Japanese Mobster Jumps Transplant List

Tadamasa Goto, the rumored “Godfather” of the Yakuza, Japan’s 85,000-member mafia, jumped to the top of a liver transplant list at UCLA Medical Center under suspicious circumstances, reports CBS’s 60 Minutes. Despite Goto’s billion-dollar fortune, money could not buy him a new liver in Japan, where organ donations are taboo. The chief of immigration and customs at Tokyo’s U.S. Embassy says the “John Gotti of Japan,” as the richest and most violent mobster is known by U.S. law enforcement, should not have been allowed into the country, based on both his extensive criminal history and membership in a criminal organization. An expert writer and investigator on the Yakuza says Goto made a deal with the FBI, offering to inform on fellow Yakuza members in exchange for a special visa. Though the average waiting time for a liver in California is three years, Goto got one in just six weeks, despite the fact that he was reportedly No. 80 on the hospital’s waiting list. Three of his Yakuza associates also got liver transplants, costing them about $400,000 dollars each, all paid for in cash, CBS reports. Goto and another Yakuza reportedly each gave $100,000 to the UCLA transplant center, despite rules requiring extensive background checks on every patient.