Arrested owner of Saitama's 'yakuza apartments' a criminal, or a humanitarian?

On May 29, police in Warabi City, Saitama Prefecture, arrested Mieko Inagaki, 77-year-old a property owner on suspicion of harboring criminal offenders.

A month earlier, police had arrested six men and women who were charged with possession of 15.2 kilograms of stimulant drugs having an estimated street value of ¥945 million. Four of the six had been residing in an apartment building owned by Inagaki.

According to a reporter at the desk of a national daily newspaper, "Investigators from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had requested Inagaki to provide them with a pass key to the suspects' apartments. Immediately after that, she is believed to have telephoned and warned them to flee as the police were on the way.

"Among those arrested was a member of the Sumiyoshi-kai gang," the source continues. "The drugs are believed to have been procured from a Mexican cartel. Police believe Inagaki's apartments had been a hangout for criminals. The investigation is proceeding based on the premise that Inagaki has ties to antisocial elements (i.e., members of criminal gangs)."

But Shukan Gendai (June 22) does something surprising. Instead of denouncing Inagaki, it gives her the benefit of doubt. It seems that she allows individuals to become tenants in the 30 manshon and apartment buildings she owns without requiring background checks -- this despite some tenants are believed to include yakuza, han-gure (shape-shifting quasi-gangsters), Chinese with ties to organized crime and other low-lifes.

"There have always been lots of yakuza around here," a man with ties to organized crime tells the magazine. "Mostly they're involved with operating sex shops and selling drugs."

Two major Kanto-based gangs that have been operating on this turf, located just across the Arakawa river from Tokyo, are said to be the Sumiyoshi-kai and Kyokuto-kai.

Inagaki's company has openly advertised the accessibility to units in her buildings, most of which are 2DK (two rooms with a dinette kitchen), with monthly rents ranging from ¥50,000 to ¥80,000.

"She started her business about 40 years ago, buying up old residential buildings," a local resident remarked. "She's short in stature and is a bit on the chubby side. Talks in rough, working-class language. Makes the rounds to her buildings by bicycle to collect rents."

One of Inagaki's tenants described her in glowing terms: "Her character reflects the warmth and compassion of people in the Showa era (1926-1995). If a tenant appears to have lost weight, she'll ask, 'Are you eating enough?' And if somebody's behind in his rent, she'll inquire, 'Are you working these days?' Or, she'll look in on an elderly tenant, in his 90s, to make sure he's all right."

Other residents in the neighborhood are less happy about Inagaki's business methods.

"She's been criticized for allowing antisocial individuals to live in her buildings, which by turn attracts even more of them," one grumbled.

Still, Shukan Gendai's reporter admitted he was touched when numerous locals who he interviewed pleaded, "Please don't write bad things about her."

From this point, it looks like the reporter decided Inagaki deserved a break.

"Most of the apartment residents I approached for comments gave me the impression they had guilty consciences," he wrote. "Visiting the office of a gang in the neighborhood, I was told me a member, 'Inagaki-san doesn't even ask for deposits or reikin (a monetary gift to the landlord, usually equivalent to one-month rent).'

"Our outfit earns its livelihood as tekiya (street vendors), so we never deal in drugs. Even though our work is honest, we're still regarded as boryokudan (gangsters) and have been shut out from society. I want people to understand that Inagaki-san takes in people like us, who have been ostracized by society."

The reporter also spoke to Inagaki's eldest daughter.

"I've expressed my concerns to her about who she admits into her buildings," the daughter admitted. "She just replies, 'It's all right, since I'm taking responsibility!'

"I think her behavior was the result of something that happened a long time ago, when she was forced to do yonige (to flee one's home by night, leaving no forwarding address) with me and my two siblings. She raised us as a single mother without any  help, and things were rough.

"When I heard from the police that she'd been arrested I felt that even though she'd broken the law, it was just like her, to be so sympathetic toward society's misfits."

© Japan Today