US steps up offensive against Japan's yakuza gangs Kiyoshi Takayama, a key member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, is featured on a Japanese magazine cover. The latest crackdown on Japan's crime syndicates crossed the Pacific this week after the Obama administration moved to freeze the assets of the country's most powerful yakuza gang and ban it from conducting business in the US. The US treasury department said it had introduced the measures in response to the yakuza's increasing involvement in drug and human trafficking, prostitution, money laundering and other cross-border activities. It added that those activities had brought it "billions of dollars" a year in illegal earnings. The sanctions target the two men at the apex of Japan's most feared crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi: Kenichi Shinoda, the gang's 70-year-old leader and his second-in-command, Kiyoshi Takayama, 64. Shinoda, who is also known as Shinobu Tsukasa, was released from prison last April after serving a six-year sentence for firearms possession. Under the sanctions, US citizens will be banned from making transactions with the two men, whose American-owned assets will be frozen. The US treasury department said it has imposed similar sanctions against seven leading members of a multinational syndicate called the Brothers' Circle. The measures are part of President Obama's attempts to "target transnational criminal organisations and isolate them from the global financial system," David Cohen, the US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. Today's action casts a spotlight on key members of criminal organizations that have engaged in a wide range of serious crimes across the globe. They use our financial system, they use our commercial system to both penetrate the markets, to disrupt the markets and to make use of their illicit proceeds. We will continue to work with our international partners to target those who deal in violence, narcotics, money laundering, and the exploitation of women and children. The Yamaguchi-gumi, whose members account for just under half of Japan's 80,000 gangsters, has been called the "Walmart" of the country's underworld, for its ability to brush aside opponents and generate huge earnings. Under Shinoda, it has established a presence in Tokyo, far from its home turf in the western port city of Kobe. It has moved away from traditional sources of income into new areas such as finance, construction, the securities markets, and the formation of front companies with a presence overseas. The treasury department said Shinoda and Takayama were involved in "serious criminal activities, including weapons trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering." "As leaders of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, both Shinoda and Takayama play key roles in directing the syndicate's policies and settling disputes with other yakuza syndicates," it said. The US offensive was introduced after Obama issued an executive order last year. It coincides with fresh attempts in Japan to rein in the yakuza after years of tacit acceptance of their supposed role as a deterrent against petty crime in urban neighbourhoods. At the end of last year, Tokyo became the last of Japan's 47 prefectures to introduce measures aimed at pressuring legitimate businesses to cut their ties with the mob. Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Osamu Fujimura, said the government would watch the US administration's moves "with interest." "'We are exchanging information with the US on a regular basis," he added. Despite their prominent role in some sectors of Japanese society, yakuza membership is declining. In 2010 there were 78,600 registered gangsters, a fall of 14% since 1991, according to the national police agency. The agency said Yamaguchi-gumi membership fell 4% in 2010 to 34,900 members from the previous year.