- Yoshio Kodama
Yoshio Kodama (児玉誉士夫 "Kodama Yoshio";
February 18 ,1911 -January 17 ,1984 ) was a prominent figure in the rise of organized crime inJapan . The most famous 'kuromaku ', or behind-the-scenes power broker, of the 20th century, he was active in Japan's political arena and criminal underworld from the 1950s to the early 1970s.Born in
Nihonmatsu , Japan, Kodama lived with relatives in Japanese-occupiedKorea early in his life, and during that time formed an ultranationalist group with the intent to assassinate variousJapan esepolitician s. He was caught and served a prison term of three and a half years.After his release, the
Japanese government contracted Kodama to help move supplies for the Japanese war effort out ofcontinent alAsia and into Japan. He accomplished this through a network of allies he made during his time working in Korea as a youth. Kodama became involved in thedrug trade at this time, movingopiate s to Japan along with the supplies he was paid by the government to smuggle. He formed a vast network of allies and gained a fortune (more than $175 million dollars U.S., making him one of the richest men in Asia) during this time.At the end of
World War II , Kodama was arrested by theUnited States as a Class A war criminal. He was held inSugamo Prison withRyoichi Sasakawa , where the two formed a long friendship. While locked up, he wrote his "Sugamo Diary" (a chronicle of his experience in prison) and "I Was Defeated" (an autobiographical work).The U.S. intelligence community later secured his release in exchange for his aid in fighting
Communism in Asia. Kodama, being a right-wing ultranationalist, eagerly obliged, using his fortune and network of contacts to quell labor disputes, root out Communist sympathizers, and otherwise fight the socialist presence in Japan. In 1949, the CIA paid him to smuggle a shipment oftungsten out of China. The shipment never arrived but Kodama kept his money.Kodama used his power in the yakuza to suppress anything he deemd the least bit Communist or anti-nationalist. In 1949 he ordered the
Meiraki-gumi , an affiliated gang, to break up a labour movement at theHokutan coal mine. He also. offered his support to the anti-communist right-wing Liberal Democratic Party.During this period, Kodama used his underworld connections to help unite the various gangs (which had greatly proliferated in the years immediately following World War II). The short-lived
Kanto-kai was the most prominent example of these efforts. He also brokered a truce between theYamaguchi-gumi and the Tosei-kai, headed by his colleagueHisayuki Machii .Kodama was also involved in a number of scandals in the post-war era, many of which involved United States businesses and the
CIA . Most notable of these was the Lockheed L-1011 sales scandal in the 1970s, which effectively marked the end of his career. After the Lockheed scandal, disillusioned ultranationalist movie starMitsuyasu Maeno attempted to assassinate Kodama by flying a plane into his Tokyo house,kamikaze -style. The attempt failed.He died in his sleep of a stroke on
January 17 ,1984 .External links
* [http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/gang/yakuza/3.html Crime Library - Yakuza godfathers]
* [http://metropolis.japantoday.com/BigInJapan/371/biginjapaninc.htm Yoshio Kodama bio]
* [http://vikingphoenix.com/public/JapanIncorporated/ultranationalists/kodama1.htm Bio]
* [http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/Kodama.html Bio]
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