The three largest groups are the Yamaguchi-gumi (23,400), The Inagawa-kai, (6,600), and the Sumiyoshi-kai (8,500). There are 21 major groups with more than 53,000 members, according to the National Police Agency. While many yakuza groups started as loosely run gambling associations, they really came into their own in the chaos after World War II, first running the black markets, providing gambling, and entertainment – even managing some of Japan’s top post-war stars and singers – before moving into construction, real estate, and engaging in extortion, blackmail, and fraud. They were traditionally federations of gamblers and street merchants, but while the yakuza like to tout their history as going back hundreds of years, the oldest continuous group is, author Kazuhiko Murakami estimates, probably the Aizukotetsu-kai in Kyoto, founded in the 1870s. The yakuza is a blanket term for Japan’s organized crime groups: The country’s mafia. Japan has very strict gun control laws, and in a land of 127 million people, there were six gun-related deaths last year, according to statistics by the National Police Agency. The possibility of the gang war reigniting frightens the general public considerably. The last split in the Yamaguchi-gumi, which began in 1984, resulted in several years of epic warfare marked with assassinations, attempted bombings and gun battles that terrified and enthralled the nation. In the Japanese underworld, the 21 other organized crime groups are trying to decide which way the wind blows and who to align themselves with. Tetsuya Shiroo, a local gang member affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi, shot and killed the mayor of Nagasaki in 2007.
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