Three weeks ago, the Liechtenstein Bankers Association said it will require trustees and other intermediaries to name clients who deposit money. The payment took the form of subscription fees to newsletters published by the gangsters. NKK was paying the subscription fees, though it stopped after it was notified by police in September 1997, the company said in a press release. It paid the tax office to settle the dispute. The police later seized two handguns and arrested the three Sofusha members for possessing firearms.
Investigators believe the incident is a case of intra-group conflict.
Sofusha, consisting of more than 30 members, was established in 1983 by gangsters affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai. The eight-story building where the shooting took place is located in a business district some 200 meters west of Kojimachi Station on the Yurakucho subway line. Yakuza organised crime syndicates have been hit hard by Japan's prolonged recession and the introduction in 1992 of a tough anti-gangster law that squeezed the gangs' traditional sources of income such as gambling and corporate extortion. If Greco were returned to Italy, he would face a hefty prison term imposed in his absence for a series of crimes including hold-ups and Mafia connections. Greco, who had lived in Spain for much of the past 20 years, was arrested on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza in late 1997.