Business Week carried a feature story in its Jan. 29, 1996 edition with the headline "The Yakuza And The Banks" printed in big yellow letters, accompanied by a cover photo of a "jiageya (land turner)" in Osaka.
The main focus of the parliamentary debate begun recently is whether tax money should be used to bail out the special housing loan companies, "jusen," whose management collapsed under the weight of trillions of yen in bad loans.
The seven failed jusen companies have a combined total of claims amounting to 13.2 trillion yen, at least half of which was lent to the yakuza (organized crime)-related companies at the peak of the economic bubble. These loans are quite difficult or almost impossible to recover. As far as the known figure goes, the use of 1 trillion yen in public funds to save the "jusen" will in effect save the yakuza, which would no doubt incur the public's wrath.
Read full article here: http://www.tomcoyner.com/who_got_yakuza_into_our_banking_.htm
