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 yakuza Founded 17th century (presumed to have originated from the Kabukimono) Territory Primarily Japan with some in South Korea and the Western United States, particularly Kantō/Tokyo, Kyoto, Chūbu, Hawaii, California and the Southwestern United States Ethnicity Primarily Japanese. Occasionally Koreans and Americans (Japanese Americans). Membership 25,900 members Activities Varied, including illegitimate businesses, an array of criminal and non-criminal activities. Notable members Principal clans: Yamaguchi-gumi Sumiyoshi-kai Inagawa-kai yakuza, also called bōryokudan or gokudō, Japanese gangsters, members of what are formally called bōryokudan (“violence groups”), or Mafia-like criminal organizations. In Japan and elsewhere, especially in the West, the term yakuza can be used to refer to individual gangsters or criminals as well as to their organized groups and to Japanese organized crime in general. Yakuza adopt samurai-like rituals and often bear elaborate body tattoos. They e...

 Mafia (organized crime) Mafia, hierarchically structured society of criminals of primarily Italian or Sicilian birth or extraction. The term applies to the traditional criminal organization in Sicily and also to a criminal organization in the United States. The Mafia arose in Sicily during the late Middle Ages, where it possibly began as a secret organization dedicated to overthrowing the rule of the various foreign conquerors of the island—e.g., Saracens, Normans, and Spaniards. The Mafia owed its origins and drew its members from the many small private armies, or mafie, that were hired by absentee landlords to protect their landed estates from bandits in the lawless conditions that prevailed over much of Sicily through the centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the energetic ruffians in these private armies organized themselves and grew so powerful that they turned against the landowners and became the sole law on many of the estates, extorting money from the landowners ...