Photographer Anton Kusters Captures Intimate Portraits Of yakuza, Japan's World Of Organized Crime

 

Christine Roberts at the New York Daily News reports on a Belgian photographer has taken some interesting photos of the Shineseikai yakuza crime organization.

A night in the streets of Tokyo's red light district. A morning at a covert training camp.
Those are just some of the dark scenes a Belgian-based photographer captured in the two years he spent following the Shinseikai, a family within the yakuza — Japan’s notoriously inaccessible world of organized crime.

Anton Kusters and his brother, Malik, became the first westerners invited into the criminal underworld in 2008, after 10 months of negotiations with the Shinseikai, who control Tokyo’s infamous red light district, Kabukicho.

"There was never a moment I wanted to call off the project," Kusters told the Daily News of the immense undertaking. "It was a rollercoaster ride."

You can read the rest of the story and view the photos via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/photographer-captures-intimate-portraits-yakuza-life-article-1.1174726