Interpol issues arrest warrant for fugitive Ghosn
Lebanon confirmed it had received an international wanted warrant notice from Interpol for the sixty-five-year-old ex-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, who has French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship.
Interpol’s red notices are used to request law enforcement agencies to arrest a fugitive. Ghosn was facing trial in April on financial misconduct charges, which he denies before he skipped his 1.5 bn Yen ( £10.4m) bail.
One report suggested he was smuggled out of Tokyo in a double bass case with a paramilitary group disguised as a band.
Seven people including four pilots were detained in Turkey in connection with the escape.
Louis Schweitzer, CEO of Renault in 1996, hired Ghosn as his deputy and charged him with the task of turning the company around from near bankruptcy, which Ghosn cut costs for 1998-2000, reducing workforce, revising production processes, standardising vehicle parts, launching of new models and centralising research and development at its Techno-centre to reduce vehicle conception costs. Ghosn who earned the nickname “Mr. Fix It”, stepped down as CEO of Nissan on 1 April 2017, while remaining the chairman of the company, and was arrested at Haneda Airport on 19 November 2018, on allegations of under-reporting his earnings and misuse of company assets. On 22 November 2018, Nissan’s board made a unanimous decision to dismiss Ghosh as Nissan’s chairman, followed by Mitsubishi Motors’ board on 26 November 2018. Renault and the French government continued to support him at first, presuming him innocent until proven guilty and ultimately found the situation untenable and Ghosh was made to retire as chairman and CEO of Renault on 24 January 2019. While out on bail granted in early March, Ghosn was re-arrested in Tokyo on 4 April 2019 over new charges of misappropriations of Nissan funds. On 8 April 2019 Nissan shareholders voted to oust Ghosn from the company’s board. He was released again on bail on 25 April 2019. In June Renault uncovered 11 million euros in questionable expenses by him, leading to a French investigation and raids.
Japanese prosecutors have started an investigation over allegations that Mr. Ghosn breached immigration controls when he fled without leaving a record of departing Japan.
The Japanese authorities are still attempting to unravel how Mr. Ghosn made it from Tokyo to an airport 400km away in Osaka and to vanish from under 24-hour surveillance.
The plan he had concocted, by engaging multiple teams of private security experts and ex-military operatives would cost him an estimated $20m in expenses and forfeit the bail money, humbling Japan’s prosecutors in front of the world and confirm warnings from Nissan and elsewhere, that a man famous for arriving everywhere in private jet could always find a way to escape.
The Turkish private jet operator MNG admitted that it supplied the Bombardier Global Express plane that took Mr. Ghosn from Osaka to Istanbul and the second smaller plane, that took him from Istanbul to Beirut Rafic Hariri International airport.
The firm had filed a criminal complaint against those allegedly involved in the illegal use of its jet carrier services claimed that a staffer had arranged the two flights without the knowledge of senior management and Mr. Ghosn’s name had not appeared on any of the official documentation for the flight.