Organized crime networks have been sending tons of relief goods in trucks from the Tokyo and Kobe regions to deliver food, water, blankets and toiletries to evacuation centers in northeast Japan, the area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
As with the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake, government workers were slow in reaching afflicted areas, so the “yakuza” groups — society’s outcasts — stepped in quickly, and in many cases, were first on the ground.
(READ more from Reuters)