Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse enters the narrative through an investigation into the overseas movement of money associated with organized crime. The book reports that a Japanese employee of the bank helped Susumu Kajiyama place more than $50 million in a Swiss account, which was subsequently frozen. This disclosure expanded a story that had initially focused on smaller sums and exposed the scale of the funds involved.

The Swiss Account

The account surfaced several weeks after the reporting had begun to focus on Kajiyama’s money. The initial investigation concerned millions of dollars connected to his activities; the later revelation that more than $50 million had been deposited in Switzerland substantially exceeded that figure. Credit Suisse is identified through the involvement of one of its Japanese employees, who helped Kajiyama stash the money. The account was then frozen in Switzerland.

Foreign Banks and Money Laundering

The episode forms part of the book’s wider account of why yakuza sought out foreign financial institutions: such institutions could be used to hold or move money beyond Japan. Credit Suisse was not presented as an isolated case. The narrative also describes Citibank’s loss of its private banking license in Japan in September 2004, partly because of allegations that it had been used by the yakuza to launder money. A law-enforcement figure familiar with that investigation identified Saburo Takeshita, a corporate blood brother of Tadamasa Goto, as one of Citi Japan’s biggest customers; another source alleged that a senior Yamaguchi-gumi figure held an account there in his own name. These comparisons situate the Swiss account within a broader pattern of reported links between criminal networks and foreign banking.

Place in the Investigation

The Swiss disclosure changed the scale and direction of the Kajiyama story. Once the investigation’s focus shifted to Switzerland, other reporters took over, while the narrator turned his attention to a separate investigation of Tadamasa Goto and his liver transplant. Credit Suisse’s role in the book is therefore specific but consequential: the bank is named in the account of a large overseas holding, and the freezing of the Swiss account marks a concrete response to the discovery.