The shocking revelation that Japanese yakuza gangsters received liver transplants in the U.S. over a four-year period might not have ever come to light had crime reporter Jake Adelstein accepted a six-figure compensation payment to kill the story, the writer said recently at a press luncheon.

The upper echelon of the gangster organization involved was worried that the transplant scandal, which involved a top yakuza executive making a back-door deal with the FBI, would create chaos within the group once the story went public.