Japan Inc. is engulfed in its worst mob scandal in years and it's shining a rare light on the links between big business and shadowy organised crime groups usually known for low-brow ventures like extortion and loan sharking.
But with membership falling as police ratchet up a crackdown, experts say the yakuza are branching far outside their traditional business into everything from insider trading to funding business startups.
"Insider trading has become huge -- you can make much more money manipulating stocks" than extorting businesses, says Jake Adelstein, a crime writer whose bestselling memoir "Tokyo Vice" is set to become a Hollywood movie.
Adelstein, a former reporter at Japan's top-selling Yomiuri daily, likens the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's biggest organised crime group, to "Goldman Sachs with guns".
Many mobsters -- forever associated with full-body tattoos and lopped-off pinky fingers -- have now ditched that tough guy persona in favour of tailored suits and clean-cut look that could pass in any boardroom, Adelstein said.
"They're savvy investors," he said added. "They like to gamble."
The yakuza occupy a grey area in Japan's usually law-abiding society.
They are both feared and loathed as social outcasts, while they're revered in equal measure through film, fanzines and manga cartoons.
