The former boss of Renault-Nissan has been refugee in Lebanon since December 2019 and his flight from Japan where he was prosecuted for charges of financial malpractices.
Le Monde with AFP
French justice issued an international arrest warrant against Carlos Ghosn, former boss of the Renault Nissan Alliance (RNBV), as part of an educated investigation in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) in particular for abuse of social and money laundering, said Nanterre’s parquet floor, Friday, April 22, confirming information from the Wall Street Journal .
The Franco-Libano-Brazilian, which was to be judged in Tokyo for financial malvers, lives in Beirut since its escapes of Japan at the end of 2019. In Nanterre, investigators are interested in nearly 15 million euros of payments. Considered as suspects between RNBV and the distributor of the French automaker in Oman, Suhail Bahwan Automobiles (SBA).
By permanently residing in Lebanon since its flight, the former big boss of Nissan and Renault is out of reach of Japanese justice because the country does not exist its citizens.
Rocampe leakage
At the end of 2019, Carlos Ghosn was released on bail in Tokyo. He had the prohibition to leave Japan pending a trial for alleged financial malvers when he was at the head of Nissan. Mr. Ghosn has always claimed his innocence on this file.
On December 29, 2019, after traveling incognito from Tokyo to Osaka in Shinkansen, the Japanese high-speed train, he had hidden in a big box pierced with small discrete holes to allow him to breathe. Mr. Ghosn had escaped controls at Kansai International Airport. Baggage checks were not mandatory for passengers boarding a private jet.
In the stride, the Franco-Libano-Brazilian had joined Beirut via Istanbul aboard private jets for the occasion. In February, three people had been sentenced to more than four years in prison by a court in Istanbul, Turkey, in this case: a head of a Turkish jet rental company, as well as two pilots.
Mr. Ghosn’s flight did not prevent opening, in September 2020 from a criminal trial in Tokyo about deferred remuneration totaling several tens of millions of dollars. It was supposed to receive them later, but without this being mentioned in the Group’s stock market reports.