Faith Middleton Show: An American Crime Reporter In Japan Gets A Look At The Underworld

Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club.  Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, describes his encouters with murderers, thieves and other criminals.

At nineteen, Jake went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility.  But he quickly worked his way from student to crime reporter for the prestigious Japanese-language Yomiuri Shinbun.  For twelve years of 80-hour work weeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are more prevalent than we would imagine, given that Japan is one of the safest countries in the world to live.

From 2006 to 2007, he was the chief investigator for a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan.  Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the U.S.