Gold Coast crime: Coast detectives searched for body of murdered Yakuza crime boss Hamago Kitayama

A retired Japanese crime boss who previously led a violent Yakuza clan was murdered by his wife and his body dumped at a Gold Coast tip.

A retired Japanese crime boss who previously led a violent Yakuza clan was murdered by his wife and his body dumped at a Gold Coast tip.

It was 20 years ago this week that Coast detectives began searching for missing millionaire businessman Hamago Kitayama.

The 62-year-old had last been seen six weeks earlier on April 16 when his wife told police she had last seen him catching a taxi to Gold Coast Airport for a flight to Japan.

But police suspected foul play when immigration checks revealed he had not left the country and Japanese authorities found no trace of him.

Police search through rubbish at Labrador tip on May 24, 1999 Picture: Troy Purdue.

His passport was later found in his unit.

Detective Senior Sergeant Glenn Terry said police believed Mr Kitayama was dead.

“We’ll be looking at an area of interest in relation to the mysterious disappearance of Mr Kitayama,” he said.

“Basically we’re looking for a body.”

The investigation had begun days earlier when the businessman was reported missing by his family.

Police set up an investigation under the codename Operation Symbol.

The area of interest it turned out was a Gold Coast rubbish tip.

Hamago Kitayama

Searchers with sniffer dogs sifted through more than 300 tonnes of rubbish at the now-closed Suntown Tip at Arundel after local residents told investigators they had seen a large black canvas bag near an industrial bin.

The investigation also zeroed in on the Kitayama family’s unit in Surfers Paradise.

Police found bloodstains on the carpet.

Northern CIB head detective Inspector Len Potts said he was confident Mr Kitayama’s body would be found.

None were ever found.

The full details of what happened to Mr Kitayama would soon come out.

Akiko Kitayama was arrested for her husband’s murder and put on trial in 2000.

The retired crime boss’ body was never found.

It was revealed that the murdered man had been a Yakuza crime boss who specialised in selling protection to shopkeepers before retiring and moving to the Gold Coast on a retiree visa in the 1980s.

They were originally from Yokohama, where Hamago was a Yakuza with interests in a showground and was involved in protection rackets.

But his relationship with his wife fell apart in the late 1990s.

In 1996 Mr Kitayama had a serious stroke which left him requiring long-term care.

Akiko Kitayama at Southport Police watchouse. Picture: Geoff McLachlan.

During her trial it was alleged Mrs Kitayama strangled her husband, cut him up with an electric saw, placed the dismembered body in plastic bags and then put them into a large bag which was left for garbage collection under their Surfers Paradise home unit.

The court was told that in 1998, Akiko offered a friend $84,000 cash to kill Hamago and that she had admitted to police having unsuccessfully attempted to strangle her husband on three occasions.

The Crown alleged Mrs Kitayama lied about the whereabouts of her husband in April 1999, claiming he was visiting his sick sister in Japan.

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Akiko Kitayama was convicted of murder.

But evidence was given that the sister was not ill at the time and Mr Kitayama had not visited her.

Defence counsel Chris Callaghan argued in court that Mrs Kitayama was under the influence of alcohol or the drug Rohypnol when she was interviewed by police and also when she made the offer to a hitman to kill Hamago.

In January 2001 the jury took about 10 hours to find the then-54-year-old guilty of murder and she was sentenced by Justice John Muir to life behind bars.

The Court of Appeals and High Court both shot down appeal attempts in 2001 and 2002 and she remains behind bars today.