Did they cut around the tattoos?

[Captain Japan]

[floatr][/floatr]
Four Japanese gang figures received livers at UCLA
LA Times
The recipients included one of Japan's most powerful crime bosses. Some in the medical community worry the revelation will have a chilling effect on organ donations.
UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times.

In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region.

The surgeon in each case was Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department, according to another person familiar with the matter who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Busuttil is a world-renowned liver surgeon who co-edited a leading text on liver transplantation and is one of the highest-paid employees in the University of California system...more...
This thread has some information as well.

[IkemenTommy]

Busuttil is a world-renowned liver surgeon who co-edited a leading text on liver transplantation and is one of the highest-paid employees in the University of California system...

I wonder if that figure includes the bribery he received from the Yakz

[TennoChinko]

Nothing but the very best! Japanese yakuza #1!!

http://www.surgery.medsch.ucla.edu/liverandpancreas/doctors_Busuttil.shtml

Dr. Ronald Wilfred Busuttil,
10833 Le Conte Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095
(310) 825-5318

Ronald Busuttil
307 OJAI 200
LOS ANGELES, CA 90025
(310) 471-4731

[Takechanpoo]

another photos of Goto Tadamasa






First-class "economic" yakuzas mostly doesnt look like yakuza.
Be careful.

[kusai Jijii]

[Mulboyne]

The Asahi is now carrying a report of the LA Times story on its Japanese site.

[Iraira]

Seems like the FBI wanted to get a bunch of information that the J-cops wouldn't give up/couldn't obtain, so "they made Goto an offer" that he and his liver couldn't refuse.

[Captain Japan]

There's a news video up here:

http://www.latimes.com/video/?slug=la-me-ucla30-ktla

But it doesn't reveal too much.

I think one of the key points is the other three transplants. The FBI supposedly assisted Goto in an exchange of information. But what about the other three? If it just came down to money, which is my guess, then UCLA is going to have to do some explaining. And the claim that the doctor didn't know he was dealing with gangsters is a little hard to believe considering this was an ongoing procedure over years and he visited Japan.

[Tengu Kid]

what is it with yakuza and clothes?
when they join up are they told `ok you have officially become a crime boss, somebody who will be feared and respected throughout your city. Now slick your hair back and put on a white tracksuit and some ridiculous sunglasses.`

[Charles]

I think one of the key points is the other three transplants. The FBI supposedly assisted Goto in an exchange of information.

Tip for the Feds: give him the liver only after he gives you the info you want.

[Takechanpoo]

One of the other three transplants is Inagawa-kai's third boss.
Goto introduced him to transplant in USA.
I dont know the other two.

[Catoneinutica]

Gotta call bull shit on this story. It outlines a true story that was to happen (the liver transplant) but it didn't come to pass because the oyabun in question would not cooperate and his name was not Goto. Jim Moynihan, the Legal Attache, who was approached to broker the deal served the government ultimatum, talk or no waiver for crimes past and thus no visa and no liver (has a nice touch, don't you think?). At any rate, the oya-bum would not agree and there was no operation. Moynihan is a mate of mine who has retired and, being married to a local rice cooker, is still living in Tokyo working as the VP for Security for Asia for a major western company.

The guy who wrote this story has got to be living in never-never land. Assigned to the crime beat for Yomiuri? You gotta be shitting me. Since when has Gomiuri started hiring FG as investigative reporters? The dud(e) sounds like a former proof reader with illustions of grandoo'er...

Marvin what's your take on this? I know they're a competitor rag, but you need to keep up with their work in the field.

BTW, why don't you get assigned to the prostitution beat and hire me as a paid confidential source...

http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20641

[Captain Japan]

According to this blog post, Goto was in the hospital in Tokyo as recent as June last year.

Only yesterday, none less than Crown Prince Naruhito checked in for a routine but uncomfortable sounding operation - the removal of a polyp from his botto- ... er, his duodenum.

The polyp is benign, the operation went well and the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu-no-Omikami, should be back home in a week genki as a fiddle. Meanwhile, though, his hospitalisation is causing more than usual anxiety because of a delicate security problem.

The difficulty arises because of the presence in the hospital of another eminent patient, a 64-year old man named Tadamasa Goto. Mr Goto is suffering from liver cancer, and like the Prince wants the best medical treatment that his considerable wealth can buy. He has acquired his fortune, however, in an unconventional way - as the head of the Goto-gumi, a syndicate of the Yamugichi-gumi, Japan's largest gangster organisation.

It says "suffering from liver cancer," which implies he's still got the bad liver but then again might just be a broad description of his ongoing situation. (Do all yaks drink 24 hours a day?) The LA Times story quotes Goto's lawyer: "Goto is over 60 now, but his liver is young," Maki said.

[Iraira]

According to this blog post, Goto was in the hospital in Tokyo as recent as June last year.


It says "suffering from liver cancer," which implies he's still got the bad liver but then again might just be a broad description of his ongoing situation. (Do all yaks drink 24 hours a day?) The LA Times story quotes Goto's lawyer: "Goto is over 60 now, but his liver is young," Maki said.

LA Times article said Goto has Hep C. Reinfection of the new liver normally happens after transplant, but generally the new liver gives the transplantee an additional 15-20 years before it gets all ravaged and cancerous. After recovery from transplantation, they sometimes start interferon treatment to kill off the remaining virus, depending on the viral load. This treatment is like having influenza for 2-6 months. Someone his age would not tolerate interferon treatment well, and might have been in a hospital because of that.

[Captain Japan]

One of the other three transplants is Inagawa-kai's third boss.
Goto introduced him to transplant in USA.
I dont know the other two.

How do you know Inagawa was one of the guys? Do you have a link?

[Captain Japan]

Report: Japanese mob boss gave $100,000 to UCLA
LA Times

LOS ANGELES - A Japanese gang boss and another alleged gangster who had liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center each donated $100,000 to the hospital soon after their surgeries, according to a published report.

The donations came from two of four Japanese gang figures who received liver transplants at a time when several hundred Los Angeles-area patients died while awaiting transplants, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper published a story Thursday about the liver transplants and posted a separate story on its Web site late Friday discussing the donations.

According to the Times, a donation of $100,000 came from Tadamasa Goto, 65, who leads a gang called the Goto-gumi....more...

[Mulboyne]

AP: Senator wants details of gang figures' transplants at UCLA

A U.S. senator wants to know more about the liver transplant operations performed by UCLA Medical Center on four Japanese gang figures, according to a published report. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote a letter to UCLA requesting additional details on the surgery, according to a story posted on the Los Angeles Times Web site Friday night. "While surgeons do not seek to pass moral judgment on the patients they treat, Americans hope at the very least that foreign criminal figures wait in line along with the rest of us," Grassley wrote. The senator, who is ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, also sent a letter to the FBI, which in 2001 helped alleged Japanese gang leader Tadamasa Goto get a visa to enter the U.S. in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in this country by Japanese criminal gangs. Law enforcement officials said the leader of the Goto-gumi gang failed to provide any useful information and returned to Japan. UCLA confirmed that Goto, 65, later donated $100,000 to the hospital, plus another contribution from another suspected gangster. Grassley also asked for information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a private hospital accreditation group and the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system.

[Captain Japan]

Japanese gangster offered $1 million for visa that would allow liver transplant at UCLA, sources say
LA Times

Desperate for a liver transplant at UCLA Medical Center, the leader of Japan's third-largest organized crime group offered as much as $1 million to potential intermediaries to help him obtain a U.S. visa, according to several people who said they were solicited for assistance.

A private investigator, a business consultant and a lawyer told The Times that between 2001 and 2002 they were separately approached by representatives of Chihiro Inagawa, who told them that UCLA was willing to accept Inagawa as a patient.

But first, Inagawa needed help securing a visa because his gang affiliations prohibited him from being admitted to the United States, the three sources said. The sources, based in the U.S. and Japan, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by Japanese criminal gangs or of harming their own business interests.

Two said they personally were offered $1 million in Japanese yen if a visa was issued; the third said he was promised lucrative business deals with a prominent Japanese company.

Inagawa's gang, the Inagawa-kai, is involved in "drug and arms trafficking, extortion, investment frauds and money laundering," according to the International Crime Threat Assessment prepared by a working group of U.S. law enforcement and other governmental agencies in 2000....more...

And Take's Inagawa call was correct, though it would seem it was the boss and not third boss.

[Takechanpoo]

[Captain Japan]

Improved kidney transplants to start
Asahi

A team of doctors will start kidney transplant operations under a new method that "dupes" the patients' T cells and prevents them from attacking and rejecting transplanted organs as foreign substances.

The team, headed by Satoshi Teraoka, professor of renal surgery at Tokyo Women's Medical University, and Ko Okumura, professor of immunology at Juntendo University, recently obtained approval to conduct the operations from the ethics board of Tokyo Women's Medical University.

The doctors will first operate on three to five patients selected from among those who plan to receive kidneys of their family members and who expressed a desire to undergo the new method.

If the operations are successful, the patients will not have to take immune-suppressants for the rest of their lives, as is currently the case.

The patients can start reducing their dosages of drugs, which can cause renal disorders, after it is confirmed that the modified T cells involved in the transplant are working. They would stop using the drugs between 30 and 45 days after the operation, the researchers said.

Complications caused by chronic rejections include arteriosclerosis, which can occur several months or years after the transplant.

The new method can prevent such complications and raise the ratio of patients whose transplanted kidneys function well 10 years after the operation by about 20 percent to around 90 percent, the doctors said.

In addition, the method could eventually be used for transplants of other organs, they said.

The key to the new method is the T cell, a type of lymph cell that plays a central role in the immune system's defense of the body against foreign substances including viruses and bacteria.

T cells often attack transplanted organs as foreign substances, causing immunologic rejections. In the worst cases, the transplanted organs will not function at all.

The doctors identified an antibody that can make a patient's T cells misidentify a transplanted organ as his or her own.

Under the new method, T cells of a patient and donor are taken from their blood and mingled and then are cultivated with the antibody. After two weeks of cultivation, the mixture is returned to the patient's body.

The modified T cells affect other T cells in the body, leading them to also misidentify the donated organ as that of the patient.

The T cells still protect the body against viruses and bacteria.

In experiments on laboratory monkeys, the doctors said they confirmed that this antibody had prevented rejection for five years or longer.

In 2006, 939 kidney transplants from live donors were conducted in Japan.

It is technically possible to apply the new method to transplants of hearts, livers and other organs, the doctors said.

They added that their studies will likely attract attention from the United States, where many patients of heart disease suffer from chronic rejection after transplantation.(IHT/Asahi: July 1,2008 )(IHT/Asahi: July 1,2008 )