Crime & Courts

Jailed Kudo-kai yakuza member arrested over 2013 murder of gyoza chain president

Courtesy of Ohsho Food Service Corp
Then Ohsho Food Service Corp. President Takayuki Ohigashi who was killed in 2013

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:00 JST, October 28, 2022

The Kyoto Prefectural Police on Friday arrested Yukio Tanaka, a member of the Kudo-kai crime syndicate who is currently in prison, on suspicion of fatally shooting the 72-year-old president of a gyoza restaurant chain in 2013.

Tanaka, 56, is serving a 10-year sentence in Fukuoka Prison for a firearms-related offense. He was arrested by the Fukuoka Prefectural Police in June 2018 for shooting at a car carrying an employee of a construction firm in the prefectural capital.

The Kyoto Prefectural Police have arrested Tanaka on suspicion of murdering Takayuki Ohigashi, the president of Ohsho Food Service Corp., which operates the Gyoza no Ohsho restaurant chain.

Ohigashi was shot four times in the chest and stomach in a parking lot in front of the company’s head office in Yamashina Ward, Kyoto City, in the early hours of the morning on December 19, 2013. He died from his injuries.

DNA from a cigarette butt found in an alleyway at the scene matched Tanaka’s. The prefectural police asked an expert to conduct an evaluation to rule out the possibility that the butt had been planted at the location by someone else.

According to the findings, “the cigarette was extinguished on a damp road surface in a location that can be presumed to be the alleyway [at the crime scene].”

At the time of the incident, the road surface was wet from the rain. The prefectural police believe this could be evidence Tanaka had smoked at the scene before the shooting.

Security camera footage taken near the crime scene showed the perpetrator fleeing on a stolen motorcycle. The car used by the suspect who stole the bike belonged to an acquaintance of Tanaka.

According to investigators, no prior contact between Ohigashi and Tanaka has been confirmed.

Ohsho Food Service Corp. established a third-party committee to investigate the company’s links to organized crime.

In March 2016, the committee revealed at a press conference that members of the founder’s family had conducted suspicious deals worth a total of ¥26 billion. Ohigashi is said to have been trying to clamp down on such deals.