But this being Japan, where there was always a dichotomy between surface appearance and reality, the winners could sell their bounty for cash at nearby back-alley exchange stores.
Lansco made money by supplying prizes (goods obtained fromfriends at Army post exchanges) to a chain of pachinko shops in the Ginza area owned by a Korean yakuza and even supplied ball bearings, purchased at a discount from a military supplier. However, a bizarre series of events put Lansco out of business. A frail, stateless White Russian youth named Vladimir Boborov had joined the firm as executive assistant to Zappetti along with his fiancée, a young Russian woman named Nina, who became the Lansco bookkeeper. It was Vladimir and Nina’s plan to emigrate to the Soviet Union to join the Communist Party and have babies so they could donate them to the state. When Vladimir found himself unable to get a passport, however, he decided to sneak into the motherland and lay the groundwork.
Boborov and a friend drove a 1953 red Dodge all the way from Tokyo up to the port of Wakkanai, the northernmost tip of Japan on the island of Hokkaido, not far from the Russian mainland. There they procured a rowboat and headed out across the Straits of Sakhalin. The currents, however, would not cooperate. They became lost in a thick fog and when it cleared they discovered they were back on the Hokkaido coastline. On reaching shore they were arrested by the Japanese police and interrogated by the US CIA on suspicion of being Communist infiltrators. The authorities had found the red Dodge and demanded to know who their accomplices were. Soon they were questioning Zappetti and the others on suspicion of being Communist sympathizers.
It wasn’t long after that episode that ‘The Raid’ occurred. It happened one afternoon when Zappetti and the others were at their second-floor desks in the Lansco Building, toting up quarterly profits. They had pulled out three big green metal containers – one full of Japanese yen, one for military payment certificates (MPC), and one for US dollars – which they kept in a desk drawer and had counted out what amounted to over a million dollars in currency. Zappetti had just removed 3 million yen for pocket money and closed and locked the containers when in strode an American flashing an Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) badge accompanied by several uniformed Japanese policemen.
‘This is a raid,’ said the CID man. ‘Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. And keep your mouths shut.’
A Japanese policeman reached for the three metal containers, still on the desk, only to be stopped by the man from the CID.
‘Don’t touch those boxes,’ he barked.
The policeman was momentarily stunned. Years of obeying GHQ orders had perhaps made him and his colleagues temporarily forget that the Occupation was over and the Americans were no longer in charge – ostensibly, at least. The CID man picked up all three containers and, declaring he was ‘confiscating’ them as ‘evidence’, took them away. The Japanese police stayed around to arrest the Australian for illegal possession of MPC.
It never did become clear why Lansco was raided or what happened to the million dollars the CID had taken that day. Zappetti figured he had just been robbed by American Intelligence. At any rate, Lansco was now effectively out of business. One by one, the partners split up and disappeared. Vladimir was arrested again, this time for operating yet another incarnation of Lewin’s Mandarin casino – another bizarre detour on the road to his Marxist paradise – and he was kicked out of the country after the Soviet Union agreed to take him and the Japanese government decided to issue a passport. Leo Yuskoff, Vladimir’s associate at the Mandarin for a time, also emigrated to Moscow, where after being arrested by the KGB on suspicion of being an American spy he was allowed to join the party. Ray Dunston then started his English school in Tokyo,
Lansco made money by supplying prizes (goods obtained fromfriends at Army post exchanges) to a chain of pachinko shops in the Ginza area owned by a Korean yakuza and even supplied ball bearings, purchased at a discount from a military supplier. However, a bizarre series of events put Lansco out of business. A frail, stateless White Russian youth named Vladimir Boborov had joined the firm as executive assistant to Zappetti along with his fiancée, a young Russian woman named Nina, who became the Lansco bookkeeper. It was Vladimir and Nina’s plan to emigrate to the Soviet Union to join the Communist Party and have babies so they could donate them to the state. When Vladimir found himself unable to get a passport, however, he decided to sneak into the motherland and lay the groundwork.
Boborov and a friend drove a 1953 red Dodge all the way from Tokyo up to the port of Wakkanai, the northernmost tip of Japan on the island of Hokkaido, not far from the Russian mainland. There they procured a rowboat and headed out across the Straits of Sakhalin. The currents, however, would not cooperate. They became lost in a thick fog and when it cleared they discovered they were back on the Hokkaido coastline. On reaching shore they were arrested by the Japanese police and interrogated by the US CIA on suspicion of being Communist infiltrators. The authorities had found the red Dodge and demanded to know who their accomplices were. Soon they were questioning Zappetti and the others on suspicion of being Communist sympathizers.
It wasn’t long after that episode that ‘The Raid’ occurred. It happened one afternoon when Zappetti and the others were at their second-floor desks in the Lansco Building, toting up quarterly profits. They had pulled out three big green metal containers – one full of Japanese yen, one for military payment certificates (MPC), and one for US dollars – which they kept in a desk drawer and had counted out what amounted to over a million dollars in currency. Zappetti had just removed 3 million yen for pocket money and closed and locked the containers when in strode an American flashing an Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) badge accompanied by several uniformed Japanese policemen.
‘This is a raid,’ said the CID man. ‘Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. And keep your mouths shut.’
A Japanese policeman reached for the three metal containers, still on the desk, only to be stopped by the man from the CID.
‘Don’t touch those boxes,’ he barked.
The policeman was momentarily stunned. Years of obeying GHQ orders had perhaps made him and his colleagues temporarily forget that the Occupation was over and the Americans were no longer in charge – ostensibly, at least. The CID man picked up all three containers and, declaring he was ‘confiscating’ them as ‘evidence’, took them away. The Japanese police stayed around to arrest the Australian for illegal possession of MPC.
It never did become clear why Lansco was raided or what happened to the million dollars the CID had taken that day. Zappetti figured he had just been robbed by American Intelligence. At any rate, Lansco was now effectively out of business. One by one, the partners split up and disappeared. Vladimir was arrested again, this time for operating yet another incarnation of Lewin’s Mandarin casino – another bizarre detour on the road to his Marxist paradise – and he was kicked out of the country after the Soviet Union agreed to take him and the Japanese government decided to issue a passport. Leo Yuskoff, Vladimir’s associate at the Mandarin for a time, also emigrated to Moscow, where after being arrested by the KGB on suspicion of being an American spy he was allowed to join the party. Ray Dunston then started his English school in Tokyo,
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