Mafia and Charity: Japanese Mafia Helps Quake Victims

From The Daily Beast:

The worst of times sometimes brings out the best in people, even in Japan’s “losers” a.k.a. the Japanese mafia, the yakuza. Hours after the first shock waves hit, two of the largest crime groups went into action, opening their offices to those stranded in Tokyo, and shipping food, water, and blankets to the devastated areas in two-ton trucks and whatever vehicles they could get moving.

It’s not the first time the Japanese mafia has helped people in a crisis either:

To those not familiar with the yakuza, it may come as a shock to hear of their philanthropy, but this is not the first time that they have displayed a humanitarian impulse. In 1995, after the Kobe earthquake, the Yamaguchi-gumi was one of the most responsive forces on the ground, quickly getting supplies to the affected areas and distributing them to the local people.

The Japanese mafia aren’t the only criminals to do “good”, either. Al Capone operated soup kitchens during the Great Depression - in fact, their invention is often (probably erroneously) contributed to him. According to Wikipedia, he was considered a “modern-day Robin Hood.”

There’s been several times where the American Mafia cooperated with the US Government - during World War II to help keep New York free from saboteurs, several times in attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, and even once in helping find bodies of murder victims.

Of course, there’s protection racketeering. That’s where you pay the Mafia to protect you and your business, normally from theft. The problem here, of course, is sometimes the mafia doesn’t do the protection, or the protection is from the mafia themselves.

None of this venerates what the mafia does in general. They kill people - so much in fact they where once labeled as “Murder, Inc.”

Well, I hope that post was worth reading…

Until next time

Joe