The Goto-gumi (後藤組, Gotō-gumi) was a Japanese yakuza organization founded by Tadamasa Goto.
The Goto-gumi, as an affiliate of Japan's largest yakuza organization, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, was seen as a vanguard for Yamaguchi expansion into the Kantō region.
A former member confessed in 2008 that Itami's death in 1997, reported as a suicide at a time, was a murder carried out by Goto-gumi members who created a forged suicide note and then forced him to jump from the roof of his office building at gunpoint.
[5] In 2001 the FBI's representative in Tokyo arranged for Tadamasa Goto, then the head of the Goto-gumi, to receive a liver transplant in the United States in return for a $100,000 donation to the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and information about Yamaguchi-gumi operations in the U.S.[7] This was done without prior consultation of the Japanese National Police Agency.
The journalist who uncovered the deal, Jake Adelstein, received threats from Goto and was given police protection in the US and in Japan.