Goryo-kai

Goryo-kai was a subdivision of Yamaguchi-gumi built around a corporate model of organized crime. Under Susumu Kajiyama, it expanded loan sharking into a nationwide network supported by storefronts, front companies, and non-yakuza workers; after Kajiyama’s conviction, the group ceased to exist under its own name, and Japan revised its lending laws.

Structure and Business Model

Goryo-kai’s place within Yamaguchi-gumi joined a criminal organization to a business network. Kajiyama was described as a corporate blood brother of the group, and the scale of his operation depended not only on yakuza members but also on hundreds of civilians willing to work in the loan-sharking industry. The business could therefore present an ordinary commercial face even while its profits and methods remained tied to organized crime.

Beginning in 2000, Kajiyama built a network of close to a thousand loan-shark outfits across Japan. His operation acquired databases of heavily indebted people who could no longer borrow from consumer-loan companies, then approached potential customers by personal phone calls and email. Corporations supplied storefronts, handled transactions, and laundered funds. To a customer entering one of the shops, the business might resemble a legitimate consumer lender; it offered loans unavailable elsewhere, but at interest rates described as ten to 1,250 times the legal limit.

The system’s pressure intensified when borrowers fell behind. A collection agency pursued repayment with threats against debtors and their families. The contrast between the reassuring storefront and the coercive collection operation was central to the business: access to credit drew customers in, while debt and intimidation made escape difficult.

Front Companies and Captive Spending

Kajiyama’s empire extended well beyond lending. It included a real-estate agency, a construction firm, and a share in a marina, while a sex parlor was used to launder money by requiring employees to spend there. He also established a religious corporation in Hokkaido and required employees to make donations, with agency managers instructed to attend meetings at a Tokyo hotel.

Many companies carried the initials SK. Employees at loan-sharking shops had to buy lunches from SK Shokuhin; managers were expected to dine at a Korean barbecue restaurant owned by one of Kajiyama’s associates. Employees and managers were also directed to use designated hot springs and beach resorts, with travel and accommodation arranged through the network. These required purchases and trips moved money through businesses linked to the operation, making the organization’s own workforce part of its financial machinery.

SK Finance in Shinjuku illustrated how the enterprise could borrow the appearance of legitimacy. Its sign, licensing, and consumer-loan format resembled those of an ordinary lender. The company also held a real-estate license, allowing property pledged as loan collateral to be seized and sold without an outside intermediary claiming part of the proceeds. The account notes that the Tokyo government’s tōichi rating was granted to many such firms without a substantive background check, leaving official permission to operate an unreliable measure of a company’s bona fides.

Investigation and Enforcement

The police raided Goryo-kai’s headquarters in Shizuoka Prefecture on August 11. The operation began late because of a traffic jam, and reporters who had received advance notice had prepared for a raid that did not start on schedule. When it got underway around noon, officers in riot gear and plainclothes investigators entered and left the building carrying cardboard boxes that appeared to contain documents.

The investigation also reached beyond Japan. Special agents Jerry Kawai and Mike Cox at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiated an inquiry into Kajiyama, leading to the seizure of more than half a million dollars of his money in the United States. Most of the seized funds was returned to victims in Japan. A separate account of Kajiyama’s overseas activity came through Cyclops, who said Kajiyama had lost a couple of million dollars gambling at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and kept money in a United States safe-deposit box and overseas bank accounts. Cyclops suggested the gambling losses might have served as money laundering, but presented that as a possibility rather than a confirmed finding.

Conviction and Aftermath

After Kajiyama’s conviction, his henchmen dispersed and Goryo-kai no longer existed under that name. Some of his former disciples moved into elaborate telephone scams, impersonating a mark’s child or grandchild to demand an urgent money transfer. The book observes that this later enterprise apparently brought in less money, though it remained a continuation of their criminal activity.

The conviction also had consequences beyond the organization. Japan revised its lending laws to impose harsher penalties for loan sharking and set a clear ceiling on the interest rates that even legitimate consumer-loan companies could charge. Goryo-kai’s history thus ends not simply with the breakup of a group, but with a legal response to the lending practices its network had made profitable.