TOKYO (TR) – On the afternoon of May 22, Teruaki Takeuchi, the heavily monitored underboss of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest yakuza syndicate, stepped off a train at JR Shinagawa Station in broad daylight and vanished into a waiting car.
Just four days after attending a syndicate funeral in Okinawa Prefecture, the high-ranking mobster was in the capital for a highly secretive dinner that is now sending shockwaves through the underworld, reports evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (June 3).
Takeuchi’s destination was a covert summit with Kazuya Uchibori, president of the powerful Inagawa-kai, and a top-ranking executive from the Sumiyoshi-kai. While the Yamaguchi-gumi and Inagawa-kai have long maintained a close relationship — with Takeuchi and Uchibori sharing a tight “blood brother” bond — the presence of a Sumiyoshi-kai boss was highly unusual.
The Yamaguchi-gumi and the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai are historically not allies. The two groups clashed violently during the bloody 2007 “New Tokyo War” and subsequent turf battles in Saitama Prefecture. However, increasingly strict anti-gang ordinances in recent years have forced an uneasy detente among Japan’s “Big Three” syndicates.
Since a landmark gathering in Yokohama City’s Chinatown in 2016, leaders of the three major syndicates have occasionally met to project unity and deter rival factions. But this recent Shinagawa summit stands out due to the specific Sumiyoshi-kai executive in attendance.
Hideki Kojima, 75, was arrested in April on suspicion of violating the Organized Crime Punishment Law after concealing his identity to purchase a vehicle for his boss. Kojima and his driver are suspected of using a Toyota Alphard, which was purchased between March and December 2024 by a Sumiyoshi-kai executive who concealed his identity, knowing that it was illegally acquired.
“Without having to say it”
Underworld insiders, however, scoff at the idea that the Yamaguchi-gumi and Inagawa-kai elites gathered merely to celebrate his subsequent release on bail.
“When his arrest was reported, this executive was described as a strong candidate to be the next top boss of the Sumiyoshi-kai,” a source familiar with Kanto-area gangs explains to Gendai. “That’s the hint. You can imagine the rest without anyone having to say it.”
The secret meeting comes at a critical time of instability for the Sumiyoshi-kai. Late last year, current Sumiyoshi-kai Chairman Osamu Ogawa was shockingly indicted on suspicion of theft related to a financial dispute over syndicate succession — an unprecedented scandal that has rocked the organization.
With a power vacuum opening at the top of the Sumiyoshi-kai, Gendai believes the clandestine Tokyo dinner suggests Japan’s top underworld powerbrokers are already vetting the man slated to take the throne.
