One of Japan’s rare women yakuza on path to redemption

After stints in the underworld over a span of 30 years, she helps rehabilitate ex-gangsters

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A missing fingertip offers a clue to Ms Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few women yakuza. But after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society.

The multibillion-dollar yakuza organised-crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, gambling dens and sex trade.

In recent years, the empire has started to crumble as the number of members dwindled and anti-mafia laws are tightened.

An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 in 2024 for the first time since records began in 1958.

Heavily inked with dragon and tiger tattoos, 58-year-old Ms Nishimura navigated the yakuza’s patriarchal hierarchy - where brute force and authoritarian leadership reign — on and off for three decades.

Rival gangsters “looked down on me just because I am a woman, which I hated”, she told AFP at her cramped apartment in central Japan’s Gifu region.

“I wanted to be acknowledged as a yakuza,” she said. “So I learnt to speak, look and fight like a man.”

Ms Nishimura said she was officially recognised by the authorities as the first woman yakuza after she was jailed for drug possession when she was 22.