazuo Nakanishi of the Nakanishi-gumi and wakagashira Yoshinori Watanabe shared the leadership until 1989. The fighting ended only when Hiroshi Yamamoto retired. The settlement was arbitrated by Seijo Inagawa, one of the most respected bosses of the day, and it cleared the way for Watanabe.

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• 4. The Long Vacancy

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  Masaru Takumi, kumichō of the Takumi-gumi, was elected wakagashira under the fifth kumichō, Yoshinori Watanabe, who led from 1989 to 2005. Takumi was so powerful and respected that his influence overshadowed the boss himself to some extent. Watanabe eventually retired to private life, which was uncommon in yakuza circles, because bosses usually do not retire.

  In 1997, underlings of the wakagashira-hosa Taro Nakano assassinated Takumi. The organization then failed to choose a new wakagashira for more than eight years. Leadership grew weaker as a result.

  The deadlock broke in 2005, when wakagashira-hosa Shinobu Tsukasa, then kumichō of the Hirota-gumi, was chosen as wakagashira. In August of that year he inherited the post of sixth kumichō. Tsukasa is the leader's working name; his real name is Kenichi Shinoda.

  Tsukasa promptly went to prison. He was jailed in December 2005 for illegal gun possession and was released in April 2011 after nearly six years. Even so, the Yamaguchi-gumi resumed expansion under him. Kiyoshi Takayama, kumichō of the Kodo-kai, was elected wakagashira.

  The group absorbed the Tokyo-based gang Kokusui-kai and so acquired lucrative turf in the capital. Tokyo had traditionally not been Yamaguchi territory, and Tsukasa has declared an expansionist policy. Within a year of his release, the United States government would name the group in sanctions.

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• 5. Crime and Consequences

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  In February 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a freeze on American-owned assets controlled by the Yamaguchi-gumi and its top two leaders. The Obama administration named the group as one of four key transnational organized crime groups. The other three were the Brothers' Circle from Russia, the Camorra from Italy, and Los Zetas from Mexico.

  The money behind that designation runs to billions of dollars a year. It comes from extortion, gambling, prostitution, arms trafficking and drug trafficking. It also comes from real estate and construction kickback schemes. The group is involved in stock market manipulation and Internet pornography as well.

  Violence has reached well beyond the underworld. On the 17th of April 2007, Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of the Suishin-kai, assassinated Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki. The Suishin-kai is a family affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi. The apparent trigger was a dispute over damage to Shiroo's car at a public works construction site.

  Shiroo was sentenced to death on the 26th of May 2008. The Fukuoka High Court revoked that sentence on the 29th of September 2009 and imposed life imprisonment instead.

  Smaller schemes still end in arrests. On the 14th of January 2021, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested Hiroki Sakata, a Yamaguchi-gumi member, over a scam from 2018. The damage was worth 60 million yen, which the source puts at $475,059 in 2022.

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• 6. Relief and Reputation

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  Right after the Kobe earthquake of 1995, the Yamaguchi-gumi began a large-scale relief effort, helping to distribute food and supplies. The help was essential to the people of Kobe, because official support was inconsistent and chaotic for several days.

  The group repeated the gesture after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It opened its offices to the public and sent supplies to the affected areas.

  In July 2013, the group launched an eight-page newsletter to boost morale. Only full members received it. It bridges communication gaps and carries articles on the group's opinions and traditions. It also runs columns on angling, and its editorial section is written by Kenichi Shinoda.

  Outside Japan, the group has become a ready-made villain for fiction. In the 1991 martial arts film The Godfather's Daughter Mafia Blues, the antagonist Kuyama, played by Ken Lo, leads the syndicate after the death of his father Tetsuya. Unlike his pacifist father, Kuyama is arrogant, greedy and reckless.

  In Marvel's Earth-616, the Yamaguchi-gumi are enemies of the Shogun Warriors and of Wolverine. Its two known oyabuns there are Maikeru Mishu, who tried to steal and control the Shogun Warriors, and Shinji Kizaki, who became Wolverine's enemy after Wolverine defeated one of his mercenaries.

  Video games use the name too. In Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Take-Down - Missions in Korea, the group fights a bloody gang war with the Ikeshita-gumi. In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, it is led by Masahiro Hayamoto and his son Masahiro Hayamoto Jr., and both are priority targets for Agent 47.

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• 7. Shrinking Ranks

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  Between 1991 and 2012, the National Police Agency reports, the total number of registered gangsters in Japan fell 14%, to 78,600. Of those, 34,900 belonged to the Yamaguchi-gumi, a decline of 4% from 2010. The group had been one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, and its heyday was in the 1960s.

  The estimate for 2013 was about 28,000 members. In 2014 the figure dropped again, to 23,400.

  Then came a rupture. On the 27th of August 2015, Japanese police confirmed that powerful factions had broken away. They were the Kobe-based Yamaken-gumi, the Osaka-based Takumi-gumi and the Kyoyu-kai, and together they formed a new group called the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi. Before the split, the organization had seventy-two factions. It was the first major split since the formation of the Ichiwa-kai more than thirty years earlier.

  In April 2025, the Yamaguchi-gumi told the Hyogo Prefectural Police that it intended to end its conflict with groups such as the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi. The move is believed to aim at lifting a designation as a Designated Specified Conflict-Related Organized Crime Group. Under that status, gatherings of five or more members, or the use of offices, can result in penalties.

  The numbers had collapsed by then. At the end of 2025, the National Police Agency counted 3,100 active members, with another 3,200 affiliated members.

  That same April, the wakagashira Kiyoshi Takayama stepped down to become a sōdanyaku, an advisor. Teruaki Takeuchi, the deputy underboss, was promoted to take his place as wakagashira.

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