On the Yakuza Beat: A Foreign Reporter in Japan’s Underworld

Date: June 18, 2025

Time: 7 to 8:00 p.m.

Cost: Free for Museum Members or with Museum Admission​

RSVP Today

Member and Donor Tickets

Investigative journalist Jake Adelstein exposed a scandal involving one of Japan’s most ruthless yakuza dons and lived to tell the tale. Join the author of Tokyo Vice for a rare conversation at The Mob Museum as he discusses his journey from rural Missouri to covering the police beat for Japan’s biggest newspaper, a tale that inspired a popular HBO series. Adelstein gained the trust of both police detectives and mobsters to bring to light stories of government corruption, human trafficking and double-dealing yakuza bosses.

A book signing featuring Adelstein’s Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan’s Underworld will follow the program.

Featured Speaker

Jake Adelstein  

Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein is an American expat and an investigative journalist specializing in organized crime and corruption in Japan. In 1993, he began working as a crime reporter for the largest newspaper in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun. After 12 years, Adelstein left the paper and published an exposé about a high-ranking yakuza boss, Tadamasa Goto, receiving a liver transplant at UCLA with the assistance of the FBI. Goto responded by putting a contract on Adelstein’s life. His 2009 book, Tokyo Vice, about his experiences has been adapted into a series on HBO.