杰克·阿德尔斯坦

杰克·阿德尔斯坦（英语：Jake Adelstein，1969年3月28日—）是美国记者、犯罪作家和博客。曾出版《东京罪恶：一个美籍记者的日本警方采访实录》一书。

生涯

阿德尔斯坦于美国密苏里州长大，19岁时搬到日本，在上智大学学习日本文学。1993年，阿德尔斯坦成为《读卖新闻》报纸的第一位非日本籍职员，并且于该公司工作了12年。离开《读卖新闻》后，阿德尔斯坦发表了一篇揭露后藤忠政与联邦调查局（FBI）达成交易以及到加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA）进行肝脏移植的文章。2009年，阿德尔斯坦出版了回忆录《东京罪恶：一个美籍记者的日本警方采访实录》，他在书中指责后藤忠政曾威胁要杀害他。

阿德尔斯坦后来成为调查日本人口贩卖的记者，经常向《每日野兽》、《Vice新闻》、《日本时报》和其他出版社投稿，也是灯塔：人口贩运受害者中心的董事会成员和顾问。

2011年4月19日，阿德尔斯坦对国家地理提起诉讼，该电视频道曾聘请他帮忙制作一部关于极道的纪录片。一个月后，阿德尔斯坦在与电视频道达成和解后撤回了诉讼。

作品

《东京罪恶：一个美籍记者的日本警方采访实录》（Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan）（2009年）

《The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld》（2016年）

《Pay the Devil in Bitcoin: The Creation of a Cryptocurrency and How Half a Billion Dollars of It Vanished from Japan》（2017年）

Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein (born March 28, 1969) is an American 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.

Early life

Adelstein grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Rock Bridge High School. 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 in English at Sophia University.

Career

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.

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. An April 2022 article by The Hollywood Reporter raised doubts about the veracity of the events described in the memoir and the many quotes he has attributed to anonymous sources in his journalism. According to the article, Adelstein initially offered to provide evidence that his anonymous sources existed, but then declined to do so. In November 2022, Esquire reported that Adelstein had released via Twitter a folder of source materials which he claimed supported his versions of events. In June 2023, a team of three European investigative journalists published an article in Belgian magazine Le Soir that also cast doubt on the content of his memoir, as well as his career at the Yoimiuri. The Japanese newspaper went on record for the first time about Adelstein in the article, stating that he was never part of the reporting teams for organized crime and had written only a very few articles about the yakuza during his time there. Tomohiko Suzukione of Japan's foremost yakuza experts, responded to followers questioning the credibility of Tokyo Vice, stating, "I don't trust it at all." He further questioned the very notion that Adelstein is treated as a yakuza expert in the United States.

Adelstein was subsequently a reporter for a United States Department of State investigation into human trafficking in Japan, and now writes for the Daily Beast, Vice News, The Japan Times and other publications.

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. However, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff is barred from bringing that claim in another court.

Personal life

Adelstein is Jewish. Jake was formerly married to Sunao Adelstein with two children; both of them live in Missouri due to threats made by Goto in 2005 towards them. As of January 2026 he now resides in Tokyo with his Brazilian girlfriend Jessy Nakamura.

Works

Adelstein, Jake (2009). Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. New York: Pantheon Books. 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

—— (2017). 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.

—— (2023). The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld. Minneapolis, Minn.: Scribe Publications.

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.