Narcotics Agent’s Memoir: Why He Never Stands at the Front of the Platform

“Shall I do it like that XX?”

What I have done throughout my life since I became an enforcement officer is not to stand at the front of the train platform. If I get kicked or pushed from behind, it’s the end of the line. This is a habit I have acquired since I first became a DEA officer and was assigned to the Kinki Narcotics Control Office, where I have been dealing with gangs ever since.

In 1990, I received information that two gang members in a Land Cruiser were selling methamphetamine on a main road in Yokohama. So, we set up seven official vehicles and a total of nearly 20 people to search their bodies and vehicles and arrest them for the methamphetamine they were selling.

While searching around for the Land Cruiser, we were lucky enough to find two gang members who had stopped on the street near the gang’s office and were chatting outside their car. We surrounded them with our cars and first took them into custody, and then arrested them with about 10 grams of methamphetamine that we found in a subsequent search of their car. However, since they were near the union office, a man who appeared to be an executive sensed something was wrong and came over to the spot.

The man threatened me, the commander, saying, “Should I do it like that XX?” XX is the name of my senior, and I suspect that these guys had done something to him in the past. Although I never heard him mention it.

When I pretended not to understand and said, “What are you talking about?” the man must have realized it was a bad idea. He then just left. But, as the executive said, if they had really done something to me, it would have been a serious problem. For a while after that, when walking down dark, lonely streets at night, I would change my route and be extra careful.