United States law enforcement officers arrested two of the main suspected suspected suspects on Wednesday morning. the great escape of Carlos Ghosn , the former boss of Renault and Nissan. Michael Taylor, a former green beret converted to “delicate” exfiltrations, and his son Peter were arrested at Harvard, Massachusetts following the issuance in late January of an arrest warrant by the Japanese justice system. Risking a possible but complex extradition to Tokyo, they should be presented in the coming hours before a federal judge in Boston.
The two men are suspected by the Tokyo public prosecutor’s office of having organized on December 29 last, with one of their relatives, George-Antoine Zayek, the illegal exit from the territory of the former CEO who was to answer before a Japanese court four charges of aggravated breach of trust and violation of a law on financial transparency.
Tampered trunk
Living for months in Tokyo, on bail, Carlos Ghosn had, according to Japanese police, taken advantage of a certain relaxation in the surveillance of his actions to join Michael Taylor and George-Antoine Zayek in a large hotel in the Japanese capital. The three men had then traveled to Osaka by shinkansen – the Japanese TGV – to go to a hotel near the city’s international airport where the two beards had reserved a room earlier in the morning shortly after disembarking at Japan in private jet from Dubai. They then pretended to be authorities to two musicians who arrived with bulky equipment in two large black trunks.
Inside room 4609 of the Star Gate Hotel, Carlos Ghosn had hidden in one of these trunks usually used to transport audio equipment. His two “accomplices” then transported their “equipment” shortly after 10 pm to the business jet terminal at Osaka airport. Japanese regulations did not impose strict controls on bulky luggage on this type of flight, so they were able to easily pass their stowaway before loading it into their Bombardier Global Express which had quickly taken off for Istanbul.
Arriving at dawn the next morning at Atatürk airport, Carlos Ghosn had walked in the rain on the tarmac to join another jet bound for Beirut, where he lives today with his wife Carole under threat of several arrest warrants.
A well-prepared operation
During their investigation, the Japanese authorities discovered that Michael Taylor had visited Japan at least three times between July and early December 2019 to prepare for the December 29 operation. He would have met Carlos Ghosn at least seven times to refine the details of his very risky escape, the start of which would not have been decided until quite late in the sequence.
The former boss, who has always claimed his innocence since his first arrest in November 2018 and had long promised to defend himself vigorously before Japanese justice, would have decided to initiate his escape when he understood that his trials were likely to last, whatever their outcome, more than three years and that he had little lucky to be allowed, over this period, to see his wife and some of his relatives.
“I had given up hope. I had to go, ” later told the former boss , who has always refused to give details of his escape or to give the names of his accomplices, who are now facing prison terms.