HYOGO (TR) – Police have arrested a 50-year-old member of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate who had been on the run for seven years in connection with the brazen daytime assassination of a rival yakuza member, reports the Kobe Shimbun (June 23).
Tatsumi Hishikawa was taken into custody in Yamaguchi Prefecture on suspicion of murder and violations of the Firearms and Swords Control Law early Tuesday, the Hyogo Prefectural Police announced.
The fatal attack took place at around 10:00 a.m. on September 12, 2017, on a street in Kobe City’s Nagata Ward. Hishikawa and his accomplices allegedly ambushed a vehicle carrying Yoshinori Oda, the boss of the rival Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi (currently known as Kizuna-kai).
While the gang boss escaped, 44-year-old gang member Yuko Kusumoto was shot dead during the assault.
Triggerman
Investigators identified Hishikawa as the triggerman based on evidence left at the crime scene, including a vehicle and a helmet, and placed him on a national wanted list. Two handguns were later discovered abandoned on a street in Kobe’s Kita Ward, with ballistics confirming one of them as the murder weapon.
At the time of the shooting, Hishikawa was a member of a group affiliated with the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi.
The killing was part of a bloody and prolonged turf war. The Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi splintered from Japan’s largest underworld syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, in 2015. Two years later, the Kobe faction fractured again, leading to the formation of the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi.
Since the initial split, a wave of retaliatory violence has plagued the region. In 2019, a Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi executive was gunned down with an assault rifle on a street in Amagasaki.
In 2023, a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate boss was shot dead inside a Kobe ramen shop he operated, resulting in the arrest of a Kizuna-kai executive earlier this year.
According to investigators, a police officer in Yamaguchi spotted a person resembling Hishikawa. Hyogo Prefectural Police later rushed to the scene and confirmed him to be the suspect.
