TOKYO -- The murder of Juntaro Suzuki, a senior executive of Fuji Photo Film Co. hacked to death outside his home this week, has sent a chilling reminder of organized crime's brazen reach into Japan's corporate boardrooms.


Most speculation about the attack centers on the theory that Suzuki was killed -- apparently with a traditional samurai sword -- for refusing to pay extortion money from Fuji to gangsters who specialize in disrupting companies' annual meetings.


The murder suggests that the gangsters, known as sokaiya, may be growing bolder and more desperate as a result of a crackdown on their activities that has sharply reduced their numbers and their incomes.


Suzuki, 61, was stabbed in his neck, arms and legs Monday night after he went outside to check on an unidentified person who had rung his doorbell, according to police. Witnesses were quoted as saying they saw a man brandishing a samurai sword running from the area.


His wife reportedly said she heard a quarrel, followed by a scream, after which she found her husband collapsed and bleeding. He died shortly after being rushed to a hospital.


Fuji Film spokesman Arihiro Tasaka told reporters that the company was shocked and angered by the slaying. Asked about mobster involvement, Tasaka replied: "I don't have any information, and cannot make speculative comments."


But the company has become a target of sokaiya, racketeers who extort money from major companies by threatening to harass management at annual meetings. Often affiliated with major yakuza, or underworld, organizations, sokaiya buy shares of a company's stock and exploit the preference of Japanese executives for hassle-free annual meetings with little criticism from shareholders.


Fuji Film's annual meeting on Jan. 19 was disrupted by about 20 sokaiya, who harangued the company's president, Minoru Ohnishi, for more than four hours with critical questions about the firm's dividend policy and other matters. One sokaiya with links to the Yamaguchi-Gumi, the largest yakuza organization, threw three liquor bottles at Ohnishi and was arrested. In the weeks since the meeting, police have patrolled around the homes of several Fuji executives.


Suzuki was promoted in January 1991 to a position in which he was responsible for shareholders' meetings, and he evidently was not willing to accommodate the sokaiya, because Fuji Film's annual meetings began growing in length.


He was not in charge of this year's meeting, though, and as a result was not among the Fuji officials protected by police. To try to thwart the sokaiya, most Japanese companies hold their meetings on the same day. But many companies evidently continue to pay sokaiya under the table despite a 1982 law against doing so.