Topic: 2025-Combating Transnational Organized Crime
Country: Japan
Delegate Name: Sofia Bontomasi
The delegation of Japan believes that measures must be created and enforced to stop transnational criminal organizations. Transnational criminal organizations are a global problem, whether it’s the cartels of Central and South America, extremist groups in the middle east, the Triad in China, the Bratva in Russia, or the yakuza in Japan. Due to the fact that these organizations are transnational, Japan believes that a unified approach is necessary in order to effectively inhibit these groups.
Japan is somewhat known internationally for the yakuza, the Japanese version of the mafia. Yakuza are multi-layered crime syndicates that often consist of many families or smaller groups that are subsidiaries of a singular main family, having 184.100 members in 1963. The main way they make their money is through tokushu sagi, or fraud that generally targets the elderly, as well as through a specific type of extortion called sokaiya, which is when members will buy a small amount of stock in a company, then attending stockholder meetings and intimidating other holders into giving up their stocks. Yakuza also offer mikajime-ryo or protection of business on their turf from other gangs for tribute as a way of income. Some groups are highly involved in drug trafficking, like the Dojin-kai, but many older and more traditional groups, like the Yamaguchi-gumi, prohibit involvement with drugs. There have also been many reports of human trafficking from other Asian countries into Japan by yakuza.
Japan wishes to help crackdown internationally on organized crime and has implemented many anti-gang laws to prevent yakuza activity, most notably, the Act on Prevention of Unjust Acts by Organized Crime Group Members and the Yakuza exclusion Ordinances. These laws make it illegal for yakuza to do business with other businesses and individuals, as well as inhibits them from living normal lives by requiring businesses to deny meeting rooms, parking spaces, opening bank accounts, opening mobile phone lines, signing credit card contracts, lease real estate, or process loans to any people identified as yakuza. The delegation would be glad to use its expertise in laws that place restrictions on crime syndicates, as this is an issue that has been plaguing Japan for four centuries, to help form policies that would help eliminate organized crime globally.
