Japanese gangsters. Yakuza, who trace their roots back to rnin (masterless samurai), often adopt samurai-like rituals and identify themselves with elaborate body tattoos. They traditionally engage in such organized-crime pursuits as extortion, blackmail, smuggling, prostitution, drugs, and gambling, and they control many restaurants, bars, trucking companies, and taxi fleets in Japanese cities. In the 1980s they also became involved in land speculation, fueling the "bubble economy" that burst by the end of the decade. From a high of more than 180,000 in the early 1960s, their membership has dropped to less than half that number. They are organized into some 2,000 gangs, most affiliated under the umbrella of one of a dozen or fewer conglomerate gangs. Yakuza gangs are rigidly hierarchical and follow strict codes of behaviour
organized crime in Japan; an alliance of criminal organizations and illegal enterprises
{i} organized crime in Japan; any of the closely connected Japanese criminal organizations; collective name of such organizations; gangster; member of a Yakuza
Japanese underworld crime syndicate Tommy Kimura is part of a bakuto (gamblers gang) The gang structure is
organized crime in Japan; an alliance of criminal organizations and illegal enterprises a Japanese gangster