Godfather of Japanese underworld steps aside

[emad]

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Saturday July 30, 2005
The Guardian

When dozens of armed police surrounded a house in an affluent neighbourhood of Kobe yesterday, nearby residents knew it could mean only one thing: something significant was about to happen in Japan's most notorious underworld organisation.

The house was the headquarters of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime gang, and the police had not arrived with new evidence to arrest its members, but simply because they had got wind of an important meeting of the group's members.


Hours later the most powerful figures in the Yamaguchi-gumi emerged to waiting chauffeur-driven cars, having presided over a bloodless handover of power that will take the yakuza, Japan's mafia, through one of the most tumultuous times in its history.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their intelligence was that Yoshinori Watanabe, the Yamaguchi-gumi's leader of 16 years, had stepped down to be replaced by his second-in-command, Kenichi Shinoda, a year his junior. A source familiar with the Japanese underworld said Mr Watanabe was thought to be in poor health.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1539332,00.html