Photo: Pakutaso
lifestyle

Hyogo residents learn downside to living in an apartment that used to be a yakuza office

6 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

Japanese companies have a reputation for working their employees hard, but some of them also offer some great perks. One of the nicer ones is a company apartment building, which some companies maintain and rent out to employees at reduced rates, leaving them more disposable income to spend on other things.

And for one shipping company in the city of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, there’s the added bonus of the employee apartment building being only about a 10-minute walk south from Nishinomiya Station. Cheap rent and a convenient location sounds like a win-win, but it turns out there’s also an unexpected drawback to living there.

At around 2 a.m. on March 3, residents of the neighborhood heard four loud bangs in rapid succession. A concerned citizen called the police, and when officers arrived on scene, they found four new dents, small but distinct, had been put into the shutter-style garage door on the building’s first floor. Then, while inspecting the area, they found what they believe are four ricocheted bullets, leading them to believe that the sounds residents heard were someone firing a pistol at the building.

The search also turned up a glass bottle stuffed with partially burnt newspaper and which had “the smell of oil,” suggesting someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail-like incendiary device at the building which failed to properly ignite.

So who has such a beef with the shipping company that they’re ready to shoot the place up and burn it down? Probably no one. See, while the building is now an employee apartment building, the shipping company isn’t the original owner, and until about 10 years ago it was owned by a sub-faction of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, one of the largest yakuza organizations in Japan.

Hyogo Prefectural Police say that in recent months there’s been increased infighting between factions of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, with two shootings last November in Nishinomiya and the neighboring town of Amagasaki resulting in multiple injuries. Their current theory is that whoever was behind the March 3 attack is operating under old information and didn’t realize that the gangsters they thought they were targeting had vacated the building and that it was now under new ownership.

Luckily, the apartment’s residents were all on the second floor when the attack took place, and no one was injured. However, with a number of homes and schools nearby, police are continuing their investigation in hopes of finding the triggerman.

Sources: Kobe Shimbun Next, NHK News Web, Mainichi Broadcasting System

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Yakuza officially banned from giving kids Halloween candy by Japanese government

-- Government worker leaves water running for a month, forced to pay half the 6,000,000-yen bill

-- Japanese man arrested for groping woman in station says he’ll only talk to female police officers

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

6 Comments
Login to comment

 they found four new dents, small but distinct, had been put into the shutter-style garage door on the building’s first floor. Then, while inspecting the area, they found what they believe are four ricocheted bullets,

These shutter style garage doors are made from quite thin metal. Even a .22 pistol would do more than just put "small but distinct dents" in such metal; if it was at reasonably close distance it would punch holes through it. Either it was fired from a considerable distance, or it was some improvised type pistol; unless it's an air pistol they are talking about. That and the fact that the petrol bomb was also a failure, and it was 10 years past the wrong address, it doesn't sound like an organized rival group.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Sounds like downtown Beirut, four new dents?

How many distinct dents attributed to gun-fire are there in the first place?

Does Officer Dibble count them on a weekly basis?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Shows the IQ of the organised crime members in Japan, thick as two planks...

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Photo caption: barrel envy

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Perhaps someone who has been hiding out somewhere distant, or in prison for a decade or more, nursing a grudge.

JP property where someone has died (or been killed) is often cheaper. Maybe time to start looking for discounted ex-Yak villas.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites