Uncovering the Truth Behind the 100-Person Gang Fight — The Shadowy Alliance of Asian Crime Syndicates
The second installment of freelance writer Tomohiko Suzuki's short series of articles on the age of liquefied crime in which the "Tokuryu" roam the streets.
“Anonymous, fluid-type criminal groups” (commonly known as Tokuryū) have been causing various incidents across Japan. Often connected through social media, people who may not even know each other’s faces come together and repeatedly commit crimes. Freelance writer Tomohiko Suzuki, who focuses on organized crime, refers to this reality as the era of liquefied crime. In Part 1, he delved into the background of the ceremonial alliance of half-gangs, yakuza, and Hong Kong mafia, an incident that led to arrests in June this year.
In Part 2, we uncover the truth behind the “Sunshine Brawl Incident” triggered by the Chinese Dragon group.
The starting point of the Sunshine Brawl Incident
The man police identified as a Chinese Dragon executive in connection with the alliance ceremony incident—Utaro Shirai (53), who was arrested—first drew attention back in October 2022. That was when a brawl involving members of the Chinese Dragon gang broke out at a French restaurant on the 58th floor of Sunshine 60 in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The dinner event was reportedly held to celebrate the release of a senior Chinese Dragon member who had just finished serving a prison sentence. That member was none other than the recently arrested Utaro Shirai.
The brawl was triggered by the Ueno Group, a faction within the Dragon organization that had a negative view of Shirai. They showed up uninvited to the celebration and surrounded the venue, intending to pressure Shirai. Many senior Dragon members had simply gathered for the meal without knowing the full context, and suddenly found themselves either on the attacking or defending side. A fight broke out, turning the scene into chaos. Ironically, because so many prominent members were present, it was effectively a “Chinese Dragon All-Star” gathering, which made the incident all the more newsworthy.
But surrounding a banquet on the 58th floor isn’t so simple. Even with elevators and stairs, the attackers couldn’t reach the venue all at once. The assaulting group itself was made up of a mixed crew and lacked clear communication. A younger group from the new generation of the Dragon gang arrived at the venue first. Not recognizing the older executives, they exchanged heated words, and the fight broke out from there.
Both sides quickly realized they were fighting among their own. The brawl ended almost immediately, and they dispersed to avoid police attention. Not long after, both the attackers and the attacked gathered again for drinks and reconciled.
Despite this, police announced the incident as involving a senior member of the Chinese Dragon—without naming Shirai at the time. It appears this omission was intentional. A review of past articles about incidents involving Shirai shows a distinct shift in how the police have been referring to him.
The guest of honor at the release celebration—suspect Shirai—had served a long prison sentence for a robbery resulting in injury that took place in 2007. The incident involved breaking into two precious metal processing factories in Yamanashi Prefecture, where he beat employees with iron pipes, causing fractures, and tied up the factory manager with duct tape. He stole about 149 million yen worth of cash and rings. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
At the time, reports described Shirai only as a second-generation Chinese orphan left behind in China and the leader of a criminal group based in areas like Shinjuku (Sankei Shimbun, May 19, 2011), with no mention of the Dragon group. Police were fully aware that Shirai was not part of the Dragon organization and likely also understood that among the second- and third-generation Chinese orphans involved in delinquency, most were not affiliated with the Dragons.
“(Shirai) came to Ōkubo when he was young and became the underling of O, who controlled the street soliciting scene in Shinjuku. O was a well-known delinquent within Japan’s Chinese networks, but he wasn’t a Dragon. O died of COVID-19 on December 30, 2023. Shirai inherited his turf.
O was of the same generation as the Dragon executives. They had long been on good terms, and some people close to O maintained ties with Dragon members. Since Shirai was also a second-generation orphan and a delinquent, he was familiar with many in the Dragon group. From their perspective, if outsiders want to call him a Dragon, that’s on them—they’ll just ignore it. But as the brawl incident shows, Shirai’s relationships weren’t all friendly. He often mingled with various factions and tried to poach younger members, which led to trouble,” said a second-generation orphan who knows them.
Even Shirai himself has likely never claimed to be a Dragon executive. It’s merely the police who labeled him as such, and the media, accepting the police press release at face value, has spread that inaccurate view.
The term “Chinese Dragon” itself is a convenient label used by the police to refer to organized crime groups formed by descendants of Chinese orphans left behind in China. The name began to be used around 2013, when the National Police Agency categorized hangure (loosely organized gangs) as “quasi-yakuza groups” and designated two groups: the Doraken (怒羅権, Dora-ken) and former members of the Kantō Rengō.
Even though they were designated, it was merely a label used by the police—there are no actual restrictions or regulations associated with being a quasi-yakuza group. However, once the police named the organizations, they started broadly referring to all delinquent groups of Chinese orphan descent as “Chinese Dragon” and effectively sought to label all second- and third-generation Chinese orphans involved in delinquency as quasi-yakuza.
Worse still, the police often issue press releases claiming crimes committed by Chinese delinquents are the work of “Dragon members,” lumping all Chinese-related organized crime together under the Dragon name. At present, crimes involving Chinese nationals are indiscriminately branded as “Dragon-related,” regardless of the actual affiliations.
A man claiming to be a founding member
With every new incident, the name “Dragon” is repeatedly invoked, gradually taking on a life of its own and becoming something of an underworld legend. Amid all this, individuals claiming to be founding members or early members of the Dragon group began to emerge. One such figure is Wang Nan.
In 2021, he published a memoir titled Doraken and Me: A Life of Anger and Sorrow from a Founding Member. However, interviews with actual founding members revealed that in reality, Wang was merely someone who occasionally tagged along when future Dragon leaders were getting into fights with Japanese kids during their elementary and middle school days. He had no connection whatsoever to Doraken (the biker gang that later evolved into the Dragon group) or to Kakon (華魂, another group with strong delinquent-gang characteristics mentioned later).
The media painted a glowing picture of Wang—as a former Dragon member known for his brutality who had changed his ways, donated books to prison inmates, and become a philanthropist supporting rehabilitation. However, in 2021, he was arrested for attempting to extort protection money from a karaoke bar in Chiba Prefecture. Then, in October 2023, he was arrested again in connection with a robbery incident at a condominium in Ikebukuro. He is currently out of society.
Interestingly, he has gained popularity on Chinese social media as a staunch anti-Japanese activist. This fake outlaw has managed to deceive not only Japanese audiences but even Chinese followers.
Interview and text： Tomohiko Suzuki
