The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn by Nick Kostov, Sean McLain

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

The Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn by Nick Kostov, Sean McLain The unprecedented rise and catastrophic fall of one of the world’s most feared and admired business executives—Carlos Ghosn—a remarkable story of innovation, hubris, alleged crimes, and daring international escape, as chronicled by two Wall Street Journal reporters. Carlos Ghosn always wanted more. Born in the Amazon, raised by a well-off—if scandalized—family in Beirut, and educated in Paris, Ghosn rose to prominence at Michelin in the United States, Renault in France, and Nissan in Japan. Along the way he earned monikers of Le Cost Killer, for his incisive business savvy, and Mr. 7-Eleven, for the hours he devoted to his work. Initially Ghosn thrived, becoming a poster boy for globalization and multinational corporations. Employees believed him to be among the greatest business minds of his generation, and the press hailed him a financial genius. The trouble started when Ghosn began to believe them. His power rose in tandem with an increasing certainty that he was underpaid and undervalued at his multiple posts. Executives grew unhappy with Ghosn’s talk of a merger with Renault, calling his loyalty to Nissan into question. Resentments brewed, enough so that a group of Nissan executives set out to uncover the truth about the man who many throughout Nissan and Japan perceived as a savior. Eventually, Ghosn was accused of financial misconduct and arrested for a bevy of alleged crimes—all of which he vehemently denied. Yet even as he insisted his financial transactions were above board, Ghosn was planning an astounding escape, one that would either smuggle him out of Tokyo and back to his ancestral homeland of Lebanon; or land him in a Japanese prison for life. Drawning from intensive investigative reporting, and including never-before-seen insider details from key players in Ghosn’s life and the investigations into him, Nick Kostov and Sean McLain piece together this fallen icon’s life and actions across the globe. Their sensational globetrotting adventure reveals the complexity of a man who watched for decades as contemporaries with far less talent amassed far greater wealth, and who took drastic measures to ensure he would finally get his due.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss wait wait wait wait wait is the host me is it me is it me this time hey guys this is chris voss uh they just told me they just handed me this thing it says you are the host and i i that's been passed to me so welcome the show folks we certainly appreciate you guys thechrisbossshow.com i guess

i have to do that hey we have an amazing journalist from the wall street journal on today we have some great journalists from the wall street journal if you go look at our roster over there so we're just slowly working our way through every journalist possible as they write books. We always have to wait for them to write books. I don't know why. They never come on just to shoot the crap. But, you know, they're always invited on to just shoot the poop anytime they want. They don't have to write a book to get on the show.

We love journalists. And he's calling in from France. So we're going to be talking about Paris, maybe some other things. Or maybe we'll just talk about his book, one of those two. Anyway, guys, we'll be talking about that. Be sure to refer to your friend's name as relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrisvoss. Every place that the Chris Voss show or Chris Voss is at, go see my speaking courses, consulting from chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com, and you can learn everything about us over there.

We have a new hottest author. He's got a book coming out on August 9th. You're going to want to check this out. Order it up so you can be the first in your book club to read it. The title of the book is called Boundless, The Rise and Fall and Escape of Carlos Ghosn. It's coming out August 9th. It's written by the Wall Street Journal's Nick Kostov and Sean McClain.

And we have one of them on the show that we were graced by. I guess the other one is in Japan, so we won't be talking to him. He's probably in bed right now. But Nick is with us. Nick has worked for the Wall Street Journal since 2015, covering business and finance from Paris. During that time, he has broken news on some of the biggest corporate stories in Europe. He's a graduate of the University College of London, and he lives in Paris. Welcome to the show, Nick. How are you? Yeah, very well. Thank you. Thanks very much for having me on. Thanks for coming on. And you're over in France time. What time is it in the morning over there?

7 p.m. actually. 7 p.m. There you go. Working late, burning the midnight hours. So congratulations on the new book. Give us your dot coms. We're able to maybe look you up on the interwebs and find out more about you. Cool. So I'm on Twitter, Nick underscore Costa at twitter.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn if you want to follow me on there. And I have an author page, obviously, at the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal, I've heard of that. I've heard of that. Yeah. Big newspaper.

Yeah. I've been reading that since I was 18, I think, or something like that. Always good. So what motivated you to write this book? Why did you pick up the topic and what was like, this is something I need to write about? Great question. I mean, first of all, this was a big corporate story.

So because of my job, I covered this from, you know, the day of Carlos Ghosn's kind of surprise arrest in Japan, all the way through kind of his detention when he got let out on bail, and then his crazy escape from Japan in a box where he kind of then escaped to Lebanon, where he's living as an international fugitive. So I was covering that every step of the way. Sean, obviously in Japan, was doing it with me. And we just got to the point where, I mean, it is just an incredible story. And if you keep writing kind of 800-word articles, 600-word articles, 2,000-word articles, there's a point that comes where that's just not enough. And the arc of the story was amazing.

It was so rich. You know, we had an incredible character. We had governments involved. We had kind of former special forces getting him out of Japan. It is just the best story that I've ever come across in my journalism career. And so at some point, in fact, it was pretty soon after the escape, we just thought, you know, we have to write a book here. We just need to get it done.

So give us an overview of who this guy is. I'm sure this story will start ringing some bells because this was quite extraordinary. Yeah, it's an extraordinary story. So this guy, Carlos Ghosn, he was one of the very, the very very very top executives in the world kind of the face of davos the first man to head to be ceo of not one but two fortune 500 companies nobody had ever attempted to do that before so he was head of nissan with so he would spend kind of half of his life as nissan ceo and then he would fly to france and spend the other half of his life as Renault CEO. Wow.

So, you know, a guy who for years turned around companies and could seemingly do no wrong. Mm-hmm. You know, people kind of hung off his every word. He would whine about the global economy, about, you know, about politics, about all sorts of things. And he was just one of the, a big face, but that was it. And we certainly, you know, there was such a large part of the story,

which we had no idea about. And we started coming out, obviously, after his arrest. Yeah. And this guy, he had an interesting childhood. Tell us a little bit about his childhood. Yeah, I mean, this is, again, something which was kind of hidden in plain sight for all these years where he was such a well-known call for existing, was his interesting childhood.

So he was born in the amazon rainforest in brazil tiny little village called portobello so he was there for a while and then he moved to lebanon you know his ancestral homeland where his family's from and in lebanon you know he attended a good school but there was a huge scandal basically that was on the front pages of all the newspapers at the time where his dad was accused of killing a priest, and in fact convicted of killing a priest, when Carlos Ghosn was just six years old. And so his dad, you know, initially was sentenced to death. This was then, on appeal, it was commuted to a 15-year sentence because the killing was ruled an accident.

But, you know, this kind of made Carlos Ghosn... I mean, it's an extremely formative experience for him, obviously. When your dad is kind of convicted for killing a priest when you're six years old, and that's all over the front pages of newspapers. So he would visit him growing up, but he was kind of like the man of the house from a very young age, surrounded by sisters and his mother and his grandmother. Hi, Voxers. Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second.

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We certainly appreciate you listening to the show. And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. Yeah, super interesting childhoods. Also in Lebanon, we don't get that many kind of corporate titans who are from Lebanon or from similar countries. So for all these reasons, he kind of had a different outlook to a lot of other CEOs that certainly I've come across. Yeah, it was quite extraordinary.

I mean, I don't think a lot of people knew who he was. And then all of a sudden, there was a story of him being expatriated out of Japan. And so he ends up in a bit of a quandaries over the year. I mean, he, like you mentioned, he's a, he's a huge successful CEO, but yeah, uh, tease out some of the different things where he gets himself in trouble and, and starts ending up on the wrong side of the law. Yeah. So what's quite interesting is, so Carlos Ghosn, obviously he, so he, he

turned around or, or helped to turn around Renault, his first company. Then he turned around Nissan, his second company. Now he's in charge of both companies. And he feels like he should be paid like an American CEO. One thing that he would tell, he'd even tell journalists off the record, but he'd tell all of his colleagues, listen, I'm being underpaid. I'm underpaid compared to the person at GM. I'm underpaid compared to the person at GM. I'm underpaid compared to the person at Fiat Chrysler or wherever. I should be getting more money.

The problem is, obviously, in France and in Japan, the corporate culture is not to pay like you do in America. And he's head of a French company and a Japanese company. And so if he's getting $30 million a year paychecks, there's going to be like outrage. And so he's forced to accept, I guess, a French paycheck and a Japanese paycheck, which is really a lot of money. But he tries to look in secret at how he could maybe stay at those companies whilst also being paid like an American CEO. But not telling the shareholders, obviously not telling the public.

He doesn't want to deal with the backlash. Wow. And so what we see is he begins to defer his compensation, sign some agreements. This is what he's originally arrested for. And then what we find out after he's in jail for a while is that there's also kind of tens of millions of dollars that seem to be, I mean, he denies this to this day, but there seem to be transiting from his company, through Oman, and into his pocket. And we know throughout these years, because he was open about it, that he felt underpaid.

And we also know now that he looked at all of these ways to make up that shortfall. And so that's how he starts to get himself in trouble, essentially, in a simple form. And so one day he lands in Japan, and he basically just gets arrested at the airport. Wow. Wow. Wow. Did he know he was going to get arrested? Was it a surprise to him?

No, he would never have gone to Japan if he knew he was going to get arrested. I mean, basically, you know, he just gets off the, because he had a private jet, which he used to go between the various operations of his company, as well as some exotic holidays. But he, you know, the private jet lands, you know, he goes up to the passport, gives over his passport, as he always did. And they say, look, there's a problem. And at this stage, he basically just gets put into a van, taken to Kosuge prison. And what's crazy, actually, through this story,

one thing that we did learn about a lot was the Japanese justice system. And so he gets taken to this jail, and we just can't, he's done with gear from Carlos going for three weeks. Wow. You know, at the beginning, he doesn't have he's done with the year from Carlos going for three weeks. Wow. You know,

at the beginning he doesn't have a lawyer. We don't even know whether he denied charges. It's even hard to know what the charges are. And he's just, it's total silence. And he's just basically, you know, in solitary confinement in the Japanese jail. And so he's gone,

he has gone from the top of the business world, the Davos jet set to, you know, on his own in a sale in a Japanese jail basically a self-made billionaire right yeah well I think he was getting there he was certainly yeah made multi multi multi multi millionaire but it seems I mean I we kind of you know had access to some notes inside his phone and it did seem that he was tallying up his wealth and that the goal was to become a self-made billionaire.

Wow. So, greed is good. I mean, the funny thing about this story is he'd be just fine if he lived in oligarchy America. This is a pittance or something of what we pay CEOs now. Well, he often said, I did ask him once, I was like, do you have any regrets? And he said, I wish I had taken the General Motors job. Rather than stay at this Japanese and French company and then try and find all these themes to try and make up the shortfall and get myself into trouble, just take the GM job. I think that will be solved with a lot of problems.

But at the same time, the guy was revered in Japan. He was feared, maybe if not loved, in France. And maybe he had some, he had some freedom and some, some latitude that these companies that wouldn't have had as an American CEO with, with a tough board of directors. And you know, there, there was certainly also some, some positives to, to being head of a Japanese and French company. You know, this is a story, you know, I, I, i you know i'd seen the thing where he'd been

x i don't know what the right word is a excuse extra extracted extracted from from the japan you're like what the hell and then there was some american mercenaries or i don't know if you call them mercenaries but there was some American security quote unquote people who got involved and I think some of them are in trouble aren't they? Yeah so I mean this is also I mean the whole thing is crazy the whole thing is a crazy story but they've essentially swapped

places with GOAT this is trading places because they came back to the US so it's a father and son the father was a security consultant and obviously agreed to do this, involved his son, and they came back to the US and the US has an extradition treaty with Japan. So they were arrested one morning at their house, taken to a jail in Massachusetts, went through a whole court case, sent over to Japan, convicted.

They actually confessed, you know, made an apology, bowed, and now they're in Japan and they're in a Japanese jail. And actually when they flew to Japan for the first time, they were put in the exact same jail that Ghosn had been held in. So then they were serving I think the father's got a two and a half year sentence or something and the son a slightly shorter one.

But they're big sentence. How much money did they make for that that the son the father and son yeah great question i mean i i have to say that i don't know entirely what we do know what we do know is that there was an eight hundred thousand dollar payment made by going to these guys before the escape there was a five hundred thousand dollar payment made after the escape so we're at $1.3

million. Obviously with that, they've got to hire a private jet, buy a box, etc. But what I don't know, you know, they claimed that that was it. They claimed there was no more money. What I don't know is whether that claim is true. Sounds like he was pretty good at moving money around and hiding money so there could be like a trust somewhere or something.

Exactly. We don't know what the agreement is once they get out of Japan. That's just crazy, man. I don't know. Would you go to jail for three... Would you go to jail in Japan for three years for a million or nothing? 1.3 million? No way.

No way. I mean, also because as I said, you've got expenses out of that, so you've got to hire the private jet. There's a bunch of other things. And the other thing to say about Michael Taylor, who's the guy who got him out, is he was living a comfortable life in Massachusetts.

It's not like he needed the money. Oh, really? He was doing totally fine. He had a vitamin water business. Was this one of those... He seemed like he was kind of like one of those macho dudes who's a little who you know makes one too many gun videos i don't know that he does that but you know what i mean just that sort of guy yeah he's like actually like he's a he's an incredible character like super complicated because he's got he's a guy i've met a number he's got he's got a big heart genuinely a big big heart, Michael Taylor. And I think what he thought that going was being wrong.

And what he wanted to me was, I didn't see this any differently as getting him out of North Korea. I just thought that I was being wrong. And that's what Warren kept saying. And that's what Glenn Goyle kept saying. And so, you know, he does the job. The other thing to say about Michael Taylor is he had worked in security for a while. Then he got involved in a scheme and pleaded guilty to, to some charges of basically defrauding the American government over like an Afghanistan contract back in 2012, so he went to jail for a bit, got out and he was

just doing vitamin water and stuff like that, but that's just not going to keep your blood pumping. If you've had a career that Michael Taylor had, which was crazy. And so I think when he, when he gets that call from, it back, which was crazy. And so I think when he gets that call from Lebanon, basically saying, do you want to help out? Carlo's going. It's hard to say no. It's hard to not excite me.

And this story is just extraordinary. If you watch this, you'd be like, this could be a Hollywood movie. It probably will end up as a Hollywood movie off your book. But he's having wife problems with the divorce. You know, he's using all this way to move money around. He has an affair.

I know. Yeah. It was just like everything goes off the rails completely for this guy. And then they didn't even check the box. They were loading onto a private plane. I guess that was an oversight or something that took place, if I recall rightly. I mean, you know, the thing is with security for private jets is it's not that tight. Because most people who fly in private jets are not going to blow up their own planes.

So basically you get a form which says would you like a security check and they take the pulse no and so if you actually look at the cctv there's of them getting onto you know going through security there's just like an airport worker who wheels the box next to the you know next to the thing that's supposed to be next to the metal detector then one of the two guys walks through the metal detector set it off so the metal detector then one of the two guys walks through the metal detector set it off so the metal detector goes off nobody does anything they just keep walking onto the plane and the other guy walks next to it and that's it that was the security check so there was like never any you know there was never any chance and when the guy

the guy hit in the box you have like an oxygen tank or something to well yeah there was 70 air holes so ah so what michael taylor had done who was the former green beret special forces guy he you know he just drilled these 70 holes in the bottom so the goan's mouth was kind of next to it and he's wow and and what he'd done was wheeled it around his house just to check that it was still strong enough and that going you know that his arm wouldn't fall out or something like that. Wow. A human being transporting a box. And then they go to...

The simplicity of it all, I think. It's like, how do you get out of Japan? Well, just get in a box. It's genius in a way. Plus, you don't have to pay for a plane ticket or a seat ticket. That extra seat fee. You don't have to wait in a way yeah plus you don't have to play for a plane ticket or a seat ticket you know that extra seat fee you don't have to wait in the line you just get right in the box i think i'm gonna

start traveling that way you skip the tsa line and stuff you know you don't have to deal with being felt up and then he goes to lebanon where i guess there's no extradition treaty with japan is he vetted by interpol now so? So if he ever leaves Lebanon? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So he can't leave Lebanon. So he's wanted by Interpol. So Japan requested an Interpol Red Notice, it's called. And France has also requested an Interpol Red Notice because they also have been looking into this kind of money flow through the Middle East. And the French have concluded that indeed he stole millions from Renault. As the Japanese have concluded that he stole millions from Nissan.

In the same way, actually, with the same money loop. So yeah, he's got a red notice. He can't leave Lebanon. But as long as he stays in Lebanon, there's nothing the French can do. There's nothing the Japanese can do. They're kind of like in this holding pattern. Potentially forever. Because they literally, if Lebanon doesn't extradite its citizens, French can do. There's nothing the Japanese can do. They're kind of like in this holding pattern potentially forever because they literally,

if Lebanon doesn't extradite its citizens, I don't know what they can do. Do you remember the Mark, was it Mark Rich? Do you remember the Mark Rich guy when I was growing up in the, when I was 18? Yeah. He, I believe it was Mark Rich, M-A-R-C. Clinton pardoned

him, but I remember growing up and it was during the era of Ivan Biosky. And that's when I first started reading the Wall Street Journal was during the Greed is Good days. The Michael Milliken and stuff. That tells you how old I am. But he was a international commodities trader, hedge fund manager, businessman. And he escaped. The U.S. government was prosecuting him for something.

And he escaped to, I believe, Sweden. And at the time, Sweden I think didn't have an extradition treaty or he paid the over there, like, you know, filled the enormous amount of money. I remember for decades they were trying to get to him, U.S. government. And then finally

he got Clinton pardoned. And it was a big scandal for one of Clinton's pardons because he'd basically been not really bought off. Maybe that's right. I don't want to get sued by the Clintons. But it was scandalous. I think that's right. It was scandalous because there was, I think,

some money that transferred into some political accounts maybe i don't i don't remember exactly but yeah mark rich i remember he was you know the u.s government can get to him sweden wouldn't extradite him i believe it was sweden that he was hiding in but yeah it might be a bit of that story can they can they send in a can they send in a they can't one of those cia like teams going in and extricating or anything like that? I remember going to see Ghosn in Lebanon in the days after his escape and talking to him about it. He was really worried about it because I remember him saying that there were some Japanese who had moved in across the street and people looking at his house and he even thought that maybe he would get snatched back and taken back to Japan.

I mean, it all seems very unlikely. He does still have bodyguards wow and i know that it's something that he's worried about in the past it does seem it does seem unlikely for a country to set that up i mean they have to follow the rules but to your point about the clinton administration it's also you know japan is still extremely angry about this, about what he said about the Japanese justice system, about him just basically leaving the country, saying he'd attend trial and not doing it. I know France is pretty angry about this.

I wouldn't say they're as angry as Japan, but the chances of them ever forgiving Ghosn, I think are zero. So you got to interview him quite a bit? Yeah, I got to interview him quite a bit yeah i've got to interview him quite a bit you know also because i interviewed him even before we wrote the book as i say we decided to write the book after the escape i got to interview him wow before before that too got to spend some time with him you know he's he's a he's an impressive guy you spend an hour with him you don't see the time go by he's got got a lot of charisma. He's very intense. He gets straight to the point.

And frankly, you know, on most of the stuff, he was pretty forthcoming, in my opinion. And he was good. He was good with me. The only topic that he was not forthcoming on and that he would not really go into was the money Luke threw a man that seemed to end up in his own pocket. That he has never been expansive about. He didn't, you know, there's a French judge who flew to Lebanon to interview him about it. He didn't answer the questions. He didn't answer the questions to the Japanese.

Sorry. He didn't answer journalist questions. So he's never, he's never explained what this, you know, this money that seems to leave the companies and then is up in his pocket. And by the way, he bought a yacht with it. Every good financial crime story has to have a yacht. That was the one, that was the one topic where he kind of just said, you know, no comment. Can he go on the yacht? I mean, if it's parked in Lebanese international waters, you're open to anything.

It's funny. I mean, so this yacht is now at the center of a dispute, obviously, because Nissan says, well, you bought the yacht with Nissan money. Therefore, it's our yacht. And Ghosn says, no, no, it's my yacht. I bought it. Well, I basically got it through my et cetera, et cetera. It's my yacht. And so this yacht is moored inored in Lebanon until they saw out.

And, but it's registered in the, in the British Virgin Islands. So the court case is happening in the British Virgin Islands. And we'll see, we'll see what happens. But I, you know,

you can track yachts. There are lots of people have been doing it with the oligarchs recently. So there's lots of websites that allow you to track those. And I did see that the yacht had been moving up and down the coast of Lebanon, whether, whether, whether Carlos going was on it or not, I haven't. Wow.

Interesting that it does seem to. Yeah. How old is he now? Very late 60s. 68th, maybe. Maybe 68th. So he's just basically retiring Lebanon. You can probably pay off lots of people in Lebanon.

I don't know. I imagine that's how things work in that country from what I understand. You just have to make sure somebody doesn't snatch you in one of those black helicopter CIA sort of things. And you just chill. Yeah, yeah. It does have to be kind of interesting. I don't know if you've asked him this, but what would it be like to have that much money, that much power, and you can't really go anywhere with it? You know what I mean?

He says, yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, I've spoken to him about his life, and he says he's really happy. Yeah, he's lived it already. But even now, he says he's happy now. Now, one thing that I haven't mentioned, he's living in a house that was bought for him by Nissan, and which Nissan says is theirs. So they're trying to evict him from his house. Oh, seriously?

Wow. There's so many court cases going on. He's really thumbed his nose to the Japanese justice system. He's been outright, from what I've seen, he's just been outright, yeah, if you like, I got away. Yeah, yeah. Basically, his line, his favorite line is

I did not escape justice, I escaped injustice. Something like that. But you know, yeah, I mean, I look at his life now, he's so much smaller than he used to be. You know, he used to circumnavigate the look at his life now, like, he's so much smaller than he used to be, you know? Like, he used to circumnavigate the globe on his private jet.

Everybody knew who he was. He made his money. And now he's, like, a small Lebanese kind of investor businessman in Lebanon, can't leave. He plays a lot of bridge, you know? And Beirut is tiny. Like, I've spent a lot of time in Beirut. Everybody knows everyone. You can't go anywhere without being recognized.

And it's kind of uncomfortable. I mean, it's fine. It's better than a Japanese of time in Bury. Everybody knows everyone who can't go anywhere without being recognized. It's kind of uncomfortable. I mean, it's fine. It's better than a Japanese jail, right? But it's a long way from what he had before. And his issue is, and I know lots of people think that he should, as best he can, come to France, face up to the charges. Let's say he, you know, he gets convicted. Let's say he does a few years isn't that better to then be free and be able to go back and live the big life that you wanted to

live right rather than living as a kind of international fugitive in Lebanon I don't know it's a genuine question yeah well it's an extraordinary book extraordinary story if somebody's got to put it to film so I'm sure somebody option your book so anything more you want to tease out in the book before we go you know i mean again i i've spent a i've spent a lot of time on on carlos going and and i wouldn't have done if i didn't find a guy as fascinating as i do i think he he had enormous qualities a huge quality one of the businessmen with the biggest qualities i've ever come across he also had big flaws and we've and we've ended up with this kind of amazing kind of brief tragedy of a story, which, you know, people will read.

And I hope that people won't come to like easy judgements about Carlos. Go. And that was certainly my goal when writing it, that, you know, it's complex and, you know, this, this kind of guy who grew up without a father and who came from lebanon and who kind of like made it to the top of the business world through his you know through all of these qualities that we've been talking about and then had this had this kind of like flawed of this hubris that kind of brought him down i mean it's an age-old story but it's just you know i found it fascinating i found him fascinating i know the whole project so

i enjoyed the book yep i enjoyed the book and it'll probably end up as a movie i mean it has to end up as a movie i mean that yeah the whole play out of escaping in the box i mean that's so that's happening right there you know it's so good and just just crazy times yeah did you get a chance to interview the bounty the bounty guy the the guy who's the mercenary basically yeah i did i did meet him a few times yeah i didn't what's his attitude these days in jail what's does he is he like you know do the time to the crime i still got paid no he's the thing about michael taylor as well like again i met him a few times he costs it still he's always up he's about he's the thing about michael taylor as well like again i met him a few times he can't sit still he's always up he's about he's doing things he you know he needs to talk he wants to help

people and so like sitting in a japanese jail i can imagine would be total torture for total hell you know he still thinks that from from everything he knows gone was being mistreated and he saved a hostage. That's his line. And so he is very bitter. He's not the healthiest. He's in his 60s himself. So he's extremely, extremely bitter about being in jail. The other thing he's bitter about is that he served in the US Army, right? He was a former Green Beret and he is extremely bitter that his country would extradite him to Japan, knowing what the justice system is like over there. So he's certainly not sitting there green beret and he is extremely bitter that his country would extradite him to japan knowing that what the what the justice system is like over there so he's certainly not sitting there thinking i'm glad i did it actually he never thought he would get extradited he never thought i'm not

even sure he thought he would ever get caught i thought he i think he thinks so he would do it not tell anyone and then move on wow and the consequences have been severe for him and his son. That's probably the worst bit of it. His son is also a victim. You get your son involved in your crap. You know, I mean, I've seen these mercenary type dudes. In fact, we've had one person

on the show who doesn't really do that line of work, but he helps find people. His job is to find people. And likeon is one place that he pulls people out of and different things so if somebody comes up missing kidnapped you know somebody grabs a wife and takes them you know he he he has ways of finding people and and getting them expatriated yeah well that's what michael taylor would do i wonder if was it michael taylor you had only no he wrote a book called 20 Hours in Lebanon or something.

I'd have to Google it up on the show. We had him on a couple of years ago. But he finds people, and so it's quite extraordinary. But he does it in a – I mean, it's legal from a U.S. aspect sense, but sometimes it's probably not legal in countries because I believe they do do a grab where they have to do a Merck grab or something. I think I have to go back and read it. And Mike Taylor says, you know, one thing when he's done, when he's rescued, for example, kids from the Middle East or whatever,

he basically says it's times when the U.S. government can't really do anything. And they kind of give him a wink and a nudge and they say say, listen, we can't do anything, but maybe you can. And so he kind of does it. He feels what he says with the tacit approval of the U.S. government. And so in this case, obviously, he didn't have the tacit approval of anyone. Went out on a limb and just did his thing. Went out on a limb and did his thing. I'll have to look up who the book was that came on the story,

but, you know, this has got to end up to a movie. I mean, somebody's got to turn this into a movie because it definitely should be an option for one. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Just an intriguing story, and I'm sure there'll be probably some more, you know, intriguing things that come out as this thing progresses

through the courts in his life. And, you know, it's really interesting. But I courts in his life. And, you know, it's a, it's really interesting, but I'll consider traveling in the future in a, in a box. That sounds like a safer way to go, a funner way to go. I don't know, man, maybe at least I won't have to sit next to someone and get COVID. I don't know. There you go. So thank you for coming on the show, Nick. We really appreciate it, man. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Chris.

There you go. And thanks for tuning in. Go order the book. You definitely want to get it. Thanks so much, Chris. There you go. Well, thanks for tuning in. Go order the book. You definitely want to get it. It'll be available August 9th, 2022. Boundless, The Rise and Fall. I'm sorry. The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn. You definitely want to read about this.

I mean, you read it and you're just like, wait, this is real? You know, like this sounds like some novel someone made up. So there you go. Real life story of real life events. Thanks for tuning in. Go to youtube.com forward slash chrisvoss. Go to goodreads.com forward slash chrisvoss. All our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those places the crazy kids

are doing these days. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.