A woman (center) buys food from a street food vendor in Tokyo‘s Tsukiji area on Feb. 17, 2020. Street vendors in Japan are often forced to pay money to underworld criminal gangs. (Photo: Charly Triballeau / AFP)
Nov 27 2023
A Japanese street merchant group has filed a lawsuit demanding the return of protection money given by its members to a family allegedly affiliated with the largest underworld group.
Nei Utsugi, an attorney representing the Aichi Prefecture Eastern Street Merchant Cooperative pointed out that the merchants were threatened to pay the gangs, the Chunichi Shimbun reported on Nov. 23.
“During the festival, they were threatened ‘this is the territory of the gang,’” Utsugi said.
“They were deprived of much of their sales proceeds as a rental fee for the location,” Utsugi added.
The merchants “had no choice but to pay the fee because feared that would attack them at the venue and break stalls,” Utsugi further added.
Forced to pay the gangs
The lawsuit comes after the merchants had informed the Hirai family syndicate affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi underworld group, of their desire to break ties in July, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
The Yamaguchi-gumi is a yakuza gang founded in 1915.As of 2022, the gang has 3,800 active members and 4,300 quasi-members, according to Japan’s National Police Agency.
Yakuza (Japanese for “good for nothing”) is the name given to Japanese gangsters who engage in extortion, blackmail, smuggling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, day-labor contracting, and other rackets.
The merchants demanded the return of 10 million Japanese Yen (US$72,000) given to the Hirai family as “mikajimeryo” or protection money.
The association had paid a whopping 80 million Japanese Yen to the gang between 2020 and 2022, reports say.
The move for a clean break from the merchants came after the Aichi prefectural police had named and shamed them in February for paying around 5 million yen as protection money to the Hirai family in 2021.
In 2020, the prefectural public safety commission told the merchants to stop providing protection money to the Hirai family under the prefecture’s anti-yakuza ordinance.
The members of the merchant’s association were driven out of festivals organized by municipalities nationwide, depriving them of their main source of revenue.
The merchants were not even spared during the pandemic, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
The gang had rejected the merchant group’s request for a reduction or exemption of protection money due to a drastic drop in sales as Covid-19 pandemic forced closure of a series of festivals.
Not all merchants have gang ties
Noboru Hirosue, a researcher at Ryukoku University‘s Center for Criminological Research pointed out that many of the merchants did not have any gang connections or affiliations.
“ designated gangs in the Kanto region, the majority of street vendors are not related to gang members,” Hirosue said.
“Since the 1960s, as gangs in various regions became more widespread, they took over some street vendors in rural areas. These organizations have used the faces of both ‘tekiya’ and gangsters,” Hirosue alleged.
Tekiya are merchants who sell items such as food or toys on the street or stalls set up in the ground of shrines or temples during festivals, seasonal markets, and fairs.
It also refers to stallholders who provide gambling activities such as shooting or a lottery as a game.
Historically, the tekiya were itinerant Japanese merchants who, along with the bakuto (gamblers), were predecessors to the modern yakuza crime syndicate in the nation. They were ranked as one of the lowest social groups between 1603-1868.
The merchants must join the local associations and pay a membership fee that covers the cost of space and electricity. Those who are not affiliated with the association cannot participate in the allocation of space when opening stalls.
Fear of retaliation
Tomohiko Suzuki, a writer familiar with the gang situation in Japan alleged that many of the gangs were hiding their ties to the tekiya, the Chunichi Shimbun reported.
“With the implementation of the riot control ordinance, the number of gangs that do not reveal their ties to the tekiya is increasing,” Suzuki said.
“Even if they are in fact members of a gang, there are cases where they are not listed in the roster or hide the fact that they participated in the succession ceremony,” Suzuki added.
Suzuki voiced fears of retaliation from the gangs against the merchants and voiced hope that the prefectural police would protect the stalls.
“I am afraid of retaliation by gang members, but it is the prefectural police in each area who give permission for street vendors to set up their stalls,” Suzuki said.
“Whether or not they can keep their distance from the gangs will depend on how generous the police are in backing them up,” Suzuki emphasized. – UCA News
