Cops arrest yakuza gang kill suspect

Cops arrest yakuza gang kill suspect

Shirai Shigeharu shows a tattoo which is believed to identify him as being linked to a yakuza gang. He was brought to a police briefing after his arrest. Pornprom Satrabhaya
Shirai Shigeharu shows a tattoo which is believed to identify him as being linked to a yakuza gang. He was brought to a police briefing after his arrest. Pornprom Satrabhaya

Police are probing a link between a yakuza gang and its illegal activities after nabbing its former leading member who fled to Thailand and took shelter here for 12 years to escape a murder charge.

Shirai Shigeharu was arrested on Wednesday night while he was playing Thai chess with his friend in tambon Tha Hin in Lop Buri province's Muang district.

The operation came as a surprise to his associates in the small neighbourhood who regarded him as a "decent, calm man". He was known as "Kobori", the name of an imaginary good-natured Japanese military officer during World War II, taken from a Thai novel.

The 72-year-old admitted he had been a leader of a branch of the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza syndicate, police said. However, he denied involvement in colluding with his gang to kill a rival yakuza leader, according to an initial interrogation conducted yesterday by deputy national police chief Wirachai Songmetta.

Police decided to charge him on three counts of immigration-related wrongdoings as he allegedly entered and stayed in Thailand without permission and failed to inform officers of his whereabouts. They are probing whether he is involved in other crimes here.

It is suspected Yamaguchi-gumi may be involved in some illegal activities here including a call centre scam, human trafficking and money laundering by hiring local people as its nominees, a police source said.

In Japan, Yamaguchi-gumi is backed by up to 20,000 gangsters. Mr Shigeharu, who is heavily tattooed in the manner of members of that gang, allegedly oversaw the gang's illegal gambling business. Police say they tracked him down after showed off his tattoos on social media.

According to an initial investigation, Mr Shigeharu and seven other gangsters were allegedly involved in a murder plot in 2003. Police said Mr Shirai fled to Thailand two years later when he married a Thai woman and kept a low profile.

Tha Hin villagers said Mr Shigeharu did not appear to be dangerous. Every day he went to "collect dried leaves and clean the area" where people come to play Thai chess, one villager said. He was sometimes called "yakuza" but he never reacted to this, a villager added. Investigators yesterday took him to inspect his previous workplace at a rice mill near a house of his ex-wife.

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