The son of ex-Nissan head Carlos Ghosn is said to have used the Coinbase platform to send funds in Bitcoin to two men to get his father out of Japan in December 2019.
The escape of ex-Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn from house arrest late last year is alleged to have come at a cost of over half a million dollars in cryptocurrency. According to the media, an amount of $600,000 in Bitcoin was sent via Coinbase. U.S. prosecutors stated in a court filing that the escape was facilitated by the ex-CEO ‘s son who made a wire payment to Peter and Michael Taylor.
Carlos’s son Anthony Ghosn is said to have sent 63 Bitcoin to two men, a father and son, who helped Ghosn. Michael, an ex-green beret, and his son Peter allegedly hid Ghosn in a musical instrument case and smuggled him out of Japan via the Kansai international airport Osaka Japan.
Carlos Ghosn Relocated to Lebanon for a Fee in Bitcoin
The total fee for the extraction is reportedly around $1.36 million, $860,000 of which was initially wired by Ghosn himself to the Taylor’s. This included fees for both the extraction and relocation to Lebanon where Ghosn possesses citizenship.
According to the reports, the payments were spread over a 5-month period, from January to May 2020.
Carlos Ghosn was originally arrested and charged four times between 2018 and 2019 on issues related to financial crimes committed while at Nissan.
These arrests resulted in spells of detainment, solitary confinement, custodial interrogation without a lawyer present and eventual house arrest. A treatment that his lawyers and civil rights groups in the country have described as “hostage justice” designed to obtain a forced confession.
Plot Out of the Movies
In a plot straight out of a Hollywood script, it stated that Taylor’s entered Japan under the guise of attending a musical concert in Tokyo. Ghosn was also allowed to attend the concert at the Grand Hyatt hotel unbeknownst to security officers, the three men met, took a bus from Tokyo to Osaka where Ghosn was put in a large musical instrument case. He was loaded into a plane headed for Lebanon via Istanbul International Airport.
The Ghosn case has already drawn parallels to that of now-defunct crypto exchange firm Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, who was arrested and charged for similar financial crimes in august 2015. Unlike Ghosn, he chose to face the system and was later acquitted of most of the charges, but was indicted on the count of mishandling of electronic funds. He was denied an appeal over the verdict in June this year.
He was reported to have met several times with Ghosn, and it was believed that it was during one of such conversations that the ex-Nissan CEO made up his mind to flee the country.
Carlos Ghosn is currently a free man in Lebanon, which has no extradition arrangement with Japan, while Peter and Michael Taylor have been arrested and placed under us custody since May following a request by the Japanese government.
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