His home and headquarters in Kobe occupied the area of a city block, and was known to neighbours as "the castle." It was unscathed by the 1995 earthquake, and under Watanabe's order the Yamaguchi-gumi claimed to have given away 1 billion yen of goods and 20,000 free lunches to survivors, although there were accusations that the motives were not wholly altruistic. Police estimated that he received US$1 million a month from his aides in honoraria, and the full-time members of Yamaguchi-gumi had increased by one-third to 16,500 a decade after Watanabe took over. In November 2003, the Osaka High Court ordered that Watanabe and three others pay 80 million yen in damages for the killing of an off-duty policeman in 1995 by a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate, and his appeal to the Supreme Court failed a year later. The rulings were historic in that they set a precedent in recognizing that a crime boss, though not directly involved in the criminal act, is responsible for the act if his subordinates are found guilty of that crime. These decisions specified what yakuza activities were considered business activities and that gang violence is “closely related with the business.” It was believed this new precedent would greatly affect the money-making ability of Yoshinori Watanabe, Yamaguchi Gumi, and other yakuza organizations. He retired from his position in July 2005, reportedly due to ill health.