The first woman to be flagged by police as a member of Japan’s yakuza crime syndicates has retired from the criminal underworld. Now 58, she runs a nonprofit helping former gangsters to rebuild their lives as law-abiding citizens.
00:00Tatted up and missing a pinky, the markers of a life in Japan's underworld.
00:05Nishimura Mako was the first woman to be flagged by police as a member of the country's mafia, the Yakuza.
00:12She's one of only a handful of women ever to join the ranks of a notorious organized crime syndicate.
00:18And as a woman, her path into the group was anything but easy.
00:22They would look down on me just because I was a woman, which I hated.
00:32So I basically lived as a man.
00:34Like I said, they would look down on women.
00:37Be it in human and drug trafficking, extortion or fraud, the Yakuza make their money through crime.
00:44Nishimura had to act like her male counterparts to earn respect.
00:47I learned to speak, look and fight like a man, trying to be as Yakuza-like and mainly as my boss at the time.
00:58But the criminal empire she joined is now shrinking, down from nearly 200,000 members at its peak in 1963 to just under 20,000 now, the lowest numbers since records began.
01:11There used to be businesses and citizens willing to trade with us.
01:19But nowadays, they know any such association would put their businesses at risk.
01:24So everyone is staying away from the Yakuza.
01:27Tougher anti-mafia laws and police crackdowns have made it harder for the Yakuza to operate.
01:32With membership dropping, Nishimura, now 58, sees a future without the syndicate.
01:38I think Yakuza will keep shrinking. I hope they will go extinct.
01:44Now retired from crime, she's rebuilding her life and helping others do the same, guiding former gangsters through the same struggles she faced, learning how to live like law-abiding citizens again.
01:58I'm trying to run this non-profit for ex-criminals.
02:01So former Yakuza feel more at ease hanging out here than with the criminal bunch from their past.
02:06Once feared in the world of organized crime, Nishimura Mako now finds purpose in helping others walk away from it,
02:13moving into the light as the notorious gangs fade into the shadows of history.
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