FUKUOKA (TR) – Satoru Nomura, the top boss of the notorious Kudo-kai crime syndicate, is ignoring court orders to pay millions of yen in compensation to his victims, forcing them to seize his assets in a desperate bid to collect, reports the Nishi Nippon Shimbun (June 11).
For years, there was an unwritten rule in Japan’s underworld: even the yakuza obey civil court judgments. However, legal experts warn that crime syndicates like the Kitakyushu City-based Kudo-kai are increasingly refusing to pay out.
The defiance has sparked outrage among lawyers, who fear that victims who braved the terror of yakuza retaliation to fight in court are now being forced to suffer in silence.
On the 10th, the Fukuoka District Court’s Kokura Branch opened bidding on a 1,000-square-meter plot of land in a Kitakyushu residential area owned by the 79-year-old Nomura. Victims seized the property — currently used as a parking lot — after the syndicate boss refused to pay court-mandated damages.
“I just hope a buyer is finally found”
But selling the yakuza boss’s property is proving difficult. This marks the third attempt to auction off the land. After attracting zero bids in January and March, the court slashed the minimum bid price from 12.3 million yen to about 6 million yen.
“We never anticipated a situation where the compensation wouldn’t be paid,” said a lawyer supporting the victims. “I just hope a buyer is finally found.”
Since Fukuoka police launched an aggressive “annihilation operation” against the syndicate in 2014, victims of assassinations and violent assaults have filed multiple lawsuits against Nomura and his 70-year-old second-in-command, Fumio Tanoue, citing “employer liability.” Nomura is currently appealing a life sentence for his role in four bloody attacks on civilians.
“Funds are bottoming out”
Initially, the syndicate paid its debts. In 2020, the Kudo-kai used 40 million yen from the sale of its demolished headquarters to settle claims for the 2012 shooting of a former prefectural police inspector and the 2014 stabbing of a dentist.
However, Nomura has completely ignored recent rulings finalized between 2024 and 2025. He owes roughly 100 million yen to the victims of a slashed snack bar operator and a fatally shot construction company executive. At least three other civil suits are still ongoing.
A former police investigator noted that the relentless crackdown has likely drained the Kudo-kai’s coffers. “Nomura and the syndicate’s funds are bottoming out, making them reluctant to pay,” the source said.
In a brazen bid to protect his remaining wealth, Nomura has reportedly transferred other real estate into a “trust” managed by relatives, effectively shielding it from seizure. Victims’ lawyers have since filed another lawsuit demanding the transfer be nullified.
Nomura’s legal team for the compensation lawsuits declined to comment, stating only that the trials have concluded.
