Japan’s Hardworking Yakuza — The Viagra Job (2010)

In 2010, factions of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime group, decided to get into the lucrative Erectile Dysfunction racket (fake boner pills). The catch: their fake stuff was twice as good as the real thing.

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It takes a certain kind of mind to look at Japan’s thriving pharmaceutical market and think, You know what this racket needs? A mob-run discount erectile dysfunction service. But in 2010, the Yamaguchi-gumi — Japan’s largest organized crime syndicate and usually more interested in concrete, construction, and cash — decided to diversify. And Osaka, ever the beating heart of commerce and street hustle, was the launchpad.

Yakuza fanzines have always been full of ads for dubious male enhancement drugs, but in 2010, the Yamaguchi-gumi began making high quality counterfeit Viagra. Half the price, and twice the active ingredient.

The product line was simple: counterfeit Viagra. Not the shoddy fakes you buy on a sketchy website that arrive in a Ziploc bag with “VIAGLA” spelled wrong. These were immaculate knock-offs, right down to the Pfizer hologram — except for one small design flaw: they often contained nearly double the standard dose of sildenafil. That’s not a love life boost; that’s a cardiac stress test in a pretty blue tablet. Half the price—twice as nice.

The operation ran like any other yakuza side hustle. Members and low-level associates peddled the goods in Osaka’s entertainment districts, sidling up to middle-aged salarymen in neon-lit alleys, or funneling supply to smaller adult shops that kept them behind the counter. Of course, there were ads in the yakuza fan magazines of the time. They also moved product online, catering to customers who valued discretion over safety — the kind of men who’d rather risk an ambulance ride than have a doctor raise an eyebrow.

The buyers? A mix of penny-pinchers, privacy-seekers, yakuza fans and the terminally optimistic. In the early 2010s, genuine Viagra in Japan could cost the equivalent of $10–$20 per pill through legitimate channels. The yakuza could undercut that price by half, which was all the incentive some customers needed to overlook the fact that their pharmacist was wearing a black suit and missing a couple of fingers.

Chemical testing by Japanese authorities revealed the good news/bad news: not only did some pills contain twice the sildenafil dosage, but others contained unpredictable concentrations or even chemical impurities. At best, a user got the pharmacological equivalent of a double espresso; at worst, a blend of heavy metals, industrial solvents, or no active ingredient at all. This wasn’t love in a bottle — it was Russian roulette with your circulatory system.

The press coverage was delicious. Osaka police, working under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, arrested several Yamaguchi-gumi affiliates in May 2010. Around the same time, in Aichi Prefecture, a prominent member of the Hirota-kai — one of the syndicate’s factions — was busted for selling his own stash of counterfeit Viagra. It was a national trend: the black market for erectile dysfunction drugs was surging, and organized crime had staked its claim. Several thousand customers were estimated to have purchased the bogus Viagra from Yamaguchi-gumi gangsters.

A survey by a Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturer around that time put numbers to the problem: roughly 40% of Viagra and similar ED drugs sold online or via unofficial channels in Japan were counterfeit. Some had no sildenafil at all. Others had so much they could make a man’s penis stiffer than a samurai sword in the Antarctica.

Toys for the boys. The tattooed boys. Typical ads in the yakuza fan magazines of the time. If you can read and understand everything in the ad copy, congratulations you’ve passed Level 1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency examination.

Authorities responded with the bureaucratic version of a flamethrower. The National Police Agency and the Ministry of Health issued stern warnings and launched public campaigns urging men to buy their performance enhancers only from legitimate medical providers. Raids increased, prosecutions followed, and the message went out: don’t get your Viagra from a guy whose business card reads “Real Estate Consultant.” Or had a diamond shaped emblem embossed on it with a Kobe address.

The Yamaguchi-gumi involvement in the sales of fake Viagra did not go unnoticed by yakuza fan magazines like Jitsuwa Document. Their coverage did note that the seized fake drugs were more powerful than the real thing. It also noted that consumption could lead to death, “so they say.”

But you have to give the Yamaguchi-gumi some credit. In a business landscape where extortion rackets were under more police pressure and loan sharking profits were slipping, they found a new growth sector. In another world, they’d be giving TED Talks about “disrupting legacy pharmaceutical supply chains” and “innovating in the male wellness space.”

The Viagra Job of 2010 didn’t make anyone rich enough to retire, and it didn’t become one of the syndicate’s proudest moments. But it did prove two enduring truths: one, there is no market so awkward that organized crime won’t muscle in, and two, if you’re buying mystery drugs from the mob, there’s a good chance that you’ll get more stimulation than you counted on. And that's the hard truth.

1. For more on the business side of the yakuza, try reading Tokyo Vice, The Last Yakuza or Tokyo Noir. It’s educational! https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002D68IJE?ccs_id=5a0a1473-69c0-47fc-a695-73f143feac55