A popular narrative is that the choice is between Ghosn being guilty or a victim of a Nissan management coup d'etat.<p>This is a false dichotomy, it is also quite possible that illicit activity by Ghosn provided convenient ammunition to people with incentive to have him removed.<p>People pushing the binary narrative focus on how the Japanese prosecution seems over the top for what is essentially a financial reporting law violation. However, the reporting issues are only two of the allegations.<p>The other two seem more serious, breach of trust in getting Nissan to cover collateral for FX losses, and misappropriation of funds in which $15 million was sent to a Nissan dealership, a portion of which was then transferred to a company controlled by Ghosn.<p>Adding to these the French arrest warrant on charges of money laundering and abuse of company assets, which seem to include misuse of company funds to allegedly pay for a lavish personal party at Versailles, one must wonder if online Ghosn supporters are organic or reputation management staff.
Since:<p>1) He had essentially zero chance of being acquitted, and<p>2) He was the victim of Nissan executives who didn't like having a <i>gaijin</i> be their boss:<p>In his shoes, I would feel morally justified in escaping. Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty.<p>If you disagree with that, suppose Britney Griner somehow escaped from Russian "justice"? How would you feel then?<p>Edit. Everyone talking about hypothetical burglaries and $10 thefts from poor people: please explain what, exactly, Ghosn was accused of stealing, and from whom?
The article ends with Ghosn entering the box.<p>> This article is adapted from “Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn” by Wall Street Journal reporters Nick Kostov and Sean McLain, to be published on Aug. 9, 2022
It makes you wonder how hard it would be for someone in the US to do the same... Let's imagine a hypothetical situation where a prominent wealthy person was indicted for some random federal crime, say 18 U.S.C. § 372 or 2384, etc. I'd bet they wouldn't need to hide in a box to flee to a country without an extradition agreement, like Russia for example.<p>One would hope we'd be able to prevent something like that, but it's a big country.
It's good that this case pulled the lid off (sorry) Japan's questionable justice system. See also: child abduction in mixed marriages <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/their-children-were-taken-now-they-fight-japanese-laws-to-get-them-back-20210727-p58dbk.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/their-children-were-taken-...</a>
Wow, not hard to see how the next 9/11 will happen. The staff at the charter jet terminal were almost criminally clueless.<p>"So, how exactly does the security work around here, anyway? Is this huge crate going to be X-rayed? Because it needs to not be X-rayed. Also, here's a $10,000 tip, just to make sure you, um, don't remember us."
I was in Japan in early 2019, just around the time he released a statement that was aired on TV. I have to say, Ghosn is very charming; he makes you want to believe every word he says.
Can someone ELI5 what exactly he apparently did wrong?<p>It's confusing, I hear people say he "escaped" and I hear people say he should be prosecuted for escaping. Weird.