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Jake Adelstein

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Jake Adelstein
BornJoshua Lawrence Adelstein
(1969-03-28) March 28, 1969 (age 55)
Columbia, Missouri, U.S.
OccupationInvestigative journalist, writer, editor, blogger
GenreTrue crime, non-fiction, journalism
Notable worksTokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan
The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld
Children2
Website
www.japansubculture.com

Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein (born March 28, 1969) is an American[1] journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein.

Early life

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Adelstein grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Rock Bridge High School.[2] As a teenager he volunteered at KOPN and co-hosted a punk music program on the air. In 1988, he moved to Japan at age 19 to study Japanese literature at Sophia University.[3]

Career

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On April 15, 1993, Adelstein became the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Urawa, Saitama, where he worked for 12 years.[4]

After leaving the Yomiuri, Adelstein published an exposé of how an alleged crime boss, Tadamasa Goto, made a deal with the FBI to gain entry to the United States for a liver transplant at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, Adelstein published a memoir about his career as a reporter in Japan, Tokyo Vice, in which he accused Goto of threatening to kill him over the story.[5] An April 2022 article by The Hollywood Reporter raised doubts about the veracity of the events described in the memoir.[6] In November 2022, Esquire reported that Adelstein had released via Twitter a folder of source materials which he claimed supported his versions of events.[7]

Adelstein was subsequently a reporter for a United States Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan,[8] and now writes for the Daily Beast,[9] Vice News, The Japan Times[10] and other publications. He is a board member and advisor to the Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (formerly Polaris Project Japan).[11]

On April 19, 2011, Adelstein filed a lawsuit against National Geographic Television, which had hired him to help make a documentary about the yakuza, citing ethical problems with their behavior in Japan.[12][13] However, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff is barred from bringing that claim in another court.[14]

Personal life

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Adelstein is Jewish.[15][16][17][18][19] Jake was formerly married to Sunao Adelstein with two children; both of them live in Missouri after 2005 due to threats made by Goto towards them.[11]

Works

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  • Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-37879-8. OCLC 699874898.
  • Operation Tropical Storm: How an FBI Jewish-Japanese Special Agent Snared a Yakuza Boss in Hawaii (Kindle Single) ASIN B00Z7DUV7W June 7, 2015[20]
  • Pay the Devil in Bitcoin: The Creation of a Cryptocurrency and How Half a Billion Dollars of It Vanished from Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2017.
  • The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2023.
  • The Evaporated: Gone With the Gods. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. 2023.
  • Witnessed: Night Shift. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. September 1, 2024.
  • Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan's Underworld. Scribe, 2024.

Interviews

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References

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  1. ^ Jake Adelstein, "Yakuza, strippers, drugs, an undercover Japanese-Jew FBI special agent? Pulp non-fiction.", Twitter, June 26, 2015. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Ganey, Terry. "Gaijin Journalist: American reporter covered cops and crime in Tokyo". Columbia Daily Tribune. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  3. ^ Hessler, Peter. "All Due Respect" Profile, The New Yorker, January 9, 2012.
  4. ^ Mark Willacy, "Exposing Japan's Insidious Underbelly", ABC News, October 20, 2009; accessed November 20, 2010.
  5. ^ Jake Adelstein, "This Mob Is Big in Japan", The Washington Post, May 11, 2008, Accessed November 20, 2010
  6. ^ THR Magazine, "Insiders Call B.S. on ‘Tokyo Vice’ Backstory", The Hollywood Reporter, April 29, 2022; accessed May 2, 2022.
  7. ^ Esquire, "The Gripping True Story Behind ‘Tokyo Vice’ and Jake Adelstein's Tussles With the Yakuza", Esquire, November 24, 2022; accessed December 27, 2023.
  8. ^ "An American In Japan, Investigating The 'Tokyo Vice'". NPR. November 9, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  9. ^ "Jake Adelstein". The Daily Beast. October 31, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  10. ^ "Jake Adelstein". The Japan Times. March 24, 2024. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  11. ^ a b Hessler, Peter (January 1, 2012). "All Due Respect". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  12. ^ Gardner, Eriq (May 10, 2011). "NatGeo Delays Japanese Mafia Show at Center of Lawsuit (Updated)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
  13. ^ "Superior Court of the District of Columbia. April 19, 2011" (PDF).
  14. ^ "Superior Court of the District of Columbia. May 4, 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2014.
  15. ^ Jake Adelstein hachette.co.uk
  16. ^ A Jewish journalist against the Yakuza with Jake Adelstein Naor Meningher and Eytan Weinstein, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles (March 29, 2017)
  17. ^ ‘Tokyo Vice’ is a portrait of the reporter as a terrible coworker Irene Katz Connelly, The Forward (April 11, 2022)
  18. ^ Tokyo Vice TV review: An outsider Jew in Japan Josh Howie, The Jewish Chronicle (December 22, 2022)
  19. ^ An insight into the Japanese underworld Sharyn Kolieb, The Australian Jewish News (May 7, 2024)
  20. ^ 299_ James Stern –Yakuza Japanese Mob, Operation Tropical Storm

Further reading

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