Finding a mob hangout in Tokyo requires little more than a telephone book. The city’s richest crime group has an office tucked away off the back streets of Ginza shopping district. A bronze nameplate on the door helpfully identifies the Sumiyoshi-kai, but the men inside are reluctant to discuss a potentially deadly split in the yakuza ranks. “Nothing to do with us,” growls a sumo-sized mobster at the door. “Now go away.” The splintering of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime syndicate, has put cops and gangsters across the country on high alert. A dozen of the syndicate’s affiliates, reportedly comprising about 2,000 of its 23,400 members, have gelled into a rival outfit known as the...
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