‘The devil’s child’: the rise and fall of the only female yakuza (opens in new tab)

Mako Nishimura fought her way into the Japanese underworld, but drug addiction and the slow demise of organised crime gangs almost destroyed herIn almost 40 years, Mako Nishimura never lost a fight. She told me this as if it were as obvious as night following day. Nishimura is 5ft-nothing and slight of build. She is also probably the only woman ever to have been a full-fledged yakuza, a member of Japan’s feared and rule-bound criminal underworld. She must have defeated many male gangsters. Ho...