The number of people recognized as gangsters by police in Japan dropped to a record-low 30,500 in 2018 amid an intensified crackdown on organized crime, the National Police Agency said Thursday.

The total, including yakuza members and those loosely associated with crime syndicates, fell about 4,000 from the year before, marking the 14th consecutive year of decline, according to the agency tally.

(Police raid the headquarters of Yamaguchi-gumi in Kobe on Oct. 30, 2019.)

By group, Yamaguchi-gumi was the largest at 9,500 members, while Sumiyoshi-kai had 4,900 and Inagawa-kai had 3,700, the agency report said.

The number of crime syndicate members and associates investigated in crime cases by police reached 16,881 in 2018, down 856 from the previous year. Of that figure, those suspected of violating the stimulants control law accounted for 4,569, while those who allegedly committed bodily harm stood at 2,042 and fraud stood at 1,749.

"It is becoming harder to live as a crime syndicate member amid crackdowns and escalating social exclusion of members," said an NPA official.

But the agency also said it had found yakuza were playing a key role in so-called special fraud cases, including defrauding old people by impersonating their children or their grandchildren and asking for urgent money transfers over the phone.

Of the 2,747 people police investigated last year over special fraud cases, 630 people, or 22.9 percent, were crime syndicate members.

The agency said 24 of the 53 people who were recognized as the main culprits in special fraud cases were crime syndicate members, and 58 of the 121 coordinators in those cases were also gangsters.

Police confirmed more than 16,000 special fraud cases in 2018 and the amount swindled exceeded 35 billion yen ($318 million).