Published on January 25, 2020. This article introduces a dialogue from WiLL between Hidemi Tanaka and former Yamaguchi-gumi boss Neko Kumicho, examining Carlos Ghosn’s flight abroad, aggravated breach of trust, money laundering, international wanted notices, and the background to his escape to Lebanon. Through decisive evidence disclosed shortly before his escape, suspicions of family-wide fund management, and transactions with Shinsei Bank, it explores the dark depths of the Ghosn case.

January 25, 2020
The problem is the aggravated breach of trust charge.
Six days before his escape, an e-mail that decisively showed his involvement was disclosed to the defense as evidence.
With this, a prison sentence was certain, and he would have to spend five or six years in jail.
In this article, I introduce a dialogue from the special feature on Ghosn’s flight abroad, published in WiLL under the title, “Analysis by the Leading Figure of the Underworld: Black Fund Manipulation That Was on the Verge of Exposure,” between Hidemi Tanaka and former Yamaguchi-gumi boss Neko Kumicho.
Money laundering and an international wanted notice — the depths of the Ghosn case that only Neko Kumicho, who had the same experience, can discuss.
Ghosn, Has It Come This Far?
Tanaka
When it comes to the Ghosn case, it has to be Neko Kumicho!
Neko Kumicho
After all, I too was internationally wanted, just like defendant Ghosn.
I also exposed his money laundering early on, so I consider myself the leading figure on this case.
Laughs.
Tanaka
Defendant Ghosn was released last March after paying 1.5 billion yen in bail, but he spent as much as 2.2 billion yen and fled to Lebanon.
Of course, the 1.5 billion yen was also confiscated, so it was an escape drama totaling 3.7 billion yen.
Why now, at this timing?
Neko Kumicho
He has been indicted on two charges: violation of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act for falsely stating executive compensation in securities reports, and aggravated breach of trust for transferring private losses incurred in the Lehman Shock to Nissan.
Since the securities reports were approved by Nissan’s board of directors, all Nissan executives who signed them are accomplices.
The problem is the aggravated breach of trust charge.
Six days before his escape, an e-mail that decisively showed his involvement was disclosed to the defense as evidence.
With this, a prison sentence was certain, and he would have to spend five or six years in jail.
After that, the investigation would extend to his wife, Carole, and his son, Anthony.
That is when he must have made up his mind.
Tanaka
So he feared that the family-wide “black” fund management would be exposed.
Neko Kumicho
If he claims innocence, he should stand trial openly and proudly.
His escape is nothing other than an admission of guilt.
Defendant Ghosn’s greatest mistake was denying the fact that the investment company whose CEO is his son sent Nissan funds to Lebanon.
The remittance history will always be exposed if SWIFT, the international interbank communication network, is examined.
He should have admitted the remittance and coordinated his story about how to explain the nature of the money.
If he had consulted me, I would have taught him.
Laughs.
Tanaka
At the press conference he held in Lebanon, a Western journalist sarcastically said that he had “moved from the small prison called Japan to the large prison called Lebanon,” but what will happen to his life?
Neko Kumicho
Unfortunately, Lebanon is his terminal station.
How far the Lebanese government protects him will depend on external pressure, but if America intervenes, he will be brought back in one blow.
Tanaka
Lebanon is incredible.
It is a country that exists for the rich, and if you are born into a poor family, there is no future.
Laughs.
Neko Kumicho
The wealthy receive favorable tax treatment, and resort facilities are also well developed.
For the rich, it is heaven.
Quite a few people I know have gone there too.
Tanaka
Lebanon’s economy runs only on finance and tourism.
However, last year’s economic growth rate was extremely low at 0.5 percent, and now it is in a financial-crisis-like situation.
Financial institutions cannot pay high interest rates, and the government even covers half of the interest.
That said, the government is not prosperous either, so it is raising the consumption tax and trying to charge for smartphone calling apps.
It is pushing forward with “reverse Marxism,” exploiting the poor for the sake of the wealthy.
Public dissatisfaction is also building, and demonstrations occurred frequently at the end of last year.
The unemployment rate among young people is nearly 40 percent, which means that even the families that feed unemployed young people are barely getting by.
Into this situation came defendant Ghosn, the symbol of the wealthy.
It will appeal to wealthy people overseas, but backlash from within the country can be expected.
Experiences of Being “Internationally Wanted”
Neko Kumicho
If defendant Ghosn were a Japanese national, his passport could be invalidated, and he could be arrested locally for illegal stay.
But he is a Lebanese national.
ICPO, the International Criminal Police Organization, issued the most urgent “Red Notice,” but because it has no compulsory force, it is meaningless.
Tanaka
Were you also “red,” Neko Kumicho?
Neko Kumicho
In my case, I went from one level below, “blue,” to “red.”
Even when it becomes “red,” the response of immigration authorities in various countries is careless.
To begin with, if they refuse entry, it is troublesome to file a report about it, so they have no intention of arresting you.
Laughs.
For immigration authorities, it is easier to let you enter once and then have you leave quickly.
So it ends with them saying, “It will become troublesome, so do not come again.”
While I was wanted, I traveled to forty countries in a year and a half like a backpacker.
Laughs.
Especially in British territories such as the Cayman Islands and the Channel Islands, which are not members of ICPO, the systems are full of holes.
In many places, criminal police are kept out so that wealthy people can easily flee there.
They shelter economic criminals and have them pay high taxes.
That is their way of doing things.
Tanaka
There is an internationally wanted economist of Nobel Prize caliber, and he has been fleeing around those places.
Neko Kumicho
In such countries, as long as you deposit money, they will even remake your passport.
In the Channel Islands, you can make a British passport for twenty to thirty million yen.
Tanaka
When one thinks of it that way, defendant Ghosn’s illegal departure was so straightforward that one might think he wanted it made into a film.
Neko Kumicho
Yes, extremely classical!
There are much better ways.
Laughs.
Tanaka
Even so, Japanese people tend to think of everything based on the doctrine that human nature is good.
They probably thought defendant Ghosn would behave quietly once released on bail.
The idea that he would flee abroad simply does not arise in the Japanese mind.
Neko Kumicho
That is why defendant Ghosn looked down on Japan and did as he pleased.
The belief that people are fundamentally good works only inside Japan.
Foreigners, and financial criminals all the more, are lumps of cunning.
Japan must respond based thoroughly on the belief that human nature is evil.
Everyone Was Deceived by Ghosn
Tanaka
In November 2018, the day after defendant Ghosn was arrested, I had a live radio broadcast in which I served as a commentator.
The details of the case had not yet come to light, but when I was asked to explain why executive compensation had been understated in the securities report, my intuition, given the timing, told me, “It must be the Lehman Shock.”
His asset management had gone bad, and he tried to cover it.
I believe I pointed out that possibility earlier than anyone else, but I could not read the money laundering behind it the way Neko Kumicho did.
That is something only Neko Kumicho, who knows the “black economy” inside and out, could understand.
Neko Kumicho
After his arrest, defendant Ghosn signed a contract with the American law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which has no jurisdiction over Japanese criminal cases.
It is a super-famous firm with clients such as Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.
That was when it struck me.
He had gotten involved in an international financial crime.
He was engaged in high-risk, high-return asset management using leverage, a mechanism in which funds are used as collateral to conduct transactions many times larger.
His defense team says it was “a risk hedge in case salary payments were delayed,” but that is a complete lie.
He was greedy and wanted even one more yen.
Otherwise, there is no way he would have generated valuation losses of 1.85 billion yen.
Tanaka
He could not predict the sudden foreign-exchange fluctuation, the strong yen, caused by the Lehman Shock.
Neko Kumicho
As the manager of an export company, he was disqualified.
Laughs.
After that, like an amateur investor, he probably believed, “It will recover someday,” took no countermeasures, and the losses only kept swelling.
It is easy to imagine.
And then he got involved in a malicious international financial crime, that is, money laundering.
It was a method using a letter of credit called a “standby L/C,” but it is almost impossible for this letter of credit to be used in a personal transaction.
If you consulted a bank, they would simply say, “Are you stupid?”
However, because Nissan had credibility, Shinsei Bank accepted it.
At a megabank, it would absolutely not pass because of compliance violations.
It must have been a special executive-level case.
Tanaka
The executive officer of Shinsei Bank at that time is now serving as a member of the Bank of Japan’s Policy Board.
When his term ends next year, he will probably be pressed on what kind of transaction he made with defendant Ghosn.
Neko Kumicho
Shinsei Bank follows the line of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, and after it went bankrupt, it was acquired mainly by American corporate turnaround funds.
There are foreign-affiliated people among its executives, and it reeks of money laundering.
Shinsei Bank is also pitch-black.
Incidentally, this money laundering is a traditional method called “the wandering people,” and anyone who knows how to look at it will understand immediately.
Those who want to know more should read my book Financial Dark Side, published by Kodansha.
Tanaka
Around the time he was doing business with Shinsei Bank, defendant Ghosn was arguing for a weaker yen.
As a direction, that was correct.
While Keidanren and the managers of large companies talked about mistaken economic policies such as raising the consumption tax, I thought he was saying something good.
So I even praised him on Twitter.
But in the end, it was nothing of the sort.
He was merely seeking a weaker yen in order to reduce defendant Ghosn’s personal losses.
Laughs.
No matter what, I could not see that far.
I too was deceived by defendant Ghosn…
This article continues.