OSAKA (TR) – Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested a member of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi criminal syndicate over an incident in which a truck slammed into the office of a rival gang in Osaka City’s Nishi Ward earlier this year, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Oct. 11).
At around 2:25 a.m. on February 8, the four-ton truck backed into the front of an office of the Yamamoto-kai, an affiliate gang of the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi.
The impact damaged an area — measuring 2.4 meters wide and 1.7 meters tall — of a wall near a door on the first floor of the seven-floor structure. The driver fled the scene after the incident, police said at the time.
Police have accused Hideo Sugawara, a 58-year-old member of the Okuura-gumi, which is an affiliate of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, and three other persons of causing property damage. It was not revealed whether the suspects admit to the allegations.
According to a previous report, the day before the incident, a member of the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi assaulted a Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi member on a street in Osaka.
In the recent past, the Yamamoto-kai was under the Okuura-gumi. However, the gang moved to the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi in January.
Police believe that the incidents are connected to a feud that developed after the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi broke off ties with the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi in April of last year.
