aid efforts by the Japanese mafia

1946: One intriguing angle on the relief effort comes from Jake Adelstein, an expert on organised crime in Japan. In a piece published by The Daily Beast, he reports that the yakuza, or Japan’s home-grown mafia groups, have been donating aid. “Please don’t say any more than we are doing our best to help,” one member is quoted as saying. “Right now, no one wants to be associated with us and we’d hate to have our donations rejected out of hand.”