Emperor of Loan Sharks

Emperor of Loan Sharks is the book’s epithet for Susumu Kajiyama, a crime boss whose lending business was only the visible center of a much larger commercial network. Beginning in 2000, he built a system of nearly a thousand loan-sharking outfits across Japan, backed by the Goryo-kai, a subdivision of the Yamaguchi-gumi. The title captures both the scale of his operation and its governing method: customers, employees, companies, and financial channels were drawn into an enterprise that could present itself as ordinary business while extracting money at every turn.

The Lending Network

Kajiyama’s operation sought out people with heavy debts and poor credit who could no longer borrow from consumer-loan companies. It bought databases of such prospective customers and used personal phone calls and email to draw them in. Storefront corporations handled the lending and helped launder the proceeds; to a visitor, their offices could look much like legitimate consumer-loan shops, with welcoming reception desks and staff. The loans were available to people who had few alternatives, but the interest could be from ten to 1,250 times the legal limit.

The distinction between a loan and a trap became stark when borrowers fell behind. A collection agency pursued late repayments with threats against debtors and their families. The book describes an operation that depended not only on high charges but on the pressure brought to bear after a customer could no longer keep up. By the time the police were investigating, more than 60,000 people had paid illegal and exorbitant rates. Authorities estimated the group’s revenue at several billion dollars, while a central question remained unanswered: where had the money gone?

A Criminal Franchise in Everyday Business

Kajiyama’s empire extended well beyond lending. Its front companies included real estate and construction firms and a share in a marina; it also ran a sex parlor and established a religious corporation in Hokkaido. He made employees participate in transactions that moved money through businesses associated with the network. Loan-shop staff had to buy lunches from SK Shokuhin, while managers were directed to dine at a Korean barbecue restaurant owned by one of Kajiyama’s associates. Employees and managers were also sent to designated hot springs and beach resorts, with travel and accommodation arranged through the business network. These were not incidental perks: the compelled spending helped channel proceeds through affiliated enterprises.

The SK names made the reach of the system legible. Companies such as SK Housing and SK Finance carried Kajiyama’s initials, and SK Finance in Shinjuku presented itself as a consumer-loan operation. It held a license from the Tokyo government and displayed it as evidence of legitimacy; the company was also a real-estate business. The government’s tōichi rating was available to firms of this kind, but the book notes that most received permission without a meaningful background check. Real property could then serve as loan collateral, giving the network a way to seize and sell property after a borrower defaulted, without sharing the proceeds with an outside intermediary.

Following the Money

The investigation’s difficulty lay in tracing profits across this web of apparently separate businesses and accounts. Kajiyama had spent years visiting Las Vegas, maintained casino accounts and an account with a California bank, and withdrew money in the United States. After receiving information from U.S. authorities, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had been examining his Las Vegas transactions since summer. The Department of Homeland Security, the Nevada Gaming Commission, and the FBI were also investigating him on suspicion of violating U.S. money-laundering laws. The MGM Grand made only a limited effort to cooperate.

The book connects the title’s grand scale to concrete sums and transactions. Kajiyama lost a couple of million dollars gambling at the MGM Grand, an expenditure that investigators considered in the context of possible money laundering. More than $2 million was seized from a safe-deposit box in Tokyo, and a follow-up investigation examined his spending in Las Vegas. In a separate transaction, a henchman arranged for $1 million to be brought to a parking lot in central Tokyo from a casino representative. Another henchman, who had withdrawn more than $1 million from Kajiyama’s account, traveled repeatedly to the United States carrying attaché cases full of cash. Each episode offered a glimpse of the funds in motion, but the full destination of Kajiyama’s profits remained uncertain.

Arrest, Sentence, and the Title’s Irony

Kajiyama turned himself in at the police department accompanied by his lawyer. His repeated arrests and releases followed a pattern: the police brought new charges, released him, and arrested him again, while he confessed to nothing. The book presents this cycle as the Kajiyama dance, a sign of how the investigation continued without a clear account of the money or an admission from its central figure.

On February 9, 2005, Kajiyama was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. The Tokyo courts initially declined to fine him five billion yen, an amount equal to the total he had taken from people. The contrast between a substantial prison sentence and the unresolved question of hidden wealth leaves the epithet with an edge of irony: the punishment did not establish that the money had been found or recovered. The book describes Kajiyama as handsome and probably charming, noting that several mistresses would vouch for his appeal. That personal charisma sits beside the scale of the system attributed to him, rather than explaining away its methods.

After the conviction, Kajiyama’s henchmen dispersed, and the Goryo-kai ceased to operate under that name. Some of his former followers moved into elaborate telephone scams, impersonating the child or grandchild of someone they targeted and persuading them to transfer cash by claiming an urgent predicament. The change in the group’s activity did not erase the business structure that the title evokes: a criminal enterprise able to combine personal persuasion, corporate fronts, debt collection, and money movement. Emperor of Loan Sharks names Kajiyama as its central figure, but the account also shows the many employees, associates, institutions, and customers caught up in the machinery around him.