Crazy NEWs Stories

1.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Los Angeles hospital provided liver transplants to four Japanese gang figures, including one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, over a period when several hundred area patients died while awaiting transplants, according to a published report.
The surgeries were performed at UCLA Medical Center by world-renowned liver surgeon Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department, the Los Angeles Times reported in a story posted on its Web site Thursday night. The Times cited a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The surgeries were performed between 2000 and 2004, and in each of those years more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region, according to the Times.
There is no indication UCLA or Busuttil knew any of the patients had ties to Japanese gangs, known as yakuza, the Times reported. The school and Busuttil said in statements they don't make moral judgments about patients, but treat them according to medical need.
U.S. transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on foreign patients or those with criminal histories.
Tadamasa Goto, who had been barred from entering the United States because of his criminal history, was the most prominent transplant recipient. He leads a gang called the Goto-gumi, according to the Times.
With help from the FBI, Goto obtained a visa to enter America in 2001 in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in this country by Japanese criminal gangs, Jim Stern, retired chief of the FBI's Asian criminal enterprise unit in Washington, told the Times. The FBI did not help Goto arrange his surgery with UCLA.
The FBI didn't get much out of Goto, Stern said.
"I don't think Goto gave the bureau anything of significance," Stern said. Goto "came to the States and got a liver and was laughing back to where he came from. ... It defies logic."
Stern said he was not involved with the deal, and learned of it when he became unit chief in 2004. He said he continues to be troubled by it.
After the transplant, Goto was again barred from re-entering the U.S., the Times said, citing a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity.
Busuttil performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men now barred from entering the U.S. because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, the Times said, citing a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Times said it was not naming those three transplant recipients because neither they nor their lawyers could be reached.
Goto underwent a successful transplant in July 2001. He received the liver of a young man who died in a traffic accident, said Goto's Tokyo-based lawyer, Yoshiyuki Maki.
"Goto is over 60 now, but his liver is young," Maki said.
Goto continued to receive medical care from Busuttil in Japan. Busuttil traveled there and examined Goto more than once, Maki said. Busuttil also evaluated Goto while he was in custody in 2006, Maki said.
In May 2006, Goto was arrested in Japan on suspicion of real estate fraud. He was acquitted of the charges in March of this year.
It is unclear when Goto joined UCLA's waiting list, but he had been in the U.S. two months when he received a new liver, the Times reported. Overall, 34 percent of the patients added to UCLA's liver waiting list between January 1999 and December 2001 received a new liver within three years of being listed, the Times reported, citing national transplant statistics.
In a statement, the UCLA Health System said privacy laws prevented it from commenting on specific cases.
Busuttil, a former president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons who has testified before Congress on who should receive priority for transplants, released a statement this week.
"As a surgeon, it is not my role to pass moral judgment on the patients who seek my care," read the statement, which didn't directly address the Japanese patients. "If one of my patients, domestic or international, were in a situation that could be life-threatening, of course I would do everything in my power to assure that they would receive proper care."
It could not be determined how much UCLA and Busuttil were paid for the Japanese transplants, the Times reported.

2.
The manager of an illegal Tokyo dating cafe was arrested Thursday and 31 girls who were customers were questioned, police said.
This is the first time in Tokyo that police have cracked down on a dating cafe, according to investigators. The use of such clubs by underage girls where men and women seek partners has become a major social problem.
Ryuji Minoda, 24, manager of Can Cafe in the Higashi-Ikebukuro Itchome district of Toshima-ku, is accused of violating the metropolitan government ordinance regulating dating clubs by operating the establishment in a restricted area.
Investigators also accuse him of introducing a male customer to two 16-year-old high school girls.
Yuji Kameyama, 43, was also arrested Thursday for paying 20,000 yen to a 16-year-old high school girl he had got acquainted with at the cafe to have sex with him at a nearby hotel on May 23, according to Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) investigators.
A total of 31 teenage girls, mostly high school girls, were also questioned for using the cafe. When investigators raided the cafe on Wednesday,[COLOR=lime] 35 of the 51 female customers were aged below 18.[/COLOR]
Under a metropolitan government ordinance, the establishment of dating clubs is prohibited in the Higashi-Ikebukuro Itchome district where a high school is situated.

[COLOR=yellow]I give the old guy credit for trying...........[/COLOR]:smiley-rofl:
 
3.
A horny old Hokkaido landlord has landed himself in hot water for trying to enforce a deal he made with one of his young female tenants, who promised him her body if she failed to pay off her debts, according to Asahi Geino (6/5).
Kazuo Niioka, the 75-year-old landlord, was arrested for attempted indecent assault after he insisted the 21-year-old woman -- who owed him a few hundred thousand yen -- fulfill a written promise she had made to him to have sex if she failed to pay him back by a particular date.
Niioka has apparently admitted to the charge against him, but the men's weekly ponders just how legally binding the original agreement he made with the young housewife who became indebted to him would have been anyway.
"Legally, not at all," Hakuoh University law Professor Takeshi Domoto tells Asahi Geino. "Using the promise of a physical relationship as collateral would fall under Article 90 of the Civic Code, which prohibits behavior offensive to public order and morals. There is no legal obligation to fulfill the contract, which in itself was an illegal one to make."
But wouldn't there be some grounds for making the contract legal, considering both parties were willing signatories? Apparently not, the law expert says.
"In the days when parents used to sell their daughters into *****houses, there were precedents where the girl's employment contract and the contract concerning the money given to the parents were both declared null," Domoto says. "(The Hokkaido case) is simply a modern version of one of those cases."
What this all adds up to, the men's weekly says, is that cases like that allegedly involving Niioka's mean the man is not only unlikely to find the law on his side if he seeks its help in gaining carnal satisfaction, it probably won't help get back the money he lent, either.
"Some people may look at the documents and think at first that it is a binding agreement because it's signed by consenting parties, but the reality is that such a deal constitutes human trafficking," Domoto tells Asahi Geino. "Human trafficking is, of course, illegal, and making a contract based on illegal activities is naturally also going to be against the law." (By Ryann Connell)

sup Rob..nice to see you around again!!!! OG
 
Rich

Welcome back...and yah, #3 was funny..haha.

And on #1:

"I don't think Goto gave the bureau anything of significance," Stern said. Goto "came to the States and got a liver and was laughing back to where he came from. ... It defies logic."

and 

"Goto is over 60 now, but his liver is young," - bring on the drinks!!!

And what I was curious about:

"It could not be determined how much UCLA and Busuttil were paid for the Japanese transplants"

Seems like the Goto-Gumi got the best of the FBI..haha.

[quote=elpresidente]Seems like the Goto-Gumi got the best of the FBI..haha.[/quote]
 
 
In the mean time >>>
 
The surgeries were performed between 2000 and 2004, and in each of those years more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region. :pat:

[QUOTE={-.-};161174]In the mean time >>>
 
The surgeries were performed between 2000 and 2004, and in each of those years more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region. :pat:[/QUOTE]

Yah, that's the really fubar part of that whole ordeal.

[I]Money talks[/I]: If youve got the means, you get the best health care in the US....period. :sad:
 
if you run ur mouth and rat on people doing the same thing youre doing.....you're a snitch.

[COLOR=lime]They should have sold potatoes...........[/COLOR] :shrug:
 
OSAKA -- A gang boss and six other people have been arrested for selling stimulants under the guise of a food stall set up along a road here, police said. Makoto Nakanishi, 47, a senior member of a gang affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, and six others stand accused of violating the Stimulants Control Law. Investigators have confiscated about 15 grams of the illegal drug from the fake stall. They set up a fake stall along a municipal road in Nishinari-ku, Osaka, and hung up a banner saying, "Delicious Baked Sweet Potatoes," according to local police. They are accused of selling an average of 60 bags each containing 0.05 grams of stimulants -- worth about 300,000 yen -- a day. Osaka police had been investigating the stall since February after being alerted by a local resident, who became suspicious because the stall never sold potatoes.

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Yah that one is creepy though.