In the 1930s, when the Japanese ultranationalists took over, the Yakuza played a role in the several coups d'etat, the assassination of two prime ministers and two finance ministers, repeated attacks on politicians and industrialists, and ran a terrorist organization in occupied Manchuria. During the second world war, the classical Japan, Inc. arrangement between the Yakuza, industrialists and the military produced the profitable Opium Monopoly Bureau, which was, in effect, a legalized dope peddling business between the military government and the hoods. The Bureau's narcotics sales helped to raise funds for the Japanese war effort and distributed high grade dope to make the subjected populations more pliable to Japanese occupation. Its interesting, that several large Japanese firms still in existence today, including Mitsui and Suzuki were involved with the Opium Monopoly Bureau. The relationship between big business and the Yakuza continues today.
Persuasion can, and often does, include blackmailing, threats, demolition, or arson.
About five years ago, the Yakuza decided to stop working for the massive real estate investment concerns and entered real estate and commercial development business on their own. This year, thirty executives from top corporations were indicted for paying off other mobsters by arranging 93 million dollars in bad loans to them and then taking a kickback on the money. Another trick they use to get the loans pushed through is old-fashioned extortion. Now that the bottom has fallen out of the risky loan business, the Yakuza started the new century by opening a new market, dumping dangerous and illegal industrial waste and hazardous refuse around Japan for big money paid out by massive corporations. By February of this year alone, the Japanese national police have closed in on no less than 75 dumping operations and arrested 74 hoods.