July 23, 2007
But yakuza life was hard and getting harder for Shiroo. Everyone knew he had money troubles. His bosses expected him to kick about $3,000 a month their way in homage, and it was tough coming up with the cash in a city where business had been so bad for so long. Even worse, the once-lucrative option of skimming money from public works projects was dying now that the Japanese government had turned off the geyser of public money.
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/world/la-fg-gangster23jul23,0,2965637.story?page=1&track=mostviewed-storylevel