Officers allege that Takashi Kinase, 38, and Keishiro Yasuda, 29, both former members of the Inagawa-kai, killed 33-year-old Nobuhiro Maeda, carved up his body and buried the pieces under the floorboards of a home in Ito, Shizuoka in April of 2012.
Police also arrested Daisuke Naruto, a 51-year-old real estate businessman, on charges of complicity. He has reportedly denied the allegations.
According to police, the two ex-Inagawa-kai members worked with another suspect to commit a string of thefts from a base of operations in Kanagawa Prefecture.
In one case, the members of the group posed as employees of a delivery company while robbing 170,000 yen in cash from a safe inside the home of a woman in Ome City, Tokyo in July of 2012. Tokyo police arrested Kinase, Yasuda and the other man in June of the following year.
During a subsequent investigation into the matter, police concluded that Maeda, a former member of the Yamaguchi-gumi organized crime group, also participated in the crimes and had gone missing the year before. One of the suspects, all of whom are currently in prison on theft charges, admitted to police that they killed Maeda.
In July, Tokyo and Kanagawa police launched a joint investigation into the matter. A search of the residence in Ito later revealed the corpse of Maeda.
Officers are now seeking to apply murder charges to the suspects.
