Ohtani interpreter

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Aaron Rodgers implicated Hilary Clinton today in the death of John Kennedy.

No, he did not.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Betting with a bookie 101:

You aren't putting up any money up front. Money doesn't exchange hands until after the event. Even then, with a good client, a bookie may well be willing to let things roll for a while. $325,000,000 was bet but that money didn't move back and forth ten thousand times in small increments.

When the debt load got to the point where it was making the bookie nervous he asked for his $40 million. About $16 million had been stolen. That is the "only" money that ever left Ohtani's account. The bookie never had $325 million pass through his hands.

EDIT: Betting with a bookie 101 (Or so I've heard...)

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

Hence my use of "in Ohtani's name" .

I wouldn't consider that as bets being placed in Ohtani's name, but if that's how you are describing it, I now understand what you have been saying.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Snowman

No, he did not.

Which makes the claim no less funny, or even improbable in the world we live in.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Snowman

It's not like $325 million just went missing from his account though. That's not how sports betting works. These were on average, 24 $17k wagers placed per day over the span of 26 months. The wagers are settled each day, win or lose. The bookie keeps a balance sheet and requires you to top off when your account gets low in order to continue betting. The actual money trading hands would have been much smaller than the total amount wagered.

For the second time tonight, nobody ever said $325M went missing from his account. That is a huge sum of bets for which Ohtani's bank account was the backer. There is a huge sum of money to not notice when his bank account is being used to pay it off whenever it's time to balance. This wasn't a single transfer that escaped his attention. It begs the question how he never noticed any of this going on for 26 months.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by G1911

like I've said the big problem here is the story changes every single week and there is almost no publicly available actual evidence

That's the nature of a 24 hour news cycle in a situation where there isn't a lot of "news".

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Betting with a bookie 101:

You aren't putting up any money up front. Money doesn't exchange hands until after the event. Even then, with a good client, a bookie may well be willing to let things roll for a while. $325,000,000 was bet but that money didn't move back and forth ten thousand times in small increments.

When the debt load got to the point where it was making the bookie nervous he asked for his $40 million. About $16 million had been stolen. That is the "only" money that ever left Ohtani's account. The bookie never had $325 million pass through his hands.

EDIT: Betting with a bookie 101 (Or so I've heard...)

So to circle all the way back... Is it normal or plausible for a guy who makes $300K to even be able to rack up $40M of debt with a bookie? I do not gamble so I do not know anything about it, hence why I called it a possibly stupid question, but I would think that if one is allowing such huge sums to being gambled that one would take some steps to determine the person could actually pay the bet. Otherwise, I can't see how they would stay in business.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by G1911

So to circle all the way back... Is it normal or plausible for a guy who makes $300K to even be able to rack up $40M of debt with a bookie? I do not gamble so I do not know anything about it, hence why I called it a possibly stupid question, but I would think that if one is allowing such huge sums to being gambled that one would take some steps to determine the person could actually pay the bet. Otherwise, I can't see how they would stay in business.

I do not know the answer to your question, but I do know that most people who make $300k per year are not so closely connected to a person who makes tens of millions a year.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

For the second time tonight, nobody ever said $325M went missing from his account. That is a huge sum of bets for which Ohtani's bank account was the backer. There is a huge sum of money to not notice when his bank account is being used to pay it off whenever it's time to balance. This wasn't a single transfer that escaped his attention. It begs the question how he never noticed any of this going on for 26 months.

I don't think all of the money came out of Ohtani's account since winnings went into an account owned by the interpreter, so he would be able to pay losses at times from his own account.

Yes, you would think having $16 million stolen from an account over time would be noticed by the account owner, but there have been many professional athletes over the years who were ripped off by their accounts, agents, etc so it's not impossible to believe it could happen to Ohtani. Also, he probably has other accounts with significant amounts of money in them, and if he isn't handling his own finances (and it's been reported before that his interpreter did handle a lot of things for him), then it seems possible he would never be looking at this account and know how much money was in it at any given time. As long as he had money to use when he needed it, where it was coming from or how much was there may never have come up. It's not something I can relate to, but it certainly seems plausible if you have more money than you can ever spend in several lifetimes.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

There is - or, well, was - a presumption of innocence in this country at one point.

Hard to believe right?

Sure he’s guilty because you have no facts either way and the story keeps shifting — in the media. The people who have been investigating it for law enforcement are going to prosecute the interpreter for massive theft

I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Aaron Rodgers implicated Hilary Clinton today in the death of John Kennedy. There’s a story that keep changing! And I’ve seen zero evidence she’s innocent!!!!

Aaron Rodgers said something about it being a weird coincidence that JFK Jr. died in a plane crash when he was running for the Senate against Hillary Clinton. He didn't say anything about her being involved in JFK's death.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

I do not know the answer to your question, but I do know that most people who make $300k per year are not so closely connected to a person who makes tens of millions a year.

Yes, but the board objected to me saying it was done in Ohtani's name. I'm wondering how it can both be stated the bets were not in Ohtani's name and the interpreter was able to rack up $40M of debt on $325M of bets on a $300K salary.

[G1911]

“So Bobby loses his uncle, JFK, his father, RFK. His cousin dies in a plane crash when he was running against Hillary Clinton — I’m not saying that was a conspiracy, but it’s kind of a weird coincidence. Bobby’s in danger, he’s putting himself on the line. Why? Because he f---ing believes in this country.”

This appears to be what was actually said on the podcast. I am still at a complete loss what this has to do with anything else in the thread lol.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

“So Bobby loses his uncle, JFK, his father, RFK. His cousin dies in a plane crash when he was running against Hillary Clinton — I’m not saying that was a conspiracy, but it’s kind of a weird coincidence. Bobby’s in danger, he’s putting himself on the line. Why? Because he f---ing believes in this country.”

This appears to be what was actually said on the podcast. I am still at a complete loss what this has to do with anything else in the thread lol.

Agreed.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

Yes, but the board objected to me saying it was done in Ohtani's name. I'm wondering how it can both be stated the bets were not in Ohtani's name and the interpreter was able to rack up $40M of debt on $325M of bets on a $300K salary.

Like I think I said before, the interpreter apparently was betting in his own name, but the bookie knew he worked for Ohtani and had access to money to cover his losses. If you want to say that means the bets were in Ohtani's name, go ahead. I just don't see it that way.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by G1911

Yes, but the board objected to me saying it was done in Ohtani's name. I'm wondering how it can both be stated the bets were not in Ohtani's name and the interpreter was able to rack up $40M of debt on $325M of bets on a $300K salary.

If the bookie was assuming there was an Ohtani connection that does not mean there was.

I work for somebody you have heard of. If I need something from you, I might mention the name if I think it will help me get what I want. That doesn't mean my boss is involved on any level.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

If the bookie was assuming there was an Ohtani connection that does not mean there was.

I work for somebody you have heard of. If I need something from you, I might mention the name if I think it will help me get what I want. That doesn't mean my boss is involved on any level.

You guys got to stop leaping. No one has said Ohtani is guilty or knew he was the guarantor. Issei, however, obviously used him as the guarantee to be able to even place the bets and many acts were done in his name. If you work for Ohtani and you're placing huge bets guaranteed by him, according to you, I'm eventually going to ask to speak to your boss to validate that's actually true. Many of us are close to people worth silly money, but there is no way I could get away with making deals in such vast sums under their name without anyone asking to validate with them. Issei may well have impersonated Ohtani to the bookies and the bank too, or perhaps nobody even asked or tried to validate. It is entirely possible that Ohtani's current story and/or the version approved by the board tonight is correct and he did nothing wrong in any way whatsoever. He has still not been accused of anything.

I am saying Issei must have used his name, and question what happened here and how Ohtani and his financial advisors, who I assume exist, never noticed multiple huge transactions for many millions of dollars. The story today is pretty wild. I don't know how anyone can not wonder what happened and how this worked nor why it is so very clearly controversial to ask that here.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

You guys got to stop leaping. No one has said Ohtani is guilty or knew he was the guarantor. Issei, however, obviously used him as the guarantee to be able to even place the bets and many acts were done in his name. If you work for Ohtani and you're placing huge bets guaranteed by him, according to you, I'm eventually going to ask to speak to your boss to validate that's actually true. Many of us are close to people worth silly money, but there is no way I could get away with making deals in such vast sums under their name without anyone asking to validate with them. Issei may well have impersonated Ohtani to the bookies and the bank too, or perhaps nobody even asked or tried to validate. It is entirely possible that Ohtani's current story and/or the version approved by the board tonight is correct and he did nothing wrong in any way whatsoever. He has still not been accused of anything.

I am saying Issei must have used his name, and question what happened here and how Ohtani and his financial advisors, who I assume exist, never noticed multiple huge transactions for many millions of dollars. The story today is pretty wild. I don't know how anyone can not wonder what happened and how this worked nor why it is so very clearly controversial to ask that here.

This article appears to have an explanation to the question of yours I put in bold:

https://sports.yahoo.com/shohei-ohta...222700264.html

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by G1911

You guys got to stop leaping.

...(I) question what happened here and how Ohtani and his financial advisors, who I assume exist, never noticed multiple huge transactions for many millions of dollars.

I'm not leaping anywhere, I too question how the people who look after his accounts ALLOWED WHAT HAPPENED TO HAPPEN, I will not assume they didn't notice, I will assume that they DID notice, but for some reason they allowed it to continue.

The ONGOING story line involves a guy who doesn't speak the language, who has a guy who he trusts speak it for him, and then that guy doing some shady stuff, which is where we all started wondering about various details, and it started to get interesting.

Remember, this thread started with four words :

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

Things could get interesting...

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by jayshum

This article appears to have an explanation to the question of yours I put in bold:

https://sports.yahoo.com/shohei-ohta...222700264.html

Amazing.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

I'm not leaping anywhere, I too question how the people who look after his accounts ALLOWED WHAT HAPPENED TO HAPPEN, I will not assume they didn't notice, I will assume that they DID notice, but for some reason they allowed it to continue.

The ONGOING story line involves a guy who doesn't speak the language, who has a guy who he trusts speak it for him, and then that guy doing some shady stuff, which is where we all started wondering about various details, and it started to get interesting.

Remember, this thread started with four words :

I would not assume they did notice; there is a lot of incompetence in this world. The complaint today argues that they knew the account existed but did not have any access to it or ask any real questions about it and that his own agent never spoke to Ohtani without Issei even once - essentially a picture of Ohtani's circle doing and just going with whatever Issei said.

I do have a hard time buying the picture painted here of Ohtani as a childishly naive guy who doesn't know English and thus can't know anything that goes on and completely reliant on Issei. I posted a video of him speaking English just fine earlier in the thread. If I was him I would also use an interpreter to keep my statements perfect, but he definitely and demonstrably speaks the language on the rare occasion he wants to do so.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by G1911

So to circle all the way back... Is it normal or plausible for a guy who makes $300K to even be able to rack up $40M of debt with a bookie? I do not gamble so I do not know anything about it, hence why I called it a possibly stupid question, but I would think that if one is allowing such huge sums to being gambled that one would take some steps to determine the person could actually pay the bet. Otherwise, I can't see how they would stay in business.

there are articles out there dealing with all this including a very good one on Yahoo of all places.

The interpreter basically said "Ohtani's good for it" and would send over $500k at a time which made the claim look plausible.

He eventually actually admitted to the bookie that he was stealing. The bookie believed Ohtani was OK with it and said so, that's when the interpreter actually confessed he was stealing from Ohtani TO THE BOOKIE. The feds have this text exchange.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

I would not assume they did notice; there is a lot of incompetence in this world. The complaint today argues that they knew the account existed but did not have any access to it or ask any real questions about it and that his own agent never spoke to Ohtani without Issei even once - essentially a picture of Ohtani's circle doing and just going with whatever Issei said.

I do have a hard time buying the picture painted here of Ohtani as a childishly naive guy who doesn't know English and thus can't know anything that goes on and completely reliant on Issei. I posted a video of him speaking English just fine earlier in the thread. If I was him I would also use an interpreter to keep my statements perfect, but he definitely and demonstrably speaks the language on the rare occasion he wants to do so.

I'm not sure that the issue was really a lack of understanding English as it was putting so much trust in someone to manage his finances. Unfortunately, he is far from the first person, athlete or otherwise, who was apparently ripped off by someone he trusted without doing any real oversight of his accounts on his own.

[Fred]

There's a baseball card angle to this story!

I wonder what his ebay name is/was.




Ippei Mizuhara used Ohtani's money to buy $325K worth of baseball cards
Mizuhara allegedly used the vast majority of the money stolen from Ohtani to pay off his debts to Bowyer, but he was apparently working on a baseball card resale side hustle, too.

The feds allegedly found more than $325,000 in transactions on eBay and Whatnot involving the Ohtani bank account used by Mizuhara between January and March 2024. A member of the investigative team reportedly spoke with a club employee who said his team would set aside packages for Mizuhara that were received under an alias.

The investigator eventually procured some of those packages and found ... around 1,000 baseball cards, including at least one for Ohtani:

Certain of these package had already been opened when I received them. Inside of these packages were baseball cards which appeared to be in protective cases for collecting.

With consent from MIZUHARA and his counsel, I have also taken possession of several additional briefcases and boxes that were found inside a vehicle used by MIZUHARA. Inside the briefcases and boxes were additional baseball cards, including cards for baseball players Yogi Berra, Juan Soto, and [Ohtani]. The Investigative Team is still attempting to inventory all of the baseball cards but I estimate that there were approximately 1,000 baseball cards in the briefcases and boxes.

The investigator concluded that Mizuhara purchased those cards to resell at a later date.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Fred

There's a baseball card angle to this story!

I wonder what his ebay name is/was.


Ippei Mizuhara used Ohtani's money to buy $325K worth of baseball cards
Mizuhara allegedly used the vast majority of the money stolen from Ohtani to pay off his debts to Bowyer, but he was apparently working on a baseball card resale side hustle, too.

The investigator concluded that Mizuhara purchased those cards to resell at a later date.

I think this implicates many on this board that also purchase cards to resell. And like my previous post about this, and to give it a little prewar spin, I am pretty sure T206 Evans cards are among those 1000's of cards found in the vehicle.


Brian

[tonyo]

Originally Posted by philo98

I had the opportunity to live this kind of lifestyle through the girlfriend I had at the time in Thailand. If you ever saw the movie, Crazy Rich Asians, that was the life I lived for about 7 years. I can tell you during that 7 years, the people I was around would never have any clue if $1 million, $5 million, even $50 million disappeared. These people were drowning in money and had no idea what they had. Every top business person in the country were friends with each other, the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra's daughter was my girlfriends BFF, etc etc. My gf would routinely spend $300K, $500K each week at the mall. $500 bowls of shark fin shop, Ms Louis Vuitton and Mr Gucci as close pals and on and on. Her sister went to England for university, so the family just gave me the Porsche to drive. This despite me not having a Thai drivers license, but it didnt matter. If anything happened, I was "outside" the law. Even when renewing my visa, I never had to leave the country on a visa run, they just gave my passport to the Head of Immigration, a friend of a friend, and gave me an extension automatically.

So many more examples, but the point is, none of these people or their friends had any clue how much money they had, where it was going, how it was spent. There was just an ungodly amount of money that never ran out. From that experience, I can easily see how Ohtani may not know where his money is going. It would be a full time job just for him to manage it. I ended the relationship through boredom, but my main takeaway on that experience is these people in the Top 1% of 1% of 1%, are clueless how the everyday people live. They live in their own world, and missing many millions was nothing of concern. Without a doubt, if my girlfriend was missing $16 million, she would have never known.

Fascinating !

[rjackson44]

in other news the mets fransisco lindor has 1 hr 2 rbis and is batting .90...making 35 million a year.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by packs

The story I read also claims that the interpreter was able to steal this insane amount of money by simply turning off the notifications that would have alerted Ohtani to the transactions.

I don't know who is expected to believe that. I guess maybe if you're a person who's never had a personal bank account you might believe it's that easy to steal millions of dollars from someone undetected.

But does a person who has a personal bank account and makes withdrawals from ATMs believe that? This one doesn't.

I can't really understand why anyone would believe banking regulations and security measures are so lax that simply turning off a notification will give you unrestricted access to someone's account. I access my account from new and multiple devices when necessary. I receive a security verification code each and every time. This code goes to both my phone and e-mail address. I highly doubt Ohtani has one single device he uses for his banking and that he would not receive personal notifications each and every time his account was accessed from a new device. He'd have to notice the notifications were turned off every time he expected to receive that code and couldn't access his own account.

Ever have your paypal accessed from your hacked email?
It's totally plausible.
Hack email,
Change email on paypal
Send yourself a few payments to namibia or wherever.

Bank wouldn't stop it, they had to let it go through so it was actually fraud???
Paypal said "oh we investigated and despite you never sending money to anywhere even close there, it's totally legit so forget it. "

Reset with all new passwords etc.
Set up 2 factor authentication....
2AM email "is this actually you sending money to namibia again?"
4AM "Well you didn't say no so say good bye to that money again."
Wake up and check emails at a reasonable time .... WTF Paypal!

If he's not keeping close watch on things, he might not even realize he's getting no notifications because the emails went somewhere else.

[packs]

PayPal is not a bank. I don't see why their security measures would be equal.

After reading the updates it seems as though the interpreter did everything I thought they'd have to do, I'm just extremely surprised he was able to do it. I'm "interpreting" the explanation of him switching the contact details to him actually providing his own details upon opening the account with Ohtani. The details for the transfers are all correct. As I said, he would have to submit his request from an authorized e-mail address and would only be able to confirm the transfer on an authorized line. Both of which he had for his own devices, which also bypasses the need to obtain Ohtani's devices. These are the missing explanations from the original story that I've been wondering about.

I also just logged into my own bank account just to see if it were possible for me to change my own personal contact details that I provided when I opened my account. I can't change my phone number/e-mail address or add a phone number/e-mail address just by logging into my account. I have to call a security number and I'm unsure what the process is from there.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by steve B

Ever have your paypal accessed from your hacked email?
It's totally plausible.
Hack email,
Change email on paypal
Send yourself a few payments to namibia or wherever.

Bank wouldn't stop it, they had to let it go through so it was actually fraud???
Paypal said "oh we investigated and despite you never sending money to anywhere even close there, it's totally legit so forget it. "

Reset with all new passwords etc.
Set up 2 factor authentication....
2AM email "is this actually you sending money to namibia again?"
4AM "Well you didn't say no so say good bye to that money again."
Wake up and check emails at a reasonable time .... WTF Paypal!

If he's not keeping close watch on things, he might not even realize he's getting no notifications because the emails went somewhere else.

Yep have had PP hacked. Neither they or the bank seemed like they cared. Neither would give any information about what actually happened or who got my money.

For those that don't know there is a school that actually teaches you how to hack into most accounts in seconds. A friends nephew went through it and he can hack into pretty much any account in seconds. The school is legit as large companies hire the graduates to help improve their security.

Since Ohtani hasn't retired and picked up basketball I still say he is completely innocent.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Yep have had PP hacked. Neither they or the bank seemed like they cared. Neither would give any information about what actually happened or who got my money.

For those that don't know there is a school that actually teaches you how to hack into most accounts in seconds. A friends nephew went through it and he can hack into pretty much any account in seconds. The school is legit as large companies hire the graduates to help improve their security.

Since Ohtani hasn't retired and picked up basketball I still say he is completely innocent.

A good reminder to use secure passwords of significant length and random characters and marks, and to enable 2 factor authentication.