The National Police Agency is going all out to crack down on organized crime groups, or yakuza. The latest drive calls for legislative changes to allow victims who have gotten caught up in a yakuza conflict to sue for damages against yakuza leaders rather than the gangsters directly involved.
The idea is to facilitate the payment of compensation. The police agency, which has completed a revision bill for the antiyakuza law, believes that the proposed measure will also help to put the financial squeeze on crime syndicates.
Under the current law, citizens who have suffered at the hands of criminal gangs can claim damages from individual gangsters directly involved, but not from leaders who control the organization's purse strings. The problem, admittedly, is that rank-and-file yakuza members are mostly unable to meet the claims because their ability to pay is limited.