The Yakuza.

Background.
In Japan, organized crime and criminals come under the general heading of Yakuza. According to tradition, the name is derived from the worst possible score in a Japanese card game. It comes from Japan's counterpart to Black Jack, Oicho- Kabu. The general difference between the cardgames is that in Oicho- Kabu is that a winning total of the cards is 19 instead of 21. As you see, the sum of 8, 9 and 3, is 20, which is over in Oicho-Kabu. In a hand resulting in a score of 20, the worst possible score, a player's final score would be zero. Among the losing combinations, the phonetic sound of an 8-9-3 sequence is ya - ku - sa. It's from there the name, yakuza is derived... without worth to society. This doesn't mean that they have no use for the society, it means that the members are people that somehow do not fit in the society, in other words societies misfits.

The Yakuza were itinerant gamblers, peddlers, renegade warriors and roving bandits. They served shoguns and municipalities and their legend includes a distinct Robin Hood quality that recently emerged during the recent Kobe Earthquake. The Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza clan quickly mobilized providing on the scene assistance to Kobe's earthquake victims long before the national government resolved to act. Yakuza form a central theme in Japan's popular culture and trace their origins to at least the 17th century. Therefore, among the world's criminal organizations the Yakuza are older than the Sicilian Mafia.

Yakuza strength rises and falls according to the tides of Japanese society, with estimates of core membership ranging from 80,000 to more than 110,000 in the years from 1945 to 1996. Some authorities believe Japan's National Police routinely undercount the Yakuza, numbering only those names found in confiscated membership rolls, or recorded from routine police intelligence reports. Like the Sicilian Mafia and other underworld organizations, the Yakuza are formed into families, but in Japan other distinctions emerge including that of the oyabun - kobun (father role - child role) relationship, between Yakuza chiefs and their underlings.

The Yakuza evolved into their current form late in the 19th-century under figures like Toyama Mitsuru. This son of a Samurai founded the Genyosha (Dark Ocean) Society, and later Toyama's top aide Ryohei Uchida founded the Amur River Society (Black Dragons). Like organized crime in other cultures, the Yakuza began to control construction labor and dockside labor, adding to traditional areas of enterprise in the vices, prostitution, gambling, liquor distribution, and entertainment. In the late 1960s or early 1970s the Yakuza moved into the lucrative narcotics trade and in recent years have stepped up their trade in firearms and other contraband. According to various sources, Yakuza have formed alliances and working relationships with Chinese Triads, Sicilian and American Mafia, Columbian drug cartels, Jamaican Posses, and assorted other criminal organizations throughout the world.

Because of their unique role in Japan's history and popular culture, and their usefulness in providing muscle to control labor unions, and providing anonymous services to the public for a variety of typical underworld products in vice and contraband accommodations between Yakuza, police, ultranationalists, government, political parties, and secret societies seems to be an accepted fact of life in Japan. Yakuza are active worldwide, wherever criminal enterprises flourish. The Yakuza have been very skillful in the employment of intermediaries and the absence of Japanese within a community does not mean an absence of Yakuza.

Kabuki-Mono.
Yakuzas origin can be followed far back as to the year 1612, when men known as kabuki-mono (the crazy ones). Their odd clothing style, the distinct haircuts and bad behavior, longswords quickly got everybody's attention. They were known as masterless samurais, ronin, and several of them began to wander around in Japan as a band of robbers, plundering villages and small cities.

Machi-Yakko.
Yakuza however not see kabuki-mono as their "ancestors" instead they feel that they are machi-yakko(City servant), Machi-yakko became the people's heroes, praised by the citizens for their help against kabuki-mono. The Machi-yakko were often weaker, far less trained and equipped than kabuki- mono. Therfore they were compared with England's Robin Hood. Kabuki-mono were known for their ruthless behavior and terrorizing all the surrounding areas. They were well known for stabbing people for pleasure. Kabukimono were gave their groups scary names and spoke in vulgar slang. The current yakuza did not evolve until about the middle of the 17th century. Its members were bakuto (gamblers) and tekiya (street vendors). Something that was remarkable were their loyalty to each other. They protected each other regardless even if it meant going against their own family.

Kabuki-mono generally came from shoguns or samurais whom during long peaceful times were forced into unemployment. Almost all yakuza have the same type of background poor, criminals and misfits. The Yakuza became a family for them. They got help with problems, got attention and could feel a certain saftey.


Industrialization of Japan.
When Japan began to industrialize, the yakuza followed Japan's deploying society. They began to recruit employees within the construction business and people working at the docksides. They began to check the rickshaw business. The gambling side of the Yakuza was at this time sorta put to the side, because the police were cracking down roughly on the bakuto- gangs. Tekiya on the contrary flowered and expanded since most of their activities were not considered illegal but more importantly not on the surface of society. Yakuza began to develop an interest for policy and started affiliations with certain political officials. They began to cooperate with the authorities in order to get certain contributions and to ease the harassment from the authorities. About up until the year 1925 Japan had an Emperor. But the course of events in the world was proving that a democratic rule was better than aristocratic, therefore Japan initiated a public vote for all men 1925. Within a few years the communist and socialist parties were found. Around then the prince, that became emperor 1926, existed however his staff of military and some other officials did not agreed with democracy. The economical depression at the end of 20th century created suspicion against the western worlds liberalism. They took advantage of this and different secret organizations were created that trained its members in warfare, languages, assassination, blackmail etc. The ultranationalism terror lasted on into the 1930s. They murdered two prime ministers, two finance ministers, attacked several politicians, and industrialist. The Yakuza supplied them with the muscles and men in order to help and train these underworld organization. This type of yakuza is called the unyoke (political right).

The Occupation Years.
After WWII when the American troops occupied Japan they saw the yakuza as the biggest threat against their forces. They began to watch the yakuza's activities. The American troops rationed out food and as a result the black market flowered and made the gangs rich and powerful. It were during the occupations that a new sort of yakuza began to grow, gurentai (street hustler). They were for the most part involved in robbery and black market. Yakuza became influenced by the American gangster movies and began to dress in black suits with white shirts, black sunglasses and cropped hair. They became tougher and more violent, the sword became history, now it was firearms. It was about this time that not just gamblers and storekeepers became exposed to violence but also the ordinary person was becoming more of a victim. Between about the years of 1958 and 1963 the number of yakuza- members increased with over 150%, to 184,000 members, now are they well below that. There are an estimated 5,200 different gangs in Japan. Also during that time they began to mark out their territories and wars started between the gangs. It is believed that the wars between the gangs were settled by a man named Yoshio Kodama. Kodama was Japan's underworld counterpart to America's Al Capone.

The Yakuza Organization.
For the yakuza it doesn't matter were you came from, which country or from which class of society you belonged to, you can become a member anyway. Yakuza takes care of the misfits in the society. Yakuza members can be youth that been abandoned by their parents, youths seeking refuge from the high pressures of school, refugees from Korea, China etc. The boss becomes their father and their comrades as brothers. The Yakuza offers not only companionship but also money, status, and authority. A part of a group were you feel useful and needed. There are no thresholds or requirements in order to become a member. But when you are inside strict obedience to the superiors is demanded. The yakuza sees himself, as Machi-yakko, the people's rescuer and helper. Far before any working courts existed in Japan the yakuza existed. If your clans chief couldn't or wouldn't help resolve a dispute you could turn to the local yakuza for help. They solved the problem in return for money. The solution however was more brutal than if you had turned to the police. The yakuza structure exists in two types of yakuza, clan yakuza and freelance yakuza.

Freelance Yakuza.
Freelancing yakuza are generally wanna be's yakuza that don't commit serious crimes and they are usually little more than a group of hustlers. They have however some difficulties surviving since the clan yakuza do not afford them any protection or assistance and generally doesn't allow them to operate within their territories. Clan yakuza can tip the police about crimes that the freelance yakuza commit. If the freelance yakuza earns to much money, the clan yakuza kills the freelancing yakuza or makes him disappear without a trace. The clan yakuza however have certain uses for a freelance yakuza. If the clan yakuza needs something done that they not want the clan to be associate with, they can turn to a freelancing yakuza that, for a sum of money, does the job for them. A freelance yakuza can also be used as a scapegoat for crimes. A freelancer is truly a genius if he can manage to begin his own clan and stay alive. Usually a freelance yakuza becomes a clan member unless he gets killed.

Clan Yakuza.
The clan have been compared to the Sicilian mafias "family". The clan is structured much like a common family in traditional Japan. The clan has a hierarchy structure. The clans head chief is called Oyabun, that means Father. Beneath him he has his children(Wakashu) and brothers(Kyodai). These are not his real children and brothers, only designations of rank and position they have within the clan. All the members in the clan obey the Oyabun and in return he protects them against all dangers. Oyabun is almighty within the clan and his words is the law. All obey him without hesitation or concern for their own life. Beneath him, oyabun has an adviser that is called Saiko-komon and he has a staff of advocates, accountants, secretaries and advisers. The children's (Wakashu) boss called Waka gashira. He is number two in the clan after Oyabun, not in rank but in authority. He acts as a middleman to see that the oyabun's orders are being accomplished.

The children leaders over their own (sub) gangs and over time can move up in the structure. In that way the clan becomes a ramification with several sub families. The oyabun's "brothers" or Kyodai, boss is called Shatei gashira. Shatei gashira is of higher rank than Waka gashira but doesn't have more authority. "The Brothers" have their own "children" or "younger brothers"(Shatei). Shatei, has its own sub gangs etc. Everyone obeys its gangleader, but it's always the oyabun's word that counts.

Tattoos.
It's usual within yakuza circuits to tattoo themselves, usually it is their clan's badges that they have all over their body. The origin of the yakuza tattoo comes from the Bakuto. They usually tattooed a black ring around the arm for each crime they committed. Finally it became a symbol of strength. It can take over 100 hours to do an entire back tattoo. The tattoo was to illustrate you were unwilling to accommodate yourself to societies rules and norms. Now is it to illustrate your clan affiliations.


Yubitsume.
The manner comes originally from the Bakuto. If a gambler couldn't pay back a debt or something like that the persons tip of the little finger got cut off, which damage the hand and the person could not hold his sword as well as before. Also that way other people could see if a person haven't paid a debt, which could bring certain problems, since gambling always been prohibited in Japan. Yubitsume is when you cut of one of your fingers and send it to the Kumicho. This is done as an apology for disobedience. It can be done to atone for a wrongdoing but can also be done to spare one of your "children". When you have done something that your Kumicho dislikes you take a sharp item, cut off a fingertip, wrap it in paper and send it to the Kumicho and beg for his forgiveness. If it's the first time you cut off the little fingertip there after it becomes the next little finger and so on. Because of that you may see yakuza members that are without several of his fingers. This helps often at wrongdoings, but if you've done something all to seriously, as e.g betray the entire clan, there´s nothing that can help you from becoming a statistic.

Shoko Tendo: Yakuza Girl.

Interview: Shoko Tendo on growing up in the seamy world of Japanese gangsters.

Her memoir of growing up in the criminal underworld gripped Japan. But, as Shoko Tendo explains, she's now escaped her violent, drug-addled past to begin a new life of middle-class respectability.

By David McNeillSunday.

Shoko Tendo grew up in the house of a crime boss, spent her teens in a fog of hard drugs and sex, then careened from one doomed relationship to another with a succession of violent petty gangsters. Her life has been scarred by beatings, addiction and several attempted rapes and suicides – all reported in a sometimes stomach-churning biography that has gripped Japan. So it is disconcerting when she shows up clutching a bag of cakes, which she presents with the deepest of bows. "I'm so very sorry for cancelling our previous appointment," she says. Polite, delicate-featured and painfully thin, she looks more like a slightly weathered manga character than daughter of the demimonde... as long as you ignore the garish tattoos poking out from under her sleeve.

Now 39, Tendo turned her life around before writing her biography, Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter, which has sold almost 100,000 copies and was published in English this year. The book offers a rare woman's view of Japan's criminal underbelly, a cruel world ruled by chinpira (young yakuza punks), many of whom seem to have beaten the daylights out of her. "Every time I met a new man I thought he would be different," she recalls. "When they cried and said sorry I forgave them. I never learnt."

Her battle scars make her sound like a casualty from a warzone: broken bones and teeth, perforated eardrums, a hernia, bald patches from having her hair pulled out and hepatitis, probably from drug use. Plastic surgery has helped reconstruct her face, but her health is delicate and she is recovering from another operation.

Tendo worshipped her father, an Armani-clad yakuza gangster, and grew up in a world most ordinary Japanese people never see. She recalls one incident from her childhood, when a young gangster came to their door and tried to hand his severed little finger to her father – a traditional method of yakuza atonement. "My mother tried to shield my eyes, but I could still see the blood dripping from his hand. My dad was furious and split the guy's head open with an object in the hall. He said, 'Why did you cut your finger off? You need it for work.'"

Throughout her childhood, Tendo listened to romantic stories about the yakuza code of honour and its role in society. It is a role she defends, despite the mob's involvement in prostitution, drugs, real-estate scams and even murder. "You can see what happens when they are run out of a place such as Kabukicho," she explains, referring to Tokyo's biggest red-light district. "Other foreign gangsters move in and it becomes chaotic and disorganised. It is better to have them keeping order."

Tendo credits a "life-changing decision" to get a tattoo for giving her the mental strength to pull out of her death-dive of disastrous relationships. "No more wimpy attitude," she writes about her first visit to a tattoo parlour. "It was time to start over."

Her body is now a rippling, inky canvas of dragons, flowers, phoenixes and courtesans. Tendo has never regretted her tattoos, despite having to keep almost permanently covered up in a country where they still retain their lurid association with the underworld. But she struggles to explain why they are so empowering, or why she would deepen her symbolic association with the yakuza even as she cut her physical ties.

"It's difficult to put into words," she says. "My father had a huge buddha on his back and many of the people who came to our house had tattoos. I knew that made them different to ordinary people, but also that the relationship between them was stronger than blood. I guess I felt that this was the world that I belonged to. I felt at home there."

Today, she is the single mother of a two-year-old daughter who she is raising while writing the follow-up to Yakuza Moon. Her partner is a photographer and a far cry from the volatile men who almost ruined her life. "He's almost comically different: very gentle and almost feminine. He freaks out when he sees my tattoos and tells me to cover them when we're out." The next book will be partly about the differences in their upbringing, his being in an ordinary middle-class home.

What would she do if her daughter came home with a gangster? She smiles. "If he was a real traditional type with manners and honour, I'd be OK, but I'd draw the line at chinpira. I'd have to protect her."

'Yakuza Moon' by Shoko Tendo is published in English by Kodansha International (www.kodansha-intl.com)

How the mob rose to power in Japan.
Japanese mobsters came to prominence after the Second World War, running the black markets that sprang up in the devastated country. At their peak, they mixed with prime ministers, celebrities and Japan's richest businessmen, and were romanticised in popular movies and books as protectors of traditions and the true inheritors of the Bushido code of honour.

The introduction of an anti-mob law in 1992 and a decade of economic slump has taken its toll: in the law's immediate aftermath, several smaller groups went bust or merged, and the number of full and associate members fell from a high of more than 90,000 to 79,300. Yet, they are still many times more numerous than the US mafia at its peak and the biggest yakuza group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, which counted Shoko Tendo's father among its associates, is bigger and more powerful than ever. The group's bosses have their HQ in a large compound in an upper-class neighbourhood of Kobe City, where they host a monthly gathering of crime bosses from across the country, under the noses of the police.
Yakuza income has shrunk along with the rest of the economy, but some groups have moved out of traditional business such as prostitution and loan-sharking into real estate. A government-funded study in the late-1990s found that as much as 42 per cent of bad loans from banks involved organised crime. Most mobsters avoid stirring up trouble with the law, but occasionally violence flares. Earlier this year, a mobster pumped two bullets into the mayor of Nagasaki. He later told police he was angry because the mayor had failed to fix his car after it was damaged by a city pothole.

EXPANSION OF ACTIVITIES BY INTERNATIONAL CRIMNAL GROUPS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

South Africa's crime problems are are very hard to pin down. A lot of us feel the issue can be easily solved - and don't see the big picture at all. Since SA's emergence from isolation, after the elections that saw the ANC step into power - a lot doors opened for legitimate businesses around the world - to tap into this once restricted market. However the international crime syndicates also stepped in. The problems caused by regular crime - can be terminated with the right approach. However - what makes it difficult, are the organized crime groups - that have ties to these small criminal elements.

The article below (a potion of the complete report) was: Published in African Security Review Vol 8 No 6, 1999.

It has been clear for some years that international criminal organizations involving, among others, Nigerians, Russians, Chinese, Moroccans and Italians are operating in South Africa. The exact extent to which such criminal organizations are active, will hopefully become clearer once the results of the national organized crime threat analysis are known.

Nigerian criminal groups.

Police investigators confirm that Nigerian crime syndicates now dominate the illicit trade in cocaine in South Africa. The first Nigerian syndicates established themselves in Johannesburg during the late 1980s, many of them consisting of illegal immigrants. They became prominent as cocaine dealers in about 1993 and, during the past three years, have moved into larger cities and towns throughout South Africa. It is estimated that between 45 000 and 100 000 Nigerians live in South Africa. According to the Nigerian High Commission, there are only 700 legally registered Nigerians in South Africa.13 The Nigerian syndicates have by now established a countrywide network of contacts and co-operation and continue to expand their activities.14 They have close links with Nigerians in South America, from where the bulk of cocaine is imported, but also with fellow countrymen in countries such as Austria, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan and Switzerland.

Police at Johannesburg International Airport confiscated 30 716 kilograms of cocaine powder in 1994 and 218 070 kilograms in 1998.15 According to police of the narcotics unit in Johannesburg, they confiscated 339 kilograms of cocaine during the five months from 1 January to 31 May 1999 compared to 183 kilograms during the same period in 1998.16 Indicators therefore point to a significant expansion in the illicit trade in cocaine by Nigerian syndicates. According to the police, these syndicates have branched off into the cannabis trade in recent years and have since emerged as key exporters of Southern African cannabis to Europe.17 There are also indications that Nigerian syndicates are becoming involved in trafficking of heroin although still on a small scale at this stage.

A new phenomenon involving Nigerian syndicates is the kidnapping or killing of victims of the Nigerian ‘419’ letter scams. The scam involves appeals to international businessmen requesting their help in the transfer of over-budgeted money in exchange for a promised percentage commission. In June 1999, three Nigerians, one Ghanaian and a South African were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of a Jordanian businessman who had been lured to South Africa and then kidnapped upon his arrival. His kidnappers demanded US $40 000 from his family for his release.18 Police are currently investigating seven similar cases of kidnapping. Four of the victims were foreign businessmen who were lured to South Africa and then kidnapped. Substantial ransoms were then demanded from their families. One of the victims was shot and killed.

Russian Criminal groups.

Available information indicates that no arrests of Russian criminals in South Africa have taken place to serve as confirmation that organized Russian crime groups are active in the country. Senior police officers, however, confirm that organized criminal activities of Russians came to their attention for the first time during 1995. They are of the view that Russian organized crime groups or networks have not only been involved in organized crime for some time, but have been expanding their activities.

When the South African Minister for Safety and Security visited Moscow in November 1998, he told a media briefing that Russian criminals in South Africa were involved in arms-smuggling, fraud, car theft and drug-trafficking. He provided the Russian authorities with a list of 23 names of persons, some of them known internationally,19 who were under suspicion for involvement in criminal activities in South Africa. He informed the media briefing, held in Moscow on 24 November 1998, that the South African police feared that Russian criminals could also be dealing in uranium.

Police confirm that Russian criminals are operating throughout Southern Africa. Aircraft, including large Russian manufactured former military transport planes, piloted by Russians, are known to have landed under cover of darkness at some of the many small and unguarded airstrips in South Africa to offload and load goods. According to a senior police investigator, the Russians in South Africa operate in networks of small groups. There are indications that some of them have links with the Russian Mafia in Russia and that networking with them takes place. Police believe that a number of suspects are conducting their criminal activities, including money-laundering, behind the cover of legitimate business operations, a typical phenomenon of the Russian Mafia and other internationally more established criminal groups. At the media briefing in Moscow, the South African Minister for Safety and Security confirmed this when he told the briefing that there would be closer working relations between Russian and South African police. Such co-operation would include the checking on companies registering in the respective countries because "... some people set up licit companies to cover illicit business."

Russian organized crime does therefore constitute a threat to South Africa. More intelligence and police investigations will be required before a clearer assessment can be made of the impact and scope of their activities.

Chinese criminal organizations.

South African detectives, particularly in the Western Cape and Gauteng, have been aware of the involvement by Chinese criminal groups in a range of criminal activities for many years. These include the ongoing smuggling of abalone to the East (a delicacy and aphrodisiac in China), illicit trading in rhino horn and ivory, the importation and distribution of drugs, money-laundering, tax evasion, the illegal trafficking of Chinese immigrants into South Africa and trading in contraband goods.

It was only during 1992 and 1993 that police investigations were able to confirm for the first time that Chinese criminals active in South Africa were linked to at least three different Chinese triad organizations based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. These links were with the Hong Kong-based ‘14K’, and the ‘Wo Shing Wo’ triads. Others, who were part of the so-called ‘Table Mountain Gang’ in Cape Town, were linked to triads in Taiwan. Police soon discovered that members of these triads were also operating in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area, as well as in other harbor cities in South Africa. They further confirm that Chinese criminal groups in South Africa with links to triads have expanded their activities in the country in the past few years.

Cape Town is no longer their main area of operation. The Johannesburg and Pretoria areas have become the hub of their activities and accommodate a far higher number of Chinese criminal organizations than Cape Town. Their presence has recently even been observed in small seaside resorts such as Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape. Detectives estimate that about eighty per cent of the turnover of Chinese crime groups result from the illegal trade in abalone. This percentage is likely to decrease as they expand into other lucrative illegal activities.

The legal business of harvesting and selling abalone, in which Chinese syndicates are now trying to establish themselves, is worth approximately R550 million per annum. Police estimate that the illegal harvesting and trade in abalone, in which the Chinese criminal groups dominate, is worth approximately R500 million. The risk of being caught is low because inadequate attention is being given to the depletion of marine resources, and the product can be sold legally in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

During May 1999, for example, police observed approximately a 100 divers in the water in a marine nature reserve at Cape Recife near Port Elizabeth, diving for abalone. They consisted mainly of unemployed white males from Port Elizabeth, who, according to the police, were augmenting their income by supplying Chinese criminal organizations with illegally caught abalone. The process of depleting the Cape coast of abalone therefore continues unabated.

The fact that Chinese organized crime is diversifying into other areas of activity is illustrated by recent arrests. During the first six months of 1999, police and customs investigators intercepted two freight containers, one in Johannesburg and the other in Durban, containing more than one million mandrax (methaqualone) tablets each.22 A number of Chinese citizens were arrested. Police believe that the mandrax originated from China from where it was shipped through Singapore to South Africa.

South Africa’s recently established full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China holds the promise of increased trade, but also of an increase in organized crime in the country.

Freight containers loaded with drugs, intercepted by South African authorities during the past two years, indicate that not only Chinese, Nigerian and Russia criminal groups are targeting South Africa, or using it as a conduit for re-shipment. The following schedule illustrates that links exist with Indian, Angolan, Colombian, Armenian and Romanian criminal networks. The illicit drug trade in South Africa is therefore truly international and large volumes are involved.

The Italian Mafia.

The renewed interest shown during the past three years in the activities of Cape Town-based, Sicilian-born, Mr. Vito Palazzolo, alleged by Italian authorities to be involved with the Sicilian branch of the Cosa Nostra (Mafia), has raised questions about the presence and involvement of the Italian Mafia in South Africa. Palazzolo, who arrived in South Africa during the 1980s, and who appears to have developed long lasting ties with security operatives of the apartheid state and with organized crime, is wanted by the Italian police on charges of membership of the Sicilian Mafia, drug-trafficking and money-laundering.

According to a 1998 secret report to the then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Palazzolo was identified as the ‘boss’ of a Mafia structure in the Western Cape. A man of considerable wealth, the police found some R500 000 worth of diamonds, and documents indicating that he had invested more than R25 million in various companies in South Africa and Namibia, when arresting him in 1998 on a Swiss extradition warrant. Italian authorities have also linked him to other alleged mafiosi who were sheltering in South Africa. Palazzolo "never gets his hands dirty", but is said to be a master at corrupting government officials, and is believed to have suborned an ANC cabinet minister, a security force general, a top immigration official and ‘many’ policemen.

Police in South Africa have relaunched their investigation into the activities of Palazzolo, but are reluctant to throw any light on the extent of involvement by the Italian Mafia in South Africa. Cape Town and Johannesburg appear to be the centers from which Italian criminals operate. In Cape Town, Palazzolo is reported to have frequented a nightclub which was also the favorite haunt of well-known leaders of Cape Town organized crime groups such as Rashied Staggie, leader of the Hard Livings gang, and others.

The sophistication of senior Italian Mafia operators world-wide has enabled them to penetrate middle and senior government echelons. The extent to which that has happened in South Africa will hopefully become clearer once present police investigations are completed.

Frank Lucas.

Frank Lucas (born September 9, 1930 in La Grange, North Carolina and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina) is a former heroin dealer and organized crime boss who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle. Frank Lucas is popularly known for smuggling heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen, a claim his South Asian associate, Leslie "Ike" Atkinson denies. His career was dramatized in the 2007 feature film American Gangster.

Early life:

Lucas claims that the incident that sparked his motivation into the life of crime was witnessing his 12-year-old cousin's murder at the hands of the KKK, for apparently "reckless eyeballing" (looking at a Caucasian woman), in Greensboro, North Carolina. He drifted through a life of petty crime until one particular occasion when he engaged in a fight with a former employer and, on advice of his mother, fled to New York. In Harlem he indulged in petty crime and pool hustling before he was taken under the wing of gangster Bumpy Johnson. His connection to Bumpy has come under some doubt, however. Lucas claimed to have been Johnson's driver for 15 years, although Johnson spent just 5 years out of prison before his death in 1968. And according to Johnson's widow, much of the narrative that Lucas claims actually belonged to another young hustler named Zach Walker, who lived with Bumpy and his family and later betrayed him.

Criminal career:
Lucas' January 1975 federal mug shot.After Johnson's death, Lucas traveled around and came to the realization that to be successful he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian mafia held in New York. Traveling to Stilwell, Oklahoma, he eventually made his way to Jack's American Star Bar, an R&R hangout for black soldiers. It was here that he met former U.S. Army sergeant Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, a country boy from Goldsboro, North Carolina, who happened to be married to one of Lucas' cousins. Lucas is quoted as saying, "Ike knew everyone over there, every black guy in the Army, from the cooks on up."Lucas denies putting the drugs among the corpses of American soldiers. Instead he flew in a North Carolina carpenter to Bangkok and:

“ We had him make up 28 copies of the government coffins . . . except we fixed them up with false bottoms, big enough to load up with six, maybe eight kilos . . . It had to be snug. You couldn't have shit sliding around. Ike was very smart, because he made sure we used heavy guys' coffins. He didn't put them in no skinny guy's . . ." ” — Frank Lucas

However, Atkinson, nicknamed "Sergeant Smack" by the DEA, has said he shipped drugs in furniture, not caskets. Whatever method he used, Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country with this direct link from Asia. Lucas said that he made US$1 million per day selling drugs on 116th Street. Federal judge Sterling Johnson, who was special narcotics prosecutor in New York at the time of Lucas' crimes, called Lucas' operation "one of the most outrageous international dope-smuggling gangs ever, an innovator who got his own connections outside the U.S. and then sold the narcotics himself in the street." He had connections with the Sicilian and Mexican mobs, holding an enormous monopoly on the heroin market in Manhattan. In an interview, Lucas said, "I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it."

Lucas only trusted relatives and close friends from North Carolina to handle his various heroin operations. Lucas thought they were less likely to steal from him and be tempted by various vices in the big city. His heroin "Blue Magic" was 100% pure when shipped fromThailand. Lucas has been quoted as saying that his worth was "something like $52 million", most of it in Cayman Islands banks. Added to this is "maybe 1,000 keys (kilograms), (2,200 pounds), of dope on hand" with a potential profit of no less than $300,000 per kilo (per 2.2 lb).

This huge profit margin allowed him to buy property all over the country, including office buildings in Detroit, and apartments in Los Angeles and Miami. He also bought a several-thousand-acre ranch in North Carolina on which he ranged 300 head of Black Angus cows, including a breeding bull worth $125,000.

Lucas rubbed shoulders with the elite in entertainment, politics, and crime, meeting Howard Hughes at one of Harlem's best clubs in his day. Though he owned several mink and chinchilla coats and other accessories, Lucas much preferred to dress very casually and corporately so as to not attract attention to himself. He fathered seven children, including a daughter, Francine Lucas-Sinclair, and a son, Frank Lucas, Jr. When he was arrested in the mid-1970s, all of Lucas' assets were seized.

Decline of the Mafia.

HEADLINE: The Mob in Decline - A Special Report
A Battered and Ailing Mafia Is Losing Its Grip on America

BYLINE: By SELWYN RAAB, Special to The New York Times

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

BODY:
Battered by aggressive investigators and weakened by incompetent leadership, most of America's traditional Mafia families appear to be fading out of existence, law-enforcement officials and independent experts say.

The Mafia remains potent in the New York City area, where officials say the mob is hard to uproot because it has five separate and large crime families, and in the suburbs of Chicago. But in most other areas, where prosecutors have to contend with only a single family, the legendary mob that once controlled -

entire labor unions, city governments and criminal enterprises has clearly lost its grip.

Officials say the convictions of top Mafia leaders and their hierarchies have dismantled thriving underworld organizations in Philadelphia, New Jersey, New England, New Orleans, Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis.

'The Geritol Gang':

In Los Angeles, investigators speak of the "Mickey Mouse Mafia" and say the mob is so enfeebled that illegal bookmakers refuse to pay it for the right to operate. In Cleveland and Denver, where Mafia gangs once flourished, officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation say each city is left with a lone mobster who was "made," or formally inducted in a secret ritual. And in New Jersey, Col. Justin Dintino, the State Police Superintendent, calls the Bruno-Scarfo group the "Geritol gang," so aged and ineffective does he find its leaders.

Many experts and officials say it is premature to write the Mafia's obituary, and they emphasize that its decline does not mean that organized crime has been banished: other groups are moving in to take the Mafia's place. In particular, Chinese international gangs called the Triads are making a strong bid to succeed the Mafia in the sophisticated crimes of large-scale gambling, loan sharking and labor racketeering.

But experts say the recent defeats of the Mafia will nevertheless mean real gains for the public, reducing the financial and social costs of rigged public contracts, of domination of labor unions like the teamsters and longshoremen, and of influence in the construction, trucking, trash-collection and garment-manufacturing industries.

Causes of Decline

While there is wide agreement that the Mafia is declining, there is much disagreement on the causes. Law-enforcement officials generally credit a long-term strategy adopted by the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the early 1980's: developing cases against the top leaders of organized-crime families and relying largely on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, as a courtroom tool.

By concentrating on enterprises rather than individuals, Federal prosecutors in the last five years have removed the high commands of families through the convictions and long prison sentences of almost 100 top Cosa Nostra leaders.

The chief architect of the RICO act, G. Robert Blakey, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, admits he was surprised by its impact. "It was sort of like George Kennan's containment policy of the Soviet Union," he said. "We tried it and by God it worked."

Impact of Changed Society

But two other experts, Peter A. Lupsha and Howard Abadinsky, say demographic changes, too, have helped undermine the Mafia. Mr. Lupsha, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico and who is a consultant on organized crime for Federal and state agencies, and Mr. Abadinsky, founder of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, a research organization, cite these factors:

*The dispersal of white populations away from urban neighborhoods. This diminished both the Mafia's political influence, which was strongest in Italian-American sections of big cities, and the surreptitious protection that organized-crime bosses often got from the local police and political machines.

*A new generation of Mafia leaders who took control after the convictions or deaths of previous bosses and capos, or captains, but who were less competent than their predecessors.

*The disintegration of traditional Mafia loyalties, with members breaking the code of silence to become informers against leaders.

*The emergence of rival crime groups controlled by Asians, Colombians, black Americans and the Sicilian Mafia, a powerful unit that operates independently of America's Mafia or Cosa Nostra. These new groups dominate drug trafficking and illegal gambling, especially in the inner cities.

A Multinational Trend
"The real trend in organized crime today is transnational with the ability to move drugs and money across borders," Mr. Lupsha said. "The old Italian-American organized crime groups were too content with what they had and too slow to think globally."

Outside of New York and Chicago, the Mafia is an anachronism, Mr. Abadinsky said, adding: "They changed like the rest of society. The younger ones are better educated than their elders, they have more opportunities in life and they know the mob is being pounded by the Feds."

Many experts say the American Mafia lacks the nerve and ability to compete with the new underworld rivals. Ronald Goldstock, the director of New York's Organized Crime Task Force, said a high-ranking Mafia defector had bitterly told him that his crew could no longer find reliable assassins in its own ranks and had to take outside contracts.

"The new drug gangs are wild groups, and the old-timers don't want any confrontations with them," said Ralph F. Salerno, a former New York detective who is a consultant to Congressional committees on organized crime. "Moreover, west of the Mississippi, there is nothing left of the Cosa Nostra to fight anybody."

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