TOKYO (TR) – Police raided the offices of the Yamaguchi-gumi criminal syndicate on Monday and arrested one member over the stabbing death of a consultant in Tokyo in 2006, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Oct. 24).
Hideya Matsumoto, 52, a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest criminal organization, was taken into custody by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in Yoshida, Shizuoka Prefecture for ordering the murder of real estate consultant Kazuoki Nozaki, who was found stabbed to death on a street in the Aoyama district of Minato Ward on the evening of March 5, 2006.
The 58-year-old Nozaki had been administering the systematic eviction of tenants illegally occupying a building in Shibuya Ward. The metropolitan police department is presently investigating problems that Nozaki might have had with the Goto-gumi criminal organization, an affiliated gang of the Yamaguchi-gumi.
In addition, Matsumoto had assisted Takashi Kondo, 43, a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi-affiliated Rachi-gumi criminal organization, in obtaining a passport, according to police investigators.
Kondo had been placed on an international wanted list in connection with the Nozaki killing. Then in April of this year he was shot to death in Thailand, and law enforcement is also investigating Matsumoto’s possible involvement.