Japan's yakuza — once powerful organized crime figures — are reduced to stealing Pokémon cards

• Tokyo police arrested a yakuza boss, accusing him of stealing Pokémon cards.
• The yakuza once had a fearsome, violent reputation. This arrest marks a shift to petty crimes.
• Anti-gang laws and lower profits have made yakuza membership less appealing to younger Japanese.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police last week arrested an executive of the Takinogawa gang, a faction of Japan's second-most powerful organized crime syndicate — the Sumiyoshi-kai.

His alleged crime? Police accuse him of stealing Pokémon cards.

Yakuza are members of organized crime syndicates, the Japanese equivalents of gangsters or mafiosos. Membership peaked in the 1960s when numbers swelled to more than 180,000.