NAGANO (TR) – Nagano Prefectural Police last week released a photograph of a member of a criminal syndicate who is wanted over the shooting of a rival gangster in the village of Miyada, reports Nagano Broadcasting (Oct. 5).
At around 5:00 p.m. on September 28, Shigeyuki Kanazawa, a 52-year-old upper-level member of the Kizuna-kai, allegedly opened fire at Satoshi Miyashita, the 48-year-old chairman of the Takeuchi-gumi, while he sat in a car parked in a parking lot for a ramen noodle shop.
The victim then alerted emergency services by telephone. Upon the arrival of emergency personnel, he was found collapsed outside the vehicle with a wound to the abdomen.
The victim was transported to a hospital in a conscious state. However, his condition was considered serious, police said previously.
Police obtained a warrant for Kanazawa’s arrest on suspicion of attempted murder. In the photograph, Kanazawa, the number-two ranking member of the Kizuna-kai, is shown wearing a dark shirt.
Realignment in the underworld
In 2017, the Kizuna-kai formed after the dissolution of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, which itself formed following the split of the Yamaguchi-gumi two years before.
The moves have left Japan’s criminal underworld with three factions
once connected to the original Yamaguchi-gumi. For the Kizuna-kai, headed by Yoshinori Oda, it has struggled to maintain power — in fact, the name it is using now is its third since forming.
The Takeuchi-gumi, based in Matsumoto City, Nagano, was once a gang within the Kizuna-kai. On the morning of the incident, the Takeuchi-gumi announced to its members that it would be joining the Takayama-gumi, an affiliate gang of the Yamaguchi-gumi.
Police suspect that the shooting was the result of the realignment in the underworld.
