TOKYO (TR) – Construction of the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Central Tower completed last month. As the name implies, the 21-story structure sits in the middle of the Roppongi entertainment quarter.
Despite its prominent location — situated between the Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown complexes — the completion of the office tower has not been accompanied by fanfare by owner Sumitomo Realty & Development.
This is perhaps not surprising given the troubled past of the property that the building sits on. Dating back five decades, it is a tale of gangsters, shady land deals and court proceedings.

Tosei-kai criminal syndicate
The property was once the home of the infamous Celebrity Choice Club, more commonly abbreviated as TSK.CCC. It was essentially the Roppongi Hills of its day. It boasted night clubs, a beauty salon, a spa, a rooftop garden and a tennis court. The opening gala, in 1973, was attended by big-name celebrities, corporate magnates and dignitaries.
The building was also the headquarters for the of the Tosei-kai criminal syndicate, which was headed by grizzled gangster Hisayuki Machii.
Machii, a first-generation Korean, also headed the company Toa Sogo Kigyo Co., whose abbreviation forms the first part of TSK.CCC.
Through a close relationship with Kazuo Taoka, the chairman of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Machii expanded Toa Sogo Kigyo’s empire in Japan and South Korea. A key element was the Kanpu ferry, which linked Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture and Pusan.
Membership in the Tosei-kai swelled to around 1,500 in the 1960s. Meanwhile, the gang’s presence in Ginza became so large that Machii became known as the “Ginza Tiger.”
Also important to Machii was his relationship with Kodama. Together, they made the boxy, maze-like TSK.CCC building their stronghold.
Bankruptcy
Machii’s fortunes began to sour not long after the opening party due investment failures. Further complicating matters was Kodama’s involvement in the Lockheed Scandal.
Toa Sogo Kigyo declared bankruptcy in 1977, and TSK.CCC slowly fell into disrepair. However, Machii continued to live inside the structure until his death at the age of 79 in 2002.
During the development of TSK.CCC, Machii failed register the various buildings with local authorities. That made determining ownership after his death very difficult.
“In his later years, [Machii] said he didn’t remember who he had borrowed money from,” a reporter told tabloid Shukan Busnhun in 2020. “People claiming to be creditors appeared one after another, and the registered ownership was repeatedly rewritten.”
As well, the site of TSK.CCC — whose structure was demolished in 2008 — had become highly sought after. The year after Machii’s death, the nearby Roppongi Hills complex opened. Located even closer is Tokyo Midtown, whose doors opened in 2007.
Later, Tokyo real estate company Futami Tsusho used its affiliated Toshi Urban Kaihatsu to consolidate the land and demolish it. In 2011, the site was acquired by Sumitomo Realty & Development for 8.1 billion yen.
The story did not end there.
Marathon Asset Management, a U.S. investment firm, filed a lawsuit against Sumitomo Realty & Development, demanding the cancellation of the transfer of ownership registration. It claimed, “We are the true owners.”
Lehman Brothers
On the site Gendai Media, freelance writer Hirotoshi Ito says that Futami Tsusho was able to consolidate the land due to ties with law enforcement.
The background to this is that Tetsuhiko Asai, the elder brother of the company’s representative director, Kenji Asai, was the owner of a dojo in the Japan Karate Shoto Federation and served as shihan (master) for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Kenji Asai and the representative of Toshi Urban Kaihatsu were fellow dojo members and had a strong bond. Further, their source of funding was Lehman Brothers before it went bankrupt, meaning they had ample financial resources.
By April 2008, the site had become a single parcel of land measuring 3,300 square meters through the transfer of ownership at auction and the consolidation of land.
Marathon took over the Lehman debt after its bankruptcy that same year. Therefore, in the company’s view, Futami Tsusho and Toshi Urban Kaihatsu were its shell companies.
But there was one problem: Marathon was not officially listed as the owner. The firm only “thought” it was preserving its rights by having the necessary documents and seals entrusted to its law firm.

Adjacent piece of land
When Toshi Urban Kaihatsu sold the land to Sumitomo Realty & Development in 2011, the price per tsubo was 7.1 million yen, a literal steal considering the market called for a figure around 50 million yen at the time.
In the suit filed by Marathon, they claimed their law firm held documents proving their ownership and the representative of Toshi Urban Kaihatsu recognized its role as a dummy firm and signed a document pledging to that effect.
According to Ito, Marathon later settled with Toshi Urban Kaihatsu. After the firm obtained the 8.1 billion yen that Sumitomo had deposited in court, it sold an adjacent piece of land — measuring approximately 120 tsubo and located, crucially, off Roppongi-dori — to the developer for approximately 3.5 billion yen.
This maneuvering meant that Sumitomo’s outlay for the entire site was 35 million yen per tsubo, still a great deal — and now they have a glimmering glass tower on top of it.