
U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan - dsavant
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-arrests-former-green-beret-son-in-connection-with-ghosn-escape-from-japan-11589984215
======
DevX101
The whole escape was likely coordinated by Ghosn's wife who it seems passed
the Jeff Bezos test.

Commenting on what he looked for in a wife, Bezos once said in an interview
"The number one criterion was that I wanted a woman who could get me out of a
Third World prison"

~~~
afwaller
Japan is a first world country.

~~~
pnw_hazor
The Japanese criminal justice system is not up to first world standards.

"The litany of violations that commonly take place while the detainee is in
daiyou kangoku would befit places such as China, Turkey, or the Israeli
occupied West Bank. Detainees are subject to extremely long (e.g. over twelve
hours) questioning sessions, designed to wear them down. Sleep deprivation is
common, as is the deprivation of adequate food, and suspects are often made to
stand in uncomfortable positions for hours on end. Intimidation is the order
of the day, with techniques such as repeated screaming in the detainee’s ears,
and, though rarer, beatings have also been known to take place."

[https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-
authoritarian...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-
authoritarian-criminal-justice-system/)

~~~
braythwayt
Hello, have you met the US Criminal Justice System?

No, not that one.

I mean the system used for the poor and/or coloured and/or from a "shithole
country." The one that cages children and has decided that prisoners do not
need soap or disinfectant in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

The one that shoots first and asks questions later. The one that systemically
plants evidence. The one that takes performs "parallel construction" to
deceive the courts about the legality of its investigations. The one that had
an entire building devoted to making interogatees "disappear."

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. If Japan is not up to "first-
world standards," I have difficulty accepting that the US is up to first-world
standards, whatever they may be.

~~~
ciarannolan
> Hello, have you met the US Criminal Justice System?

Curious why you felt the need to inject this "but America" argument into this
thread?

The two men arrested aren't charged with any crimes in America. They will be
dealing with the Japanese justice system once extradited. Fighting extradition
from the US has nothing to do with "poor and/or coloured" people or whatever
bizarre argument you're trying to make.

~~~
braythwayt
It’s the presumption that there is some uniform high standard for justice in
the first world that I object to. Economic development and justice are not
synonymous, and the US is an excellent example of the fact that a country can
be considered first-world by definition, but not garner plaudits for its
justice system.

I could also have raised some questions about Canada’s record for justice,
especially with respect to our indigenous peoples. Our system may look good on
paper, and be reasonable for most citizens, but Canadian justice is also
distributed unevenly.

If someone says that Japan’s justice system is worthy of criticism on its own
merits, I have no objection and have no reason to mention the US.

It is only the presumption that “first-world == justice” that prompts me to
provide a counter-example. And I have just given another, so it is not just
the US.

------
blantonl
It's been extremely disturbing to see how much the culture of special
operations military has changed in the past 20 years. Previously, Navy Seal
and Green Berets operated in silent, keeping the sausage making of military
special operations quiet and secret, just doing their duty.

Now, it seems like every Navy SEAL now publically writes a book, sponsors a
coffee line, or slaps their name, likeness and story all over everything from
T-Shirts to gun accessories to clothing lines. It's made a complete mockery of
what has always been a silent service and honorable job, and it's spawned a
HUGE environment of tacticool people who want to act and look the part.

And then a lot of these special operations folks have decided to cash in on
the privatization component of special operations - we've seen the Venezuelan
attempted coup, and this.

Crazy times...

~~~
poof131
The privatization of the military is one of the most corrupt and corrosive
things our country has done in a while. I flew F-18s for the Navy and did a
ground tour in Iraq with Special Forces. Look at the pay grades in 2020.[1]
E3-E6 are making about $25-40k in salary. With some hazard pay and Basic
Allowance for Housing (BAH) and Subsistence (BAS), depending on where you live
(if not in the barracks) maybe you are making $50k. A decade ago, the
contractors who took none of the risks of going on ops and were just training
Iraqis were clearing $1k a day. I also saw contract pilots clearing $20k+ a
month. This pay differential is morale destroying and trains people to think
in market terms regarding skills that shouldn’t have a market outside of
government. Now we have private armies going on offensive operations
(Venezuela). But this is what the owners of the contracting firms always
wanted. Privatizing a military is dumb but I guess so is outsourcing your
medical supply chain, an overabundance of short-term bottomlinism the past few
decades.

1\. [https://militarybenefits.info/2020-military-pay-
charts/](https://militarybenefits.info/2020-military-pay-charts/)

~~~
loeg
The numbers aren't quite apples to apples; real military don't pay income tax,
while private citizens ostensibly owe taxes earned anywhere in the world.
Additionally, the tax rate on contract work is higher than one might expect
from W-2 work. In practice, maybe some military contractors illegally evade
taxes. I am wiling to believe take-home net of legal taxes owed is higher for
private contractors, but the gap is smaller than illustrated by those figures.

~~~
dcposch
I think hairsplitting pre- vs post-tax income in this context is a
distraction.

$20k/month is a quarter mil a year. Worst case, you live in a high tax state,
you might pay $100k in total tax, state + federal + local.

That leaves a take-home of $140k/year. Still almost 3x as much as a soldier
making $50k/year.

The larger point is that, yet again, we have a govt bureaucracy handling a
budget in hamfisted ways. (Big rigid hierarchy >> underpay recruits >> wow,
the org is bloated and still expensive >> we can save money by hiring
contractors.) The bureaucracy is is callous to the incentives they're
creating.

If it's a much better deal to be a private military contractor vs a soldier,
what does that do for morale? For cohesion? For career trajectories? (Get
trained, quit asap to go private with a big pay bump...)

This general pattern has a deep historical roots. Many countries at various
points in history have hollowed out their formal military by shifting to hired
mercenaries. That pattern has a bad track record.

~~~
loeg
I think I agree with you about everything you've mentioned, except that I
continue to believe post-tax real income is a better frame of comparison than
comparing post-tax (and missing BAH and hazard pay) to pre-tax.

(Additionally, it is not clear to me that GP's example numbers for private
contractors were actually modal, or just some high numbers he heard about.)

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Interesting. Japan is famously reluctant to extradite its own citizens, but
they did send two to the US last year, so I wonder if somebody pulled strings
to get the favor repaid. Although these are only low-level chumps, not Ghosn
himself.

[https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7d47070e-c949...](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7d47070e-c949-4ddd-b0e4-546a569b373f)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _these are only low-level chumps_

The operation sounds like it would have been unsuccessful without their help.
Given they were arrested boarding a commercial flight in Boston, it seems they
felt above reproach.

This arrest makes it less likely (though not impossible) such expertise will
be able to be procured for such purposes in the future.

~~~
pm90
> This arrest makes it less likely (though not impossible) such expertise will
> be able to be procured for such purposes in the future.

Eh, it would probably lead to them charging more for such things. How often
have such people been arrested? What penalties will them ultimately face?
(arrest is one thing, being found guilty and sentenced is another).

The people who worry about wealth inequality do so for this reason. It creates
a market for underground services that cost a lot but subvert due process in
many ways... the same due process that would get most citizenry in a lot of
trouble. It corrupts the system completely.

~~~
brandall10
Right, at a certain price folks can coast out the rest of their lives in
luxury... in places that don't have pesky things like extradition treaties to
worry about.

In this particular case these folks perhaps a bit too brazen, as extradition
to Japan seems likely and they will certainly be imprisoned there.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
You raise an interesting point. Even if someone gave me ten million dollars
for rescuing a rich guy, why would I want to live in a little tiny country
that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US? It would be miserable,
boring, terrible. I want to live in a place where I do something useful and
intellectual, giving me 10 million dollars to go live on a desert island
doesn't have an appeal. Giving someone 10 million dollars and you can live in
the US, that's different.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _U.S. law enforcement learned Peter Taylor had booked a flight from Boston
> to Beirut departing Wednesday with a layover in London and he was arrested
> by U.S. marshals as was Michael Taylor_ [1]

Why would someone who just helped a fugitive evade the laws of a country the
U.S. has an extradition treaty with feel comfortable remaining in Boston?

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn/us-
arrests-t...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn/us-arrests-two-
men-wanted-by-japan-over-former-nissan-boss-carlos-ghosns-escape-
idUSKBN22W1XD)

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
They obviously didn't? They were trying to fly _from_ Boston to Beirut,
Lebanon, where they would have been safe.

~~~
tehwebguy
Yeah but the warrant for them has been out since Jan 30 or earlier. Weird!

~~~
jonwachob91
A Japanese Warrant has been out since Jan. A US Warrant wasn't requested until
May 6.

------
ilamont
Can't read the article, but IIRC the elder Taylor's wife is from Lebanon and
he spent a lot of time there, even though he is from the Boston area and has a
home here.

Can't believe his lawyers didn't recommend he go to Lebanon sooner,
considering the amount of information made public about this case. Japan and
U.S. have extradition treaties, and they must have been aware of the risk.

~~~
chihuahua
What I find very strange about Ghosn's escape is how much information about it
was made public. It seems that none of the people involved should have been
interested in giving any information to the press. Everyone would have been
much better off if Ghosn disappears in Japan, resurfaces in Lebanon, and no
one says how it happened. Instead there were newspaper articles with abundant
detail about every step along the way. How did that happen?

------
unhomedcoder
you know the plausible conspiracy theory that FANG etc companies for the past
15 years have been deploying an anti-competitive strategy of soaking up tech
talent into excessively compensated jobs and putting them to work on vaporware
BS projects that get canned after 3-5 years? even though GoogaAppaFaceSoftZon
waste billions of dollars keeping tech nerds on the hamster wheel, that is
still cheaper than the risk of having a large pool of Ronin tech geniuses who
will launch competion to FAANG.

i often wonder if the same strategy is at play in Private Military Corps.
having tens of thousands of retired and hungry for action SOCOM super soldiers
could be a disaster. Having a large pool of idle mercs would make it easier
for some Dr No to hire them to launch coups or terrorist attacks, like we have
seen with the Zetas Cartel and the Mexican military in general. so PMCs serve
a purpose to soak up excess SOCOM labor capacity, and keep them busy on movie
script busy work that doesn't actually accomplish very much. The Pentagon
doesn't have to worry about a veteran's coup like Smedley Butler's Business
Plot against FDR in 1933.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot)

while PMC's lavish compensation seems to us like an irrational market,
counter-intuitively it is perfectly rational compared to the counter risk cost
of coups and terrorism.

i would go even further and say 99% of the Infosec/CyberWhatever DFENS
industry is also the same strategy of soaking up excess hacker labor on make-
work. how much duplication of effort and futility is there in the Infosec
industry. as we have seen from Snowden leaks and the Shadowbroker leaks of NSA
source code, all digital security is a joke to Nation State hackers. NSA
doesn't even need to break a sweat to disable all versions of every known AV,
firewalls and traffic mirrors never spot them because they have countless
exploits to root the scanners. so what purpose do marquee Computer Security
corps like Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Symantec etc serve?

Infosec corps soak up hacker labor so we dont have 50,000 underemployed
hackers who will get bored or angry and hack the planet.

it's cheaper to give potentially dangerous people fake jobs than to risk them
destroying The System.

~~~
oh_sigh
> into excessively compensated jobs

This is the problem with your conspiracy theory. I work for a FAANG, and maybe
about 1/3rd of the people who quit end up leaving to start or join a startup.
Paying them tons of money gives them the exact resources to go off and start
that competitor.

~~~
unhomedcoder
if 90% of tech talent stays at FAANG, collects their pay check which puts them
in the top 3% of income earners, and never leaves the Walled Garden Golden
Handcuffs of FAANG, that shows the strategy works to suppress potential
competitors. not to mention while you are employed at FAANG, you are forbidden
from contributing to open source projects and the Company automatically owns
any side projects you may create.

when i look at the 500,000 Galaxy Brain coders working at
GoogaAppaFaceSoftZon, i hear a giant sucking sound from the open source
ecosystem.

if only 10% of tech talent leave before 5 years, that is still a lot fewer
Ronin wandering out there who might eventually threaten the Shogun.

~~~
eee_honda
Id like to have a chat w. you about all the above. How can get in touch?

------
wonderwonder
If these guys are smart, they would take advantage of the current president
and do a full on social media push to get his attention. If orchestrated
properly it would almost guarantee they are not extradited.

It checks all the boxes, military, foreign governments, extradition.

~~~
blantonl
Exactly. Put the memo on Trump's desk and remind him they were special
operations soldiers and they're gonna be free and clear.

------
Jugurtha
> _U.S. Arrests Former Green Beret, Son, in Connection with Ghosn Escape from
> Japan_

Would the title have been clearer if it were " _U.S. Arrests Former Green
Beret and Son in Connection with Ghosn Escape from Japan_ "

I understood the title as meaning that the former Green Beret's name was Son
and that said Green Beret was already cited in the media because the title
didn't include a "full name", only "Son".

~~~
_iyig
Given recent headlines, I wondered for a moment whether Masayoshi Son had
served in the U.S. Special Forces.

------
csours
From the article: "In a criminal complaint, federal prosecutors said they were
acting on a request from Japanese authorities to extradite Michael L. Taylor
and his son, Peter M. Taylor, for their alleged roles in helping Mr. Ghosn
escape from Japan."

It appears they were not arrested for any US crimes.

~~~
jumelles
Something has to be a crime in both Japan and the US for one to be extradited
for that crime.

~~~
csours
Can you give me better phrasing for what I meant? They were not arrested for
crimes committed on US soil. As far as I can guess, no US law enforcement
would have arrested them for the crimes they committed without the request
from Japan (though I may be very wrong about this).

------
jcampbell1
It will be interesting to follow if they have enough money to fight the
extradition in court. The international press loves to make Japanese criminal
courts sound like a 12th century madhouse at every opportunity.

~~~
smcl
I haven't read a great deal about them in the papers, but what I _have_ read
is that they have a frighteningly high conviction rate - meaning that either

\- the police are _really_ good at finding the perpetrators of crimes

\- the state are really careful about only taking cases to trial they are
extremely confident they can win

\- ... or that simply being tried in court sufficient for convince everyone
judges and/or juries that you're guilty and that it's basically a formality
after that point

I've no idea which of these is true, I really hope it's just either of the
first two.

~~~
_jal
The US Federal conviction rate is only a few percentage points lower. And as a
US citizen, I can assure you it is not the first in our case.

~~~
ciarannolan
No, it's actually not even close. [1]

>In the United States federal court system, the conviction rate rose from
approximately 75 percent to approximately 85% between 1972 and 1992.[13] For
2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate.[14] In
2000, the conviction rate was also high in U.S. state courts. Coughlan,
writing in 2000, stated, "In recent years, the conviction rate has averaged
approximately 84% in Texas, 82% in California, 72% in New York, 67% in North
Carolina, and 59% in Florida."[15]

>In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that among defendants
charged with a felony, 68% were convicted (59% of a felony and the remainder
of a misdemeanor) with felony conviction rates highest for defendants
originally charged with motor vehicle theft (74%), driving-related offenses
(73%), murder (70%), burglary (69%), and drug trafficking (67%); and lowest
for defendants originally charged with assault (45%).[16]

Compare this to:

> The criminal justice system of Japan has been referred to as a form of
> "hostage justice" (hitojichi-shiho), including in an appeal by 1010 Japanese
> professors, lawyers, and other legal professionals.[8] Collin Jones, a
> professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, notes that the system has a
> conviction rate commonly described as 99.9%, but that the rate is, in fact,
> closer to 99.4%.[9][10][verification needed] Jones agrees with the group of
> legal professionals petitioning for change that practices such as
> interrogating suspects without counsel or charge for up to 23 days, not
> requiring the disclosure of exculpatory evidence, or of relationships
> between prosecutors and the courts increases the likelihood of
> convictions;[9][8] these professionals are unequivocal in their belief in
> the issue continues despite reforms, and that the system contributes to
> wrongful conviction:

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate)

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/c67BE](https://archive.md/c67BE)

------
jessermeyer
My fiance went to middle school with Peter in a small, rural town out in
nowhere Northern Massachusetts. Small world.

------
bookofjoe
[https://archive.vn/anvA4](https://archive.vn/anvA4)

------
joncrane
Oof, I clicked and remembered WSJ is paywalled...what's the trick to get
around that again?

~~~
ProAm
It's responsible to pay for good journalism.

~~~
ekianjo
How can you judge it's good if you can't read more than 5 lines?

~~~
freeopinion
Do you make the same argument for movies? books? cars?

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah I dont judge movies by their trailers nor books by their back cover. Who
does that?

------
vaxman
This is a sham, Gohn was a political prisoner and to do this before Memorial
Day and during the Covid outbreak is pretty low. The US courts need to dismiss
the request for extradition of American patriots who are accused of helping
free him or the Administration should get involved. Canceling plans to use
Japanese modules on github for a mission critical system —I don’t need drama
in my tech!

~~~
sunstone
There are almost 300 comments on this story and not one of them (that I read)
has mentioned how shady the Japanese government have been in the handling of
this case. They basically conspired with management at Nissan to have Ghosn
taken into custody on trumped up commercial charges because they weren't happy
with how they perceived Ghosn was planning to deal with Nissan which were
entirely legal.

Once they had him in custody they then proceeded drag out the process of his
legal situation when they ought to have proceeded as promptly as possible. But
since they didn't have much of a legal case they decided to just drag their
feet and let him rot in custody.

US authorities would do well to put as much investigation effort into the
process in Japan as they put in investigating these two.

~~~
vaxman
Yep and I got downvoted for trying to educate..

I wear my newly negative karma on this side like a badge of honor.

------
redstripe
Is leaving a country really that hard if you have a little money? Seems like
something you should be able to do without the assistance of green berets
unless you're in a movie.

A country like Japan must have: 1\. Dozens of private jets leaving it's
airspace daily. 2\. Hundreds of fishing boats leaving it territorial waters
daily.

~~~
alwayseasy
This story proves how you can do it if you have a "little" money. Given that
he was the highest profile prisoner in the country it's still hard to go to an
airport or fishing port and corrupt your way out alone. An old businessman
isn't a special operative or spy.

