A Japanese gangster, known as the "John Gotti of Japan", was flown to the United States for a life- saving liver transplant with the connivance of the FBI. Tadamasa Goto is head of a major Yakusa, or crime family, with a reputation for brutality. He was operated on at UCLA Medical Centre in Los Angeles by Ronald Busuttil, a world-renowned surgeon and editor of a definitive text on liver transplants. Dr Busuttil is among the highest-paid employees of California's state university system.

 

 

UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times. In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

 

This Mob Is Big in Japan

 

I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, and covered a roster of characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders, child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, and the John Gotti of Japan.

I came to Japan in 1988 at age 19, spent most of college living in a Zen Buddhist temple, and then became the first U.S. citizen hired as a regular staff writer for a Japanese newspaper.