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Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein (born March 28, 1969) is an American[1] journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein.
Jake Adelstein | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joshua Lawrence Adelstein March 28, 1969 Columbia, Missouri, U.S. |
| Occupation | Investigative journalist, writer, editor, blogger |
| Genre | True crime, non-fiction, journalism |
| Notable works | Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www.japansubculture.com | |
Adelstein grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Rock Bridge High School.[2] As a teenager he volunteered at KOPN and co-hosted a punk music program on the air. In 1988, he moved to Japan at age 19 to study Japanese literature at Sophia University.[3]
On April 15, 1993, Adelstein became the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Urawa, Saitama, where he worked for 12 years.[4]
After leaving the Yomiuri, Adelstein published an exposé of how an alleged crime boss, Tadamasa Goto, made a deal with the FBI to gain entry to the United States for a liver transplant at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, Adelstein published a memoir about his career as a reporter in Japan, Tokyo Vice, in which he accused Goto of threatening to kill him over the story.[5] An April 2022 article by The Hollywood Reporter raised doubts about the veracity of the events described in the memoir.[6] In November 2022, Esquire reported that Adelstein had released via Twitter a folder of source materials which he claimed supported his versions of events.[7]
Adelstein was subsequently a reporter for a United States Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan,[8] and now writes for the Daily Beast,[9] Vice News, The Japan Times[10] and other publications. He is a board member and advisor to the Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (formerly Polaris Project Japan).[11]
On April 19, 2011, Adelstein filed a lawsuit against National Geographic Television, which had hired him to help make a documentary about the yakuza, citing ethical problems with their behavior in Japan.[12][13] However, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff is barred from bringing that claim in another court.[14]
Adelstein is Jewish.[15][16][17][18][19] Jake was formerly married to Sunao Adelstein with 2 children; both of them live in Missouri after 2005 due to threats made by Goto towards them.[11]
- Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-37879-8. OCLC 699874898.
- Operation Tropical Storm: How an FBI Jewish-Japanese Special Agent Snared a Yakuza Boss in Hawaii (Kindle Single) ASIN B00Z7DUV7W June 7, 2015[20]
- Pay the Devil in Bitcoin: The Creation of a Cryptocurrency and How Half a Billion Dollars of It Vanished from Japan. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2017.
- The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld. New York City: Pantheon Books. 2023.
- The Evaporated: Gone With the Gods. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. 2023.
- Witnessed: Night Shift. Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment. September 1, 2024.
- Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan's Underworld. Scribe, 2024.
- Tokyo Vice Goes on Sale October 14th
- Adelstein, Jake (April 12, 2022). "Tokyo Vice's Jake Adelstein: Everything You Wanted To Know (But Were Mildly Afraid To Ask)". Unseen Japan. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
- How I escaped the Japanese gangsters who wanted to kill me : Jake Adelstein thetimes.co.uk
- Hard Lessons Learned From Tough People Jake Adelstein at TEDxKyoto 2012
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