The schism in the Yamaguchi-gumi is generating one violent incident after another, but authorities believe the worst is yet to come. Beware the Ides of March.
TOKYO — Molotov cocktails, beatings, shootings—the tempo of Yakuza on Yakuza violence is picking up in Japan, and there’s every reason to believe it’s just a little taste of what’s to come.
Almost six months after this country’s largest crime organization—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the one yakuza group that once ruled them all—was split apart by the defection of many members to a new group calling itself Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, or KY, Japan’s tabloid press has been predicting “a sea of blood.”
Many fear the two gangs will go head to head in an all-out war, and other gangs may follow suit.
Taro Kono, Japan’s chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, which oversees the police, admitted as much at a news conference on March 4: “There’s…
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