FUKUOKA (TR) – The male manager of a pair of pachinko parlors in Kitakyushu City on Tuesday sought advice from the public safety commission about repeated extortion by a local organized crime group, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Sep. 16).
The manager, 68, says that he has paid 40 million yen in protection money — termed mikajimeryo — to two bosses in the Kitakyushu-based Kudo-kai over a 15-year period.
In July, the manager says he paid a 67-year-old boss one million yen. For June and July, he paid the other boss, 59, a total of 300,000 yen on three occasions.
In 2010, Fukuoka Prefecture enacted legislation that bans such payments. Since then, there have been three claims lodged with the local authorities. This is the first case involving a pachinko parlor.
The manager opened his first shop in 2000. He has paid the Kudo-kai twice annually, once during the obon holiday period and again at the end of the year.
He opened his second shop five years later. For this business, payments to the gang amounted to 100,000 yen each month.
