Tokyo Vice

by Jake Adelstein

  He’d been in a lot of pain over the previous months. Even intravenous dosages of morphine weren’t doing the trick. The cancer was all over his body. For a while he’d been going to the Ariake Cancer Institute in Odaiba, about three hours from his home in Saitama. He was an outpatient, so after being blasted with chemicals and radiation, he’d made the trek back to Saitama by train, sometimes during the rush hour, when there were no seats.

  I insisted on paying for him to stay at a hotel, Grand Pacific Le Daiba, which was close to the hospital, after his treatments. He needed to rest before going home. Of course, he protested and refused. He couldn’t accept a gift like that. As a cop—and he was still working, unbelievably—he didn’t want to take anything from me, nothing of monetary value. I told him I was working for a company that owned the hotel and I got the room comped.

  It was a lie, of course. I think he knew that it was a lie and that I knew that he knew. But it was necessary. It allowed him to take the gift, and I wanted him to have it. We do that in Japan. There is the public image, tatemae, the facade that must be maintained, and then there is what’s really going on. The tatemae was that he was just borrowing a room. It worked for him and for me. “Uso mo hoben”—lies are also skillful means—is a proverb that comes from a Buddhist sutra.

  In that Buddhist sutra, there’s a story about a bunch of children playing in a house. The house is on fire; it’s very dangerous, and if the kids don’t get out, they’ll burn to death. However, the kids won’t leave the house because they’re having too much fun. People are yelling for them to leave, but they won’t, and the door is locked from the inside. Someone tells the children that if they come outside there’s delicious candy waiting for them. It’s a lie, but it gets the kids out of the house and thus they are saved.

  Uso mo hoben. Sometimes, yeah.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the power to get him out of the house. All I could do for him was keep him a little more comfortable as it burned down.

  I knew how to pay my respects at a Buddhist funeral, but I was at a loss this time. I followed the protocol as Mrs. Sekiguchi laid it out for me, giving him water and bowing. I laid a cigarette on the table near his head with the food.

  It wasn’t the cigarettes that had given him cancer; it was betrayal. Another cop on the police force had leaked damaging information about him to a newspaper a few years back. He was a colleague of Sekiguchi’s but resented Sekiguchi’s success.

  Sekiguchi’s “crimes” were uncuffing a yakuza and feeding him a bowl of ramen before taking the guy into the police station to be arrested. Sekiguchi had also broken up a near prison riot by pulling a yakuza out of the holding cells and letting him have a smoke. All these things were violations of police protocol. The cop who had it in for Sekiguchi fed this to a reporter at the Mainichi Shinbun. It was published, and then all the newspapers followed the story up. He was “a bad cop,” after all.

  He was stripped of his detective position, demoted, reprimanded, and put on traffic duty. He spent a couple years there in limbo. It ate at him. That’s probably when he got cancer. I think that was the real cause. It was a combination of betrayal, humiliation, and then frustration.

  He had asked me to do some things a few months before he died. I kept most of those promises. I promised him I’d check on his family and his daughters periodically. I still do. It’s hard to believe they’re both women now. I look at them, and I still see the six-year-old girl and the nine-year-old girl who tried to convince me that I couldn’t be Jewish because every single Jew had been killed in World War II, just as they’d learned in school. The younger one had wanted to take me to school as an exhibit for show-and-tell.

  Sekiguchi lived well. He died well, too. He had looked good the last time I’d seen him; that’s when I’d been sure he was going to die. Most people seem to get better right before the end: the half crazy become lucid, the cancer patient looks healthy. He spoke with his family the day before he died, and he had positive things to say to them; they had a good conversation. He left the world at peace with himself and his family. That’s what Mrs. Sekiguchi told me, and I was glad to hear it.

  In Buddhism, after forty-nine days, you are reborn, but in Shinto-ism, after fifty days, you become a deity, according to the Sekiguchi family. I looked at him and thought, I really hope that works out.

  It’s always good to have a god on your side.

  I knew I was in trouble. I knew I had put my family in jeopardy. Helena was still missing.

  I can still remember seeing that smile on Sekiguchi’s face. It looked as if he was pretending to sleep. In my imagination, I could hear him talking to me. I wanted him to tell me what to do. I wanted to hear his words: “Jake, sometimes you have to pull back to fight back. Ask yourself, what time is it now?”

  Well, God knows I was sick of getting my ass kicked. Pulling back didn’t seem like an option anymore. Maybe it was time to fight back. It seemed better than the alternative.

  1* My son Ray had been born in May 2004, while I was still on the police beat. His name came from the Japanese character for “politeness” and “reward” and “thanks.”

  2* Kobe beef.

  Two Poisons

  Helena’s disappearance did something to me. If I had known what had happened to her, it would have been better. Not knowing was agonizing.

  I needed to learn more about Tadamasa Goto, how much power he had, who his allies and his enemies were. Shibata’s passing away was a big blow to me, Sekiguchi’s even bigger.

  Here’s what I had gathered about Goto:

  He had spearheaded the Yamaguchi-gumi infiltration of Tokyo and owned more than a hundred front companies. His personal wealth was estimated at more than half a billion dollars. At one time, he was even the largest single shareholder of Japan Airlines.

  His claim to infamy was alledgedly ordering a hit on the esteemed Japanese film director Juzo Itami in May 1992. Itami had directed a film called Minbo no onna, which, unlike all previous yakuza films in Japan, portrayed the yakuza as money-grubbing, ill-mannered louts, not noble outlaws. Goto was not pleased with the film and especially disturbed by the implications that yakuza did not live up to their threats. On May 22, five members of his organization attacked Itami in the parking lot in front of his house, slashing his left cheek and his neck, inflicting serious injuries upon him.

  Itami became a vocal supporter of the new anti–organized crime laws the Japanese government put in place that year and a general pain in the ass to organized crime. He was a living symbol of what the yakuza really did, not what they pretended to do. He allegedly killed himself a few years later by jumping from a tall building.

  I collected hundreds of pages of material on the Goto-gumi. I used every trick I had learned while working for the Yomiuri. I had to make some moral compromises to get them, but I needed to know my enemy. What became very useful to me was a top secret report that the National Police Agency, with the aid of police organizations all over Japan, compiled about Tadamasa Goto and his organization in 2001. A very valuable source gave it to me in exchange for services rendered.

  They do not hesitate to take extreme measures or take into account the other people involved when it comes to planning an attack/reprisal. They will act in the presence of women and/or children, forcing them to watch gruesome, violent acts so that afterward they will not file criminal complaints.

  The execution of reprisals is extremely deliberate and planned, unrushed over long periods. The division of roles is clear (preliminary inspection, hit man, lookout, etc.). No one is apprised of who is actually in charge. (Thus a far-reaching investigation is not possible.) They use passenger vehicles with plates taken (stolen) from outside the prefecture when perpetrating crime (making a far-reaching investigation also difficult).

  The report also noted that another characteristic of his organization was “intimidation of the mass media,” also stating that “using the organization name (and powers), members will seriously and relentlessly th
reaten whoever is responsible for unfavorable coverage.”

  Suffice it to say, by 2006, even before I had hooked up with Shibata, I suspected that not only Goto but three other of his associates had received liver transplants at UCLA.

  Shibata’s giving me Mio’s name was huge, but in a way, the person who helped me the most was Tadamasa Goto himself. Goto’s methods of keeping order within his organization had made enemies in his inner circle. The NPA report described his method of keeping control in vivid detail:

  [The gang members are kept in check by] certain Punishment and Reward. There is always a conferral of honor or reward when applicable (family living expenses, postprison standing, cash rewards, gifts of cars, etc.).

  In a situation where individual criminal activity creates trouble for the organization, Goto will demote that person. To make an example of a member, Goto will beat that person in front of peers or force the person’s peers to dole out the punishment.

  Because of Goto’s ruthless techniques, one of his soldiers, who had been forced to cripple a friend, approached me. He didn’t like me very much, but he hated Goto more. He wasn’t my only source in the organization, but he was the most reliable.

  In November 2006, we had a meeting very far from Tokyo, and he told me something that took me completely off guard. Goto had been able to enter the United States because the FBI had let him in.

  The FBI.

  He gave me the approximate dates, and he told me the name of the person who had arranged it: Jim Moynihan, the legal attaché (de facto FBI representative) at the U.S. Embassy in Japan.

  I knew Jim. He was a friend and a mentor. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it was true. And now I understood why Goto wouldn’t like it if I wrote that story: he’d sold his friends out to get clearance to enter the United States. It was a pretty clear-cut deal. He’d given authorities the names of some of the key gang bosses, documents, and lists of front companies, and even pointed them toward the financial institutions the Yamaguchi-gumi was using to launder money in the United States. Even in the mild-mannered world of the yakuza, ratting out your comrades would not be taken well. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that could get you expelled from the organization or even killed.

  In December 2006, I had dinner with Jim and asked him, as politely as I could over some cold Guinness, why the hell he would make a deal with that man.

  Jim told me as much as he could. It made sense. He didn’t give me all the details, but he gave me enough. On the record.

  However, the critical piece of data came in the summer of 2007, when a detective, downloading porn on his computer at the Kitazawa Police Department, accidentally leaked onto a file-sharing network WINNY, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s entire file on Tadamasa Goto. All the major Japanese newspapers reported on the leak. I immediately downloaded the files.

  It was an information orgasm. It listed all his flight records, the names of most of his mistresses (at least nine of the fifteen), and other useful information. Now I knew the dates when he’d gone to UCLA for surgery and who’d accompanied him. There were other interesting tidbits in the files as well. One of his listed mistresses was a famous film actress. That was, of course, picked up and reported by the Japanese press, which loves celebrity gossip. What wasn’t reported was that in the list of front companies was Burning Productions, Japan’s largest and most powerful talent agency. Goto’s control over Burning Productions was a valuable tool in his surpression of unfavorable reporting. Any television station that crossed Goto risked being denied access to Japan’s top actresses, singers, and entertainers. This also meant that almost every newspaper affiliated with a television network, which is common in Japan, could also be indirectly threatened. Entertainment programming revenue beats news revenue every time.

  In that gigabyte of data there were many things that confirmed what I had long suspected. After speaking with a source in the U.S. Justice Department and sources in the Japanese police and underworld, I was able to put it all together.

  In January or February 2001, Goto’s doctors at Showa University told him that if he did not get a liver transplant soon, he would die. Goto had hepatitis C and a heart condition and was a very unlikely candidate for a liver transplant in Japan.

  In April 2001, Goto approached the FBI via Hoshi Hitoshi, the former “fixer” for Nobusuke Kishi, with deep connections to the LDP. (Mr. Kishi had served twice as prime minister of Japan. Kishi’s grandson, Shinzo Abe, became prime minister in September 2006.) Kishi relayed Goto’s offer.

  The FBI wanted the names of important yakuza because Japan’s National Police Agency refused to share that information with it, due to “privacy issues.” This effectively made it impossible for the FBI to monitor yakuza activity in the United States.

  Goto promised to give the FBI (and possibly another intelligence agency) a comprehensive list of Yamaguchi-gumi members, related front companies and financial institutions, and information on North Korean activities.

  In exchange for that information, Goto wanted a visa to the United States so he could get a liver transplant at UCLA.1* Goto had set up the UCLA deal on his own, there’s no doubt about that. The visa came when the FBI pressured U.S. Immigration and Customs to grant him one, which it reluctantly did.

  If I had been Jim, I would have taken the deal. The intelligence potential was huge. The FBI wasn’t giving him a liver, it was just giving him a key to the door. UCLA did the rest. According to Manabu Miyazaki, a journalist, apologist for the yakuza, and close friend of Goto’s, in addition to the yakuza-related intelligence, the FBI was especially interested in the information Goto had on North Korea. It was at a time when North Korea had been implicated in making high-quality counterfeit U.S. currency, and this was also of great interest to the United States. Goto had always had tight connections to North Korea, which allegedly supplied him with drugs, guns, and money.

  The surgery took place on July 5. However, Goto gave the FBI only a fraction of the information he had promised. Once he had his liver, he hopped back on a plane to Japan and never spoke to the FBI again. There were no records of Goto returning to Japan.

  For the FBI, “the operation” was not a singular success.

  For Goto, the operation was a tremendous success. Goto returned to Japan before the end of the year, no longer with jaundiced eyes but healthier than ever.

  At the annual Yamaguchi-gumi New Year’s party that year, Goto was in perfect health. He was, as the Japanese say, “drinking and eating like a whale” at the festivities and smoking like a chimney.

  Once he bragged to Chihiro Inagawa, another yakuza boss, “Ever since I got that new young liver, I have no trouble getting it up,” pointing at his crotch. Inagawa allegedly then said to Goto, “You’ve got the devil’s own luck. You get the perfect donor, a young teenager—dead in a car accident just two months after you’re on the donor list—unbelievable coincidence.”

  Goto answered him with a chuckle, “Oh, that was no coincidence.”

  Inagawa didn’t laugh.

  I was never sure whether Goto was referring to the traffic death or his quick jump to the top of the donor list. Somehow I can’t imagine him not rigging the game in one way or another.

  Inagawa himself would later try to get into the United States for a liver transplant, only to have his visa application denied. When he was granted a special interview to plead his case with U.S. officials, the special agent in charge told him bluntly, “If you want to know why we won’t let you into the country, go ask Mr. Goto.”

  ICE wasn’t going to get screwed again. It had a dim view of the deal made with the FBI and felt that it had produced little actionable intelligence.

  Goto told one of his associates that he’d paid a total of $3 million for the liver. (Police reports have the figure as $1 million and speculate that Goto’s doctor was paid $100,000 for each “house call” to Japan, usually conducted at the Imperial Hotel.) The only people who knew about the deal with the FBI were Goto�
��s inner circle. This was a good thing to know.

  It was while first poring over the other Yamaguchi-gumi materials that I realized that Goto was probably not the only one to have received a liver transplant at UCLA. There were probably three others.

  I thought I had a hell of a story, not just from an American perspective but from a Japanese perspective as well. Japan has a very stringent organ transplant system. Donors are few, and operations are rare. Most Japanese people who need an organ transplant either leave the country or die waiting for one. From an American perspective, it seemed deplorable as well. Why would Japanese criminals get precedence over law-abiding U.S. citizens? I had no idea.

  I wrote up what I knew for a book, which was originally going to be published by Kodansha International, the English-language division of Kodansha, one of Japan’s oldest and best-known publishers. I tried writing the story for a weekly magazine and was told bluntly, “No way.” No reasons were given.

  I decided to wait. And I would probably still be waiting if there hadn’t been a minor glitch.

  Kodansha International ran a long introduction to the book on its European Web site without letting me know; I only noticed it in November 2007. It didn’t spell everything out, but it had enough, if you were Tadamasa Goto, to clue you in that trouble was brewing. I had Kodansha remove the page from its Web site, but I’d underestimated both the ability of Goto’s henchmen to read English and the possibility that they could use Google Alerts. One of Goto’s associates would later tell me that someone had probably managed to get a copy of the catalog description of my book, which might have confirmed their suspicions. By December 2007, I was getting signals that I was in serious trouble. In January 2008, I got definite confirmation that Goto was again planning to kill me.