Is his money in American banks? Do international banks have different rules about notifying the US government when making payments to illegal bookies?

The Porkchop Express said:

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You know, he's 29 and has been in the league for 7-8 years now, why is he still using a translator?

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You know ...

The Porkchop Express said:

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You know, he's 29 and has been in the league for 7-8 years now, why is he still using a translator?

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Ive come across countless Mexicans and Chinese at work who have been in this country for 30 or 40 years (often more) who use their kids as translators. Some literally can't speak a word of English, and have no desire to, and I'm willing to bet that many are pretending to not know English and use it as an excuse to get sympathy and better pricing on stuff. At least their kids speak perfect English.

the problem remains that regardless of what language you speak, you're still a 29 year old man either oblivious to your buddy stealing $5 million from you or thinking it's no problem to be giving him that money. Not speaking English doesn't mean you don't understand finances. You don't hear a lot about Japanese idiots.

Ag_07 said:

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A lot of these guys can understand and speak English just fine enough for casual conversation but when doing interviews in front of a camera use an interpreter.

I don't blame for that the way people will pick apart and blast whatever you say. Especially if it's about a legal matter like this.

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Yep. Pretty sure that's exactly what Hideki Matsuyama does and he's probably been here about the same amount of time as Ohtani.

If you're making $30m a year + endorsements, it really isn't that crazy to think someone could make $5m disappear with you noticing.

That's like $10k to someone making $100k a year. A significant %, but not something that is just unbelievable could not be noticed, especially if someone doesn't pay attention to their finances. It's not like Ohtani has one bank account that he just sees the balance of daily. Probably has money 10+ different places.

The Jags financial manager stole and gambled $22m and went unnoticed for 3+ years.

That's not to say Ohtani isn't lying, but people are getting too caught up in the dollar figure and not viewing it through the lens as a %.

While I agree in premise, the fact is stealing, and simply moving, $4.5MM is harder than stealing $10K. Unless it's all crypto or something like that.

JCA1 said:

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The biggest red flag to me is the conflicting stories. If the guy was stealing from you, how is your first response that you paid it to help your buddy?

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I posted in another thread but Ohtani didn't know anything about this just like Roger thought he was being shot up with B12 shots.

Everyone knows he's lying but no one can really prove it. That's why it's his best option and why he flip flopped on the story.

Ag_07 said:

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A lot of these guys can understand and speak English just fine enough for casual conversation but when doing interviews in front of a camera use an interpreter.

I don't blame for that the way people will pick apart and blast whatever you say. Especially if it's about a legal matter like this.

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No doubt. Lots of Astros stick with Spanish.

Still it's fun to see players adapting to their host country.

https://sempremilan.com/pulisic-getting-close-interviews-italian-milan

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. . .
Pulisic has been the best player this season for Milan without a doubt and he now has 12 goals in all competitions, more than he has ever scored in a single season before. He also has seven assists, so he has been undroppable for Stefano Pioli.

He explained that he has been enjoying the culture, the pace of life and the language since he arrived in the summer of 2023.

"I'm enjoying it a lot. It's been a good change of pace for me. I'm loving the Italian culture. I'm trying to soak it all in. I'm doing the best I can to learn the language so I feel pretty good with all that stuff and I'm just loving it so far," Pulisic said.

His teammate Fikayo Tomori has often been praised for how quickly and proficiently he managed to learn to speak Italian and give interviews in it, but Pulisic is still at a point where he has to answer in English.

He explained that things are getting better and the club have been asking him to do Italian interviews: "I understand just about everything. Milan asked me if I could do my interview in Italian the other day and I was like, 'Yeah you can ask the questions [in Italian] and I'll answer in English but next time.' I'm getting close but still not fluent."

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Ag_07 said:

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JCA1 said:

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The biggest red flag to me is the conflicting stories. If the guy was stealing from you, how is your first response that you paid it to help your buddy?

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I posted in another thread but Ohtani didn't know anything about this just like Roger thought he was being shot up with B12 shots.

Everyone knows he's lying but no one can really prove it. That's why it's his best option and why he flip flopped on the story.

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I hear ya and you're probably right. But I'm still confused by how this all went down. Arguably the biggest star in baseball's name turns up in a federal bookie investigation. As gambling has been baseball's cardinal sin forever, him (or more likely his team's) response was no doubt calculated. And their response was he paid his interpreter's gambling debt and even sent the interpreter out for interviews. No chance that happened without a lot of people giving it a lot of thought. And yet they then did a complete 180 the next day and claimed the guy stole the money. Really weird and I'm having a hard time coming up for an explanation for any of it.

Ag_07 said:

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I'm guessing after their initial statement about paying the buddies debts they realized that was a bad idea from a legal standpoint.

I'm 'betting' the walk back wasn't related to MLB but more of a legal walk back. They didn't want it out there that Ohtani paid an illegal bookie and possibly be busted for breaking federal laws.

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Except he's now on record as "my guy stole it from me." And if a bank record shows he (Shohei) signed a wire form, he's now lied.

He's taking a path that the feds can and will follow to the end. If they find anything that contradicts this he (Shohei) is in the deep end of the pool.

He was better off with the first story of paying his buddy's gambling debt. Other than the wiring money to a bookie part.

Ag_07 said:

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I'm guessing after their initial statement about paying the buddies debts they realized that was a bad idea from a legal standpoint.

I'm 'betting' the walk back wasn't related to MLB but more of a legal walk back. They didn't want it out there that Ohtani paid an illegal bookie and possibly be busted for breaking federal laws.

And again the reason I'm not buying it was because no bookie in the history of bookies would ever let this interpreter dude carry a $4.5M debt without getting some assurances from Ohtani himself that he's got it covered. At some point Ohtani had to have had a direct conversation with the bookie.

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Could be. But still hard to believe his people didn't think this through better than that before putting the original story out there. We're talking about a federal gambling investigation. No way this wasn't vetted by lawyers beforehand.

There's also the fact that he can't really control the interpreter any more (unless he thinks he can buy his cooperation, although it would be difficult to hide that paper trail as well).

And I agree with your final point and said the same thing somewhere further up on this thread. No way a bookie floats a guy making $300k/year a $4 million line.

Wiring 6 figures doesn't require any kind of physical signature (and even then, if a guy is falling on a sword then he'll just say he forged his signature).

Yeah, there's a lot of "gotchas" the Feds could potentially use if they wanted to, but absent of any actual proof that Ohtani was betting on baseball (which maybe would bring wire fraud into play? I'm not exactly sure), they don't have any real motivation to do so. Going after bettors isn't something they care about.

I also don't know that we've heard any specifics about that $$$ figure. Was it $4.5m in losses, or a number of wagers totaling $4.5m that would not be taken on credit, etc...

All in all, no one has actually produced any proof of Ohtani betting on sports, so until that happens I imagine this will all go away fairly quietly within a month or so.

texasaggie2015 said:

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The Porkchop Express said:

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You know, he's 29 and has been in the league for 7-8 years now, why is he still using a translator?

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They can speak English. They prefer not to speak English to the media knowing they'll get picked apart for anything they misspeak on.

Not to mention- it's probably pretty darn difficult to speak a language you're not super familiar with when 100 cameras are pointed to your face.

Guys like Yuli Gurriel, Yordan Alvarez, etc speak really solid English but they don't feel comfortable doing it in front of the media. I don't blame them. I actually didn't know this until fairly recently.

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Meh, play our game, live in our amazing country, get paid our currency, speak our language.

Wouldnt there be criminal charges and potential prison time for Ippei?

I would imagine that if he is indeed just a fall guy, he probably wouldnt go for loss of freedom

I guess it depends on what the federal investigation determines they are going to charge him with and what prison term it carries

Proposition Joe said:

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gambochaman said:

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Wouldnt there be criminal charges and potential prison time for Ippei?

I would imagine that if he is indeed just a fall guy, he probably wouldnt go for loss of freedom

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The whole concept of a fall guy is that they are willing to do what they need to do if the price is right.

If someone offered you $5 million would you go to white collar country club prison for 6 months?

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Or he can pull a Hillary. Tried and true methods are always options for those with money and influence. And it minimizes factors you can't control, like those who might change their mind and decide opening their mouth is better than being the fall guy.

Proposition Joe said:

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Wiring 6 figures doesn't require any kind of physical signature (and even then, if a guy is falling on a sword then he'll just say he forged his signature).

Yeah, there's a lot of "gotchas" the Feds could potentially use if they wanted to, but absent of any actual proof that Ohtani was betting on baseball (which maybe would bring wire fraud into play? I'm not exactly sure), they don't have any real motivation to do so. Going after bettors isn't something they care about.

I also don't know that we've heard any specifics about that $$$ figure. Was it $4.5m in losses, or a number of wagers totaling $4.5m that would not be taken on credit, etc...

All in all, no one has actually produced any proof of Ohtani betting on sports, so until that happens I imagine this will all go away fairly quietly within a month or so.

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A couple of years ago my MIL's estate settled out after her death and the settlement pushed our primary bank account way over the FDIC insurance limit. Rather than open another account to temporarily hold it at that bank I wired a large sum to another bank where I had an account. It wasnt $4.5MM but lets just say it was in the 6 figure range. I had to show ID at the bank I was wiring it to and sign the wire form in multiple places.

Proposition Joe said:

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gambochaman said:

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Wouldnt there be criminal charges and potential prison time for Ippei?

I would imagine that if he is indeed just a fall guy, he probably wouldnt go for loss of freedom

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The whole concept of a fall guy is that they are willing to do what they need to do if the price is right.

If someone offered you $5 million would you go to white collar country club prison for 6 months?

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Could be. But I would think it would take a pretty decent chunk of change to get him to throw his current life away. Seems like that would be pretty tough to conceal, both in terms of the transaction itself and the interpreter's unexplained/newfound wealth.

Mathguy64 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Wiring 6 figures doesn't require any kind of physical signature (and even then, if a guy is falling on a sword then he'll just say he forged his signature).

Yeah, there's a lot of "gotchas" the Feds could potentially use if they wanted to, but absent of any actual proof that Ohtani was betting on baseball (which maybe would bring wire fraud into play? I'm not exactly sure), they don't have any real motivation to do so. Going after bettors isn't something they care about.

I also don't know that we've heard any specifics about that $$$ figure. Was it $4.5m in losses, or a number of wagers totaling $4.5m that would not be taken on credit, etc...

All in all, no one has actually produced any proof of Ohtani betting on sports, so until that happens I imagine this will all go away fairly quietly within a month or so.

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A couple of years ago my MIL's estate settled out after her death and the settlement pushed our primary bank account way over the FDIC insurance limit. Rather than open another account to temporarily hold it at that bank I wired a large sum to another bank where I had an account. It wasnt $4.5MM but lets just say it was in the 6 figure range. I had to show ID at the bank I was wiring it to and sign the wire form in multiple places.

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I'm sure there's a federal amount that requires it, and banks that have certain requirements of their own, but 6 figure wire transfers take place hundreds (thousands?) of times a day without the need of doing anything offline. In the financial world and in industries that do a lot of buying and selling, 6 figure transfers are fairly commonplace.

JCA1 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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gambochaman said:

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Wouldnt there be criminal charges and potential prison time for Ippei?

I would imagine that if he is indeed just a fall guy, he probably wouldnt go for loss of freedom

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The whole concept of a fall guy is that they are willing to do what they need to do if the price is right.

If someone offered you $5 million would you go to white collar country club prison for 6 months?

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Could be. But I would think it would take a pretty decent chunk of change to get him to throw his current life away. Seems like that would be pretty tough to conceal, both in terms of the transaction itself and the interpreter's unexplained/newfound wealth.

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Whether he decides to be the fall guy or not, his current life would consist of being an unemployed interpreter. Either he takes the fall and he's fired, or Ohtani takes the fall and he's no longer employed.

In an office I'm familiar with, wires in the 10s of millions range requires a verbal recording and a callback from a manager. Could be two guys with English as a second language sound pretty similar. Not that difficult.

To me, this is one of those situations where I think Ohtani was probably the one gambling, but if this is some sort of court case and I'm on the jury, I do think there is reasonable doubt that it was all the interpreter. It seems unlikely, but I can see it being possible.

Jordan got shadow suspended for less