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Tokyo cops nab yakuza in ¥16 million blackmail of ex-postal employee

Takahiro Yamamoto
Takahiro Yamamoto

TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 53-year-old organized crime member over the alleged extortion of more than 10 million yen from a former postal employee, reports TBS News (June 22).

Between July and September of last year, Takahiro Yamamoto, a member of an third-tier gang of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, allegedly blackmailed the former employee, a 44-year-old woman living in Kita Ward, into paying 16 million yen.

The woman had accrued debts totaling more than 20 million due to failed investments. The gang member told her that he would erase the liabilities. “You will face serious consequences if you do not listen (to me),” the suspect reportedly threatened. “You can’t escape from me.”

Yamamoto denies the charges, telling police he did not make threats.

Of the 16 million yen paid, about 12 million yen came from a retirement settlement provided to the victim after she left her job as a postal employee, according to Fuji News Network (June 22).

As a part of the investigation, police searched an office of the Yamaken-gumi, an upper-tier gang of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi.