Veteran Yakuza express concern over porn push

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WILLACY: (Sound of crowd at a fight) Inside this ring there are no rules - elbows, knees, anything goes.

This is ultimate fighting and soon a well executed head butt splits one of the young brawlers above the eye sending a spray of blood into the front row of the crowd near my feet.

(Sound of crowd at a fight)

These gladiatorial contests are promoted by Shinji Ishihara - a former Yakuza godfather and a convicted killer. He once ran a rival gangster through with a samurai sword then watched the man bleed to death in front of him.

(Shinji Ishihara speaking)

SHINJI ISNIHARA: "He was ripping me off when we were gambling", Ishihara tells me. "I stabbed him with a Japanese sword and killed him" he says.

MARK WILLACY:Like a raging bull, blue smoke blasts from Ishihara's nostrils. The chain-smoker is old school Yakuza. His trade was extortion and protection rackets. His tools were his fists and his reputation for sudden violence.

After a total of 30 years in jail he says he's gone straight and besides he has no time for this new breed of Yakuza punk - young gangsters prepared to do anything for a dollar even produce and distribute child pornography.

(Shinji Ishihara speaking)

SHINJI ISNIHARA: "If Yakuza who are above of a certain rank did this kind of business and were arrested they would be disgraced" Ishihara says.

"There are no rules when it comes to the Yakuza doing business. There are many young gangsters who do it make pocket money" he says.

JAKE ADELSTEIN: How can you crack down on child pornography in this country when it is not a crime to be posses it?

MARK WILLACY: For more than a decade Jake Adelstein pounded the organised crime beat for Japan's biggest selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun.

His nosing around earned him a death threat from the henchmen of Tadamasa Goto - the most feared Yakuza godfather of them all - a message delivered with chilling clarity.

JAKE ADELSTEIN: Either erase the story or I will erase you and your family. My understanding was clearly knowing the history of these people that if I worked on this story anymore that they would wipe me out.

MARK WILLACY: While investigating the link between child pornography and the Yakuza Jake Adelstein's seen sickening images of children being sexually abused.

JAKE ADELSTEIN: When you are looking at child pornography, you are not looking at something sexually titillating. You are looking at a crime scene. I mean it is crime scene. It is evidence that crime has been committed and that people can derive sexual pleasure from that or profit on that is horrifying.

MARK WILLACY: For the first time Japan's leading police agency has acknowledged in an interview with the ABC that the Yakuza is mixed up in the production and distribution of child pornography.

(Kohei Kishi speaking)

KOHEI KISHI: "It's true there are organised crime members among the people arrested for violating the anti-child pornography law to some degree" says Kohei Kishi, the chief of the National Police Agency's Organised Crime Division.

"But it's not clear how deeply involved they are in the whole child pornography business," he tells me.

(Sound of crowd at a fight)

MARK WILLACY: Back at the ultimate fight night the brawl has spilled out of the ring and into the crowd.

Former Yakuza kingpin Shinji Ishihara watches on - blue cigarette smoke pouring from his nostrils.

Ishihara may insist that he's gone straight, but it seems he's still a master of the dark art of violence and the blood being spilt still belongs to others.