Japan’s Miss International speaks out against yakuza mob

Japan’s Miss International speaks out against yakuza mob
Japan’s Miss International speaks out against yakuza mob

Japan’s Miss International speaks out against yakuza mob

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One of the international stories that recently caught our eye involves a contest between a Japanese beauty queen and the Japanese yakuza. Ikumi Yoshimatsu won the Miss International beauty contest in 2012. But when the pageant came around this year, she didn’t hand off her crown. Instead she held a press conference. Yoshimatsu said she’d been stalked and threatened by Japanese mobsters. In response she spoke out and filed criminal charges against an executive at one of Japan’s top talent agencies. Organized crime has long been a big player in Japan’s entertainment industry. And apparently they remain so, despite being targeted by the Tokyo police and were called an international threat by President Obama. Jake Adelstein has been an investigative journalist in Japan for 20 years and is author of the book “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On the Police Beat In Japan,” and expert on Japan’s organized crime groups, the yakuza. He joins us today. (Photo: Flickr/Dick Thomas Johnson)