If Unsolved Mysteries isn’t providing enough true crime content, then arriving on Netflix this week is Fugitive: The Curious Case of Carlos Ghosn – a new documentary diving into the life of the former Nissan boss.
Ghosn, who was previously the CEO of Michelin North America, Renault and Nissan as well as the chairman of Mitsubishi, was arrested in 2018 over allegations of under-reporting his salary and gross misuse of company assets.
He was released on bail, and in December 2019 the businessman fled Japan – where he was arrested – and became an internationally-wanted fugitive.
While the documentary tells the true crime story through Ghosn’s closest collaborators and relatives, read on to find out everything you need to know about Carlos Ghosn and where he is now.
Who is Carlos Ghosn?
Carlos Ghosn is a businessman and fugitive who was previously the CEO of Michelin North America, Renault, Nissan and the chairman of Mitsubishi.
After starting his career at Michelin, Ghosn joined Renault in 1996 and then Nissan in 1999 after the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance was formed.
He stepped down as CEO of Nissan in April 2017 but remained chairman of the company. However, on 19th November 2018, he was arrested at Tokyo International Airport for allegedly under-reporting his salary and gross misuse of company assets.
According to The Straits Times, Ghosn was accused with under-reporting his compensation by nine billion yen (£53 million) in financial documents for at least eight fiscal years, partly by deferring compensation until his retirement, constituting financial misconduct.
Prosecutors also alleged that he tried to shift losses from two foreign exchange contracts onto Nissan’s books when the value of the yen soared during the 2008 financial crisis, but failed and subsequently asked a business acquaintance to put up the additional collateral demanded by the banks before transferring $14.7m (£12.7m) in Nissan money to that associate.
He was detained at the Tokyo Detention House in Japan, which allows suspects to be detained for up to 23 days without criminal charges being filed. On 10th December 2018, charges were filed against him and Greg Kelly – a Nissan director and former head of human resources – for underreporting of deferred compensation, while two weeks later, he was re-arrested on suspicion of shifting to Nissan personal losses of $16.6m during the global financial crisis.
In January 2019, Ghosn appeared in court to offer his first public statement since the arrest, strongly denying the allegations made against him.
The Straits Times reported that he said the figures were based on an internal benchmark he kept that came from job offers he received from other firms, adding: “It had no legal effect; it was never shared with the directors; and it never represented any kind of binding commitment.”
He also acknowledged that he had taken out foreign exchange contracts as a hedge against yen fluctuations and decided to “ask Nissan to temporarily take on the collateral, so long as it came to no cost to the company”.
“The FX contracts were then transferred back to me without Nissan incurring any loss,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ghosn said that the money he transferred to his associate who he named a “long-time support and partner” of the firm, Khaled Juffali, was for work he had done for Nissan, adding that his company “was appropriately compensated – an amount disclosed to and approved by the appropriate officers at Nissan” in return for “critical services” he provided to the firm.
In January 2019, Nissan’s investigation reportedly found that Ghosn was paid $8m from a joint venture owned by Nissan and Mitsubishi on top of his salary, without the knowledge of either company’s directors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Ghosn stepped down as chairman and CEO of Renault that month and in March 2019, he was granted a request for bail at the amount of 1 billion yen on the condition that he couldn’t travel abroad and had to remain at his address under 24-hour camera surveillance and no access to the internet.
Ghosn was arrested again in April 2019 over new charges of misappropriations of Nissan funds, with the businessman describing the arrest as “outrageous and arbitrary” and “part of another attempt by some individuals at Nissan to silence me,” CNBC reported. He was released again in late April and confined to strict house arrest.
In September 2019, he was fined $1m by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over his failure to disclose pay, while Nissan was fined $15m. He also accepted a 10-year ban from serving as an officer or director of a public company, Bloomberg reported.
By December 2019, Ghosn had escaped Japan and flown to Beirut in Lebanon, revealing in a statement that he would “no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant and basic human rights are denied” (via The Guardian).
He was reportedly smuggled out of an Osaka hotel in a box by two men posing as musicians before being loaded onto a private jet. He is then understood to have swapped planes in Turkey and landed in Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Japan, according to BBC News.
Where is Carlos Ghosn now?
Carlos Ghosn is reportedly still living in Lebanon, where he has remained since fleeing Japan in 2019.
In January 2020, Ghosn – who has citizenship in Lebanon, France and Brazil – held a press conference, saying that he didn’t consider himself “as a prisoner in Lebanon”.
“I prefer this prison to the one before,” he said, according to The Guardian. “I am ready to stay a long time in Lebanon, but I am going to fight because I have to clear my name.”
That same month, Interpol issued a red notice for Ghosn, which requests police across the world to provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action.
In February this year, Ghosn told French publication Le Parisien that he wants to return to France but can not “for the moment” due to the Interpol warrant for his arrest.
In April 2022, France issued an international arrest warrant for the former Nissan boss over allegations of misuse of company assets, money laundering and corruption, according to The Guardian.
Fugitive arrives on Netflix on Wednesday 26th October. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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