Japan - very organised crime

Japan is famous for it's law abiding society, with little threat of violence or street crime. So it's surprising, for an outsider anyway, to learn that there is a well organised criminal underworld working away at extortion, gambling, prostitution, pornography, drugs etc. Now they're going in for corporate mergers. While not as brazen in flaunting their affiliations as in the past, numbers involved are growing - police say over 87,000 at the end of 2004, with over 70 % belong to the country's three largest crime syndicates. Increasing pressure on their activities means it's less risky to consolidate more from the Mainichi Daily News...