HIROSHIMA - Police are investigating a yakuza gang in Hiroshima after its members allegedly cleared about 3,000 square meters of privately owned forest and used heavy machinery to build an unauthorized access road.
About 120 officers searched the headquarters of the Kyoseikai crime syndicate in Hiroshima on July 15 in connection with a road believed to have been carved into woodland on a mountain behind the compound.
Investigators suspect the group built the work road without permission on forestland owned by another person.
Police arrested Shingo Kawashita, head of the Kyoseikai-affiliated Harada-gumi group, and four other members on July 14.
The five are suspected of cutting down trees without authorization and using heavy equipment to construct the road over a period of about one year beginning in April 2025.
Police said trees had been cleared across an area of approximately 3,000 square meters.
Investigators have not disclosed whether the five suspects have admitted to the allegations. Their motive remains unknown.
The origins of the Kyoseikai can be traced to the violent struggles for territory and influence that reshaped the city’s underworld after World War II.
Organized crime groups re-emerged in Hiroshima during the chaotic postwar years, competing over gambling, entertainment districts, construction work and other sources of income. A long-running conflict between the gambling-based Oka-gumi and the street-vendor-based Murakami-gumi began after an armed attack on an Oka-gumi gambling venue in November 1946. The fighting continued in various forms for more than a decade and became known as the First Hiroshima Pistol War.
The Kyoseikai was formally established in May 1964, during another period of intense gang warfare. Tatsuo Yamamura, head of the Yamamura-gumi, brought together seven organizations to create a federation initially known as the Political Association Kyoseikai. Its formation was intended to unite several Hiroshima groups under a common structure while resisting rival forces, including organizations linked to the Yamaguchi-gumi, which was expanding from the Kansai region.
The organization emerged during the Second Hiroshima Pistol War, a conflict that lasted from 1963 until 1967 and involved shootings, bombings and retaliatory attacks. The prolonged violence later became closely associated with the public image of Hiroshima’s postwar underworld and helped inspire the setting and characters of the "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" film series.
Yamamura retired in 1965 and was succeeded by Takeshi Hattori. Hisa Yamada, who served as the organization’s senior executive, later assumed effective control after Hattori was arrested in connection with the bombing of the home of a Yamaguchi-gumi leader during the second conflict.
Internal tensions did not disappear after the Kyoseikai was formed. A leadership struggle erupted in 1969 after Yamada was targeted in a shooting linked to a rival faction within the organization. The incident developed into the Third Hiroshima Pistol War, which continued into the early 1970s and involved clashes between the Kyoseikai’s mainstream leadership and breakaway or opposing groups.
Yamada became the third chairman in November 1970. He sought to transform the Kyoseikai from a loose federation of semi-independent groups into a centralized hierarchy under the chairman’s authority. The restructuring deepened resistance among rival factions, and internal conflicts continued for years before eventually subsiding.
The organization later passed through several generations of leadership. Isao Okimoto became the fourth chairman, followed by Osamu Moriya as the fifth and Susumu Arase as the sixth. Under successive leaders, the Kyoseikai remained centered in Hiroshima Prefecture rather than developing the nationwide reach of Japan’s largest syndicates.
The Kyoseikai was designated under Japan’s Anti-Boryokudan Law following the law’s introduction in 1992. The designation allows public safety authorities to impose restrictions and administrative orders against members engaged in intimidation, coercive demands and other regulated activities. It has been repeatedly renewed by the Hiroshima Prefectural Public Safety Commission.
At its height, the organization was described as the largest crime syndicate in the Chugoku region, with hundreds of members and associates. Its strength has since declined significantly as a result of arrests, tighter financial controls, exclusion ordinances, restrictions on property use and broader pressure on organized crime groups across Japan. Official data for 2024 placed its membership at about 120, with its area of influence limited primarily to Hiroshima Prefecture.
The Kyoseikai continues to operate as the sixth-generation organization from its headquarters in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward. Police regularly search the headquarters when members of affiliated groups are arrested, seeking evidence of organizational involvement or whether criminal proceeds have flowed to senior leaders. Recent investigations have included suspected fraud, assault and other offenses involving members of its subordinate groups.
Although it is now much smaller than during the decades of the Hiroshima gang wars, the Kyoseikai remains one of Japan’s officially designated crime syndicates and the most historically significant organized crime group based in Hiroshima.
Source: FNN
