Yakuza on the rise again in Japan

ELEANOR HALL: The power of Japan's mafia, the Yakuza is on the rise again, as the criminal gangs cash in on a rebounding economy.

After a decade and a half in the economic doldrums, Japan's property market is showing signs of movement.

But as the prices have risen so have acts of extortion and even murder.

And while police have arrested one Yakuza leader this month over a suspicious property deal, there are accusations that authorities are not doing enough to control the criminal gangs.

From Tokyo, Correspondent Shane McLeod reports.

SHANE MCLEOD: After 15 years in the economic doldrums, things may be finally looking up for Japan.

There's been sustained economic growth, and the corrosive deflation of property prices may finally be at an end.

But the optimistic outlook doesn't just apply to the economy.

For Japan's organised crime gangs, the Yakuza, the return of good times applies to them as well.

Raisuke Miyawaki is a former head of the National Police Agency's organised crime division.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: The Yakuza have always had a strong connection to the Japanese real estate business in performing with Jiage - obtaining separately owned properties through coercion, and joining with them into a single developed property.

SHANE MCLEOD: Mr Miyawaki is known as the man who labelled Japan's economic downturn as the 'yakuza recession'.

He pointed out that the bad times had been more prolonged than they might have otherwise been, because of Yakuza links to many of the bad debts being carried by Japan's banks.

Now, with the dark years apparently in the past, things are looking up, and looking like a Yakuza recovery.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: Everything the Yakuza do is so they can make money. And the real estate industry picks up. The Yakuza have more opportunity to provide services and to make more money. It's really quite simple. The Yakuza want money, and they can easily make it in the real estate world.

SHANE MCLEOD: There are already signs of the Yakuza's growing confidence in the property market.

Earlier this month police detained 10 men, including the head of a Yakuza gang, in an investigation of a suspicious property transaction in Tokyo.

Companies linked to the gang had taken control of the ownership of a 12-story building, around the same time as a real estate agent, whose company part owned the building, had been stabbed to death.

And it's not just Japanese companies that suffer harassment.

With foreign investors driving much of the boom in Japanese property, Mr Miyawaki gives the example of an American investment company that's been harassed by Yakuza-linked groups.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: If a Japanese company was investing in New York City and was being harassed by the Mafia, the US Government would put a stop to the harassment immediately. In Japan, however, nothing is done to control Yakuza extortion.

SHANE MCLEOD: Mr Miyawaki says part of the problem is a lack of will by Japan's politicians, some of whom rely on the same Yakuza groups to maintain political support.