Appeared at Inagawa Kaikan in Yokohama…The “overwhelming presence” of Seiji Takayama, the young leader of Yamaguchigumi VI

Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on December 20 at Inagawa Kaikan, the base of the designated crime syndicate Inagawa-kai in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 60 to 70 members of the gang were on guard. About 60 to 70 members of the gang were in the building, with more than a dozen Kanagawa and Hyogo police investigators standing guard, and a helicopter flying overhead.

Around 10:20 a.m., a man appeared from the rear seat of a white vehicle. He was Seiji Takayama, a young leader of the Yamaguchigumi’s designated gang “Yamaguchigumi VI. About an hour later, Osamu Teraoka, chairman of the Chivalrous Friends Association, also entered the Inagawa Kaikan.

What took place that day was an ‘apology’ from Chairman Teraoka to Wakao Takayama. Originally, the Chivalrous Friends Society was the core organization of the designated gang, the Kobe Yamaguchigumi. As Kobe gradually became inferior, Chairman Teraoka advocated the retirement of the head of the Kobe gang, Kunio Inoue, and was negotiating with the outside world.

However, that did not go well, and Chairman Teraoka announced in August that he was leaving the Kobe Yamaguchigumi. From there, it was a sudden turnaround and the “apology play” of the day.

On that day, Wakao Takayama and Chairman Teraoka talked together for about 30 minutes, with Chairman Teraoka leaving around 12:20 p.m. and Wakao Takayama leaving Inagawa Kaikan a short time later. When we asked Kazuya Uchibori, chairman of the Inagawa-kai, who acted as “go-between,” about the purpose of the meeting, he replied, “I apologized for going off the beaten path.

He replied, “We want to apologize to him for his wayward behavior, dissolve the organization, and let him go on with his life as a professional.

He replied, “I want him to apologize for going off the road and dissolve the organization. When asked why he accepted the role of “mediator,” Uchibori responded, “We don’t want to keep doing this forever.

We can’t keep doing this kind of thing forever, for the sake of the Japanese chivalry world. It’s affecting us, too. If we have made a mistake, we should just get back on the straight and narrow.

President Teraoka retired, and on December 21, the following day, the chivalrous friends association submitted a notice of dissolution to the Hyogo Prefectural Police.

The fact that they accepted an ‘apology’ from someone who had once left the organization means that there may be other organizations that will follow suit. Even so, the ratio of the number of members between the Yamaguchigumi VI and the Kobe Yamaguchigumi is overwhelmingly different, and it is possible that the Yamaguchigumi VI will be even more aggressive in 2011.

Next year is likely to be a noisy year for the gang industry.