TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested an upper-level member of a yakuza criminal syndicate for establishing an office in Nakano Ward that is too close to a school than what is allowed by law, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Nov. 24).
In November of last year, Kenjiro Tamaru, a 40-year-old executive of a syndicate affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai, and three other suspects allegedly established an office for the gang inside an apartment near a middle school in the Yayoicho area, according to police.
As mandated by a Tokyo Metropolitan Government ordinance, it is prohibited for a boryokudan (criminal syndicate) to have an office within 200 meters of a nursery or elementary school.
With dumb bells found inside the office, the suspects claimed to police that the space was in fact a sports gym. However, police deemed that the operation was in fact for the use of the gang.
Tamaru, who also uses the surname Chuetsu, is a former member of the Kanto Rengo bosozoku motorcycle gang. Police believe he formed the Chuetsu-gumi, an affiliate gang of the Sumiyoshi-kai, after leaving Kanto Rengo.
The arrest is not the first for Tamaru. Earlier this year, police arrested him for establishing another office too close to a school in the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward.
