Japan Police Launch Teams to Combat “Tokuryu” Crime Groups

Tokyo, Oct. 1 (Jiji Press)–Japanese police Wednesday launched special teams to reinforce their fight against “tokuryu” ad hoc crime groups made up of anonymous members. The National Police Agency and Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department took the action with no sign of decline seen for crimes by tokuryu groups, whose members are connected through social media for illegal activities such as fraud and robbery. The new teams will gather and analyze information across organizational boundaries to spot core tokuryu members and concentrate their investigative power on arresting and eradicating such groups. At a ceremony to mark the launch of the NPA’s information analysis office, agency Commissioner-General Yoshinobu Kusunoki stressed: “Whether our countermeasures prove successful will have a significant impact on the country’s public safety. We are at a crucial stage.” “We must find out core group members, arrest them in an intensive and strategic manner and break down their illegal business models,” Kusunoki also said. The new office will put together information about tokuryu groups gathered from various prefectural police departments and internal divisions, including those for criminal probes and the safety of communities. By analyzing the groups from multiple angles, the office intends to identify key figures engaged in giving directions to perpetrators and managing funds, in order to choose targets of crackdowns. The use of artificial intelligence technology is being considered to analyze information and make organizational charts of such groups. The MPD, for its part, set up a special headquarters for tokuryu investigations. Headed by the deputy superintendent-general, the 140-strong team will engage in strategy planning, including determining what laws should be applied. The MPD also formed a special team for cracking down on tokuryu groups by assembling police officers from prefectural police departments nationwide. Its members will be increased to 200 by spring. Through the reorganization of its criminal probe and organized crime control bureaus, the MPD set up a 450-member special investigative division focusing on fraud and other tokuryu crimes. In a ceremony marking the launch of the headquarters, MPD Superintendent-General Yuji Sakoda said, “I hope you will take various measures more speedily with a determination to arrest ringleaders.” Japanese police can carry out investigations into organized crimes across regional borders based on instructions from the NPA commissioner-general. Authorities will consider applying this wide-area investigation method to probes into tokuryu crimes. The authorities also plan to reinforce collaboration and information sharing with foreign investigative teams. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]