Shooting of Gyoza no Ousho President: Kudo-kai Hitman’s “True Profile and Reputation

The man with the skin-head and brown skin has sharp eyes behind his glasses. Sharp eyes behind the glasses. The man transferred from Fukuoka Prison to the Kyoto Prefectural Police’s Yamashina Station is Yukio Tanaka, 56, a senior member of the Kudo-kai, a designated dangerous crime syndicate. When we interviewed the violent-looking man who was arrested on suspicion of murder, we found out a surprising side of him.

On October 28, Tanaka was arrested in the shooting death of Takayuki Daito, then 72, the president of Ohsho Food Service, which operates “Gyoza no Ohsho” restaurants, in 2001. The case, which was said to have gone cold, has now moved on for the first time in about nine years.

Tanaka was a senior member of the Ishida-gumi, a secondary organization of the Kudo-kai, based in Kasuga City, Fukuoka Prefecture. As previously reported, Tanaka was serving a 10-year prison sentence in January 2008 for the shooting of a car carrying employees of the Obayashi Corporation, a major general contractor.

In December ’15, news media outlets simultaneously reported that a gang member from Kyushu had surfaced from items found near the scene of Mr. Daito’s murder. The DNA type of a cigarette butt discarded at the scene matched that of Tanaka, who was serving time in prison. At this point, some media outlets also recognized Tanaka’s name, and the case appeared to be quickly closed. However, the Fukuoka and Kyoto prefectural police, which cover the Kudo-kai’s strongholds, were not on the same page, recalls a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.

In ’16, there was talk of setting up a joint investigation headquarters in Kyoto and Fukuoka, but that fell through. Of course, the Fukuoka Prefectural Police lent a room but did not actively cooperate because of their distrust of the prefectural police. Whenever information about the investigation was leaked to the press, some of the top officials were indignant, saying, “Kyoto has leaked it again. There were even some investigators who said they did not want the Kyoto Prefectural Police to stir up trouble around the Kudo-kai at a critical time when they were conducting the “Operation Summit” to destroy the Kudo-kai.

Naturally, the investigation was difficult, but there were several occasions when the media reported that Tanaka would be arrested in the near future.

There was even a suggestion that Tanaka may have been at a pachinko parlor in Fukuoka on the day of the incident. The possibility that someone else might have brought cigarette butts to the scene could not be ruled out, and in the end, there was nothing conclusive and no arrest was made.

(A former reporter) It was against this backdrop that the latest arrest took place. Naturally, Tanaka’s true identity also attracted attention, and the media reported him as follows. He is a “fighter,” a “professional hitman,” and a “tough-talking gangster. However… However, one Kudo-kai insider who knows Tanaka well revealed, “Tanaka is not a big guy, and he is not a big guy.

Tanaka is not a big guy, a smiling, good-natured older brother, and not a fighter or anything like that. He is not a fighter or anything like that. He has no major source of income and lives off his boss’s allowance. He usually worked as a caretaker, such as a driver for his boss. I met him in Kasuga (Kasuga City, Fukuoka Prefecture, where the Ishida clan is based) and said, ‘Oh, what are you doing? He would often say, “Oyabun is not here today, so I’m cleaning.
The Ishida clan was powerful when Mr. Mizoshita (late former president Hideo Mizoshita) was in charge. The Ishida clan was powerful when Mizoshita-san (the late former president Hideo Mizoshita) was in charge, and the head of the Ishida clan even used to go by the surname Mizoshita. Now, however, the main members of the Ishida-gumi have gone to the O-gumi, which is a powerful group in the Kudo-kai. Many of them have quit. Even though Tanaka is the general manager, he is the only one who is still in the gang. When Tanaka grew his hair long, the top of his head was thin and he had a good-natured look. He used to wear white-rimmed glasses, and when I teased him about wearing glasses like Sho Aikawa, he would say, ‘No, no, no, this is the latest fad.

He’s not that kind of guy.”

Another Kudo-kai member also testified about Tanaka, saying, “He is an intellectual.

He is an intellectual who went to university and has experience as a businessman. He was introduced to the Ishida-gumi by a friend. At first, he was supposed to be a money collector, collecting money lent by the clan and holding a kind of dinner party with the presidents of front companies, but Tanaka was also the money collector. I heard that Tanaka had a wife, but I never saw her, and he never had a woman. Sometimes I would go out with my friends to a local snack bar, and I would happen to meet Tanaka at the bar. After chatting with the girls for a while, he would sing some maniacal enka song that nobody knew. He didn’t even drink, in case his boss would call him at any time.

And those who knew Tanaka were unanimous in their comments.

He said on TV that he was a professional hitman, but it sounds like a bad joke. He’s not that kind of a guy. Even if you call him a criminal, he’s really just a witness. I don’t think he’s tight-lipped or anything; I think he just doesn’t know the details of what happened.

Will the case ever be solved? A source at the Fukuoka Prefectural Police Department wonders, “To be honest, the Kyoto Prefectural Police Department is also in danger.

To be honest, I think the Kyoto Prefectural Police took a dangerous gamble. Although they have examined two cigarette butts and determined that they were smoked by Tanaka at the crime scene, I wonder if that will be enough to keep the case open. At this point, there is no direct connection between Mr. Daito and Tanaka. Under such circumstances, can we trace them back to the “mastermind”?

Meanwhile, at a press conference, the Kyoto Prefectural Police suggested the possibility of an organized crime. Will the police soon play a card that could provide new evidence?

From the November 18, 2022 issue of FRIDAY