The Colombian cartels, Chinese tongs, Hong Kong triads, Japanese yakuza, and eventually after 1989 the Russian mafiya were all approached this way: first as criminal organizations, only later as traders.

NPR: Tracking the World's Black Market: 'Illicit'

Another album, 2001's Love and Theft, was claimed to have passages similar to lines from Confessions of a Yakuza, the memoir of a Japanese gangster by author Junichi Saga.

BBC: Bob Dylan rejects 'plagiarism' claims

As Mr Kaplan reports, it is only in the last few years that the Japanese government has started to get tough with the yakuza.

ECONOMIST: Asia's criminal underworld: Love, money and revenge | The