Credit Suisse banker arrested in yakuza probe

Yamaguchi-gumi members attend a funeral for an assassinated gang leader Keystone Archive

Police in Japan have arrested a former Credit Suisse employee for allegedly assisting an international money-laundering ring.

Authorities in Japan, Switzerland and Hong Kong have been investigating the illegal network, which involves Japan’s biggest yakuza crime syndicate, for several months.

A Tokyo police official said Atsushi Doden, 41, was taken into custody hours after he arrived in Tokyo from Hong Kong.

Doden is accused of helping the ring set up bank accounts and transfer profits.

Doden – who reportedly resigned last week from Switzerland’s second-largest bank – was the seventh person arrested in the crackdown, which has mainly targeted Japan’s largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

The other six people arrested last week included Susumu Kajiyama, once known as the “Loan Shark Czar”.

Doden told reporters at Tokyo’s Narita international airport that he would cooperate with the police investigation.

“I heard about the warrant for my arrest and thought it would be best to explain what I know to the police,” he said.

Laundered cash

Police believe the suspects laundered ¥4.6 billion (US$42.2 million) collected from loan sharks by buying discount bonds and cashing them through a Japanese securities firm.

Japanese media claim the suspects transferred money from the Standard Chartered Bank in Tokyo to the Hong Kong branch of Credit Suisse, and later to a Credit Suisse branch in Singapore and the bank’s headquarters in Switzerland.

Doden is reported to have told police that he opened accounts for Kajiyama but wasn’t aware of money laundering.

Credit Suisse officials in Zurich have said the bank froze Kajiyama’s accounts after being notified by the Swiss authorities in December. Media reports said the accounts held SFr61 million ($47 million).

Loan sharks

Kajiyama was arrested in Japan last August on suspicion that he ran a nationwide network of loan-sharking operations for the Yamaguchi-gumi, which reportedly netted as much as ¥100 billion a year.

He was released afterwards, but is now being questioned by police.

Japan’s underworld is among the world’s wealthiest, earning billions of dollars a year from extortion, gambling, the sex industry, guns, drugs, and kickbacks from real estate and construction schemes.

Gangsters are also established in stock market manipulation and in the high-tech sector, such as internet pornography.

About 84,000 gangsters are involved in criminal activity across Japan, according to police figures.

swissinfo with agencies

Key facts

Credit Suisse froze bank accounts linked to the investigation in December.
There are around 84,000 gangsters in Japan.
Loan sharks charge borrowers exorbitant interest rates.