Senior gang member shot dead in Roppongi

The Yomiuri Shimbun

A senior member of an organized crime group was shot dead in a car parked on a road in Minato Ward, Tokyo, on Monday morning, the police said.

The Metropolitan Police Department suspects the shooting in Nishi-Azabu could stem from a conflict brewing between organized crime groups in the Roppongi district in the same ward.

Officers who rushed to the scene after hearing the gunshots at about 10:10 a.m. found Ryoichi Sugiura dead in the backseat of the car.

Sugiura, 43, a senior member of an affiliated organized crime group of the Sumiyoshi-kai gang, lived in the neighborhood.

A man was sitting in the driver's seat and another man was in the passenger seat of the car, which belonged to a member of a Sumiyoshi-kai-affiliated group, according to the MPD.

Sugiura was shot through the window of the left backseat. The bullets hit his left arm and his chest.

Two men riding a motorcycle are suspected to have shot Sugiura. The gun apparently used in the shooting and the motorcycle were abandoned near the scene, so the MPD suspects the two fled on foot. The police are searching for the men.

One of the men reportedly wore a white helmet with a star on it, the MPD said.

The shooting occurred along Roppongi-dori avenue, about one kilometer west of Roppongi Station.