Chinese restaurant "Kai-Katsu-Lin" murder case - August 1994, Kabukicho

Chinese restaurant "Kai-Katsu-Lin" murder case - August 1994, Kabukicho

In August 1994, a shocking incident occurred in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, when Chinese mafia members with knives broke into a Chinese restaurant "Kai-Katsu-Lin" and attacked employees and customers in the restaurant one after another. Several people were injured and the scene was plunged into chaos. The violence that unfolded in the midst of the downtown area sent shockwaves through society and shook the myth of security in Japan.

The background to this event was the presence of Chinese-affiliated organizations, which have expanded rapidly since the early 1990s. After the collapse of the bubble economy, the number of migrant and illegal Chinese residents increased in Japan's urban areas, and at the same time, the Chinese mafia from Fujian and the northeastern regions of the country expanded their influence. They traded in counterfeit passports, smuggled people into Japan, and expanded into the drug and prostitution business, causing friction with existing Japanese gangs.

The Kaikatsu Rin incident is one example of this friction coming to the surface. It is said that a dispute between the Chinese mafia or a conflict of interest with the yakuza triggered the indiscriminate attacks. At the time, Kabukicho thrived as the "town that never sleeps" and was densely populated with sex stores and restaurants, but behind this prosperity, foreign crime syndicates emerged and challenged the traditional yakuza rule.

The first half of the 1990s was also known as the "Chinatownization of Kabukicho," when Chinese-owned clubs and restaurants opened one after another, changing the landscape of the town itself. Under the economic recession, Kabukicho became a receptacle for new migrant workers, and by extension, organized crime took root. The Kaikebayashi case was symbolic of this internationalization and disorganization.

This incident prompted the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to increase its vigilance against foreign crime, accelerating the trend that would later lead to the "Kabukicho Purification Operation. The KAIKATSURIN incident was not merely a case of violence in a restaurant; it was a milestone event that brought to light the "new security concerns due to internationalization" that Kabukicho had faced since the 1990s.