Famous People of Japan
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Tadamasa Goto

後藤忠政
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Tadamasa Goto (後藤 忠政, Gotō Tadamasa; September 16, 1942 – February 8, 2026) was a Japanese yakuza. He was the founding head of the Goto-gumi, a Fujinomiya-based affiliate of Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Goto, who had been convicted at least nine times, was a prominent yakuza and at one point the most powerful crime boss in Tokyo, even being dubbed the "John Gotti of Japan". Goto was once claimed to have been the largest shareholder in Japan Airlines, but this was disputed by stock exchange filings. Goto was barred from entering the United States until 2001, when he got a special visa deal from the FBI for a life-saving liver transplant at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. He allegedly retired from criminal activity in 2008. Nonetheless, the US Treasury department put him on a watchlist in December 2015 and he was still engaged in criminal activities.

Source: “Tadamasa Goto”, English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), excerpt