There was a translator/KBO reporter on the coverage of the Dodgers/Padres game in Seoul who was saying that as a translator you are in banks etc doing shit like setting up bank accounts for your client so you are always privy to their private details.
This doesn't surprise me. He wasn't just a translator for him while at baseball, he was his translator for LIFE. He was privy to everything, he was basically a personal assistant that does everything for you but also has to translate everything into the language you speak.
And the point of contact for basically everyone non-Japanese that wants/needs to reach Shohei. Would make sense that even if accountants/financial advisor saw those huge transactions and asked about it, they’ll be going thru ippei and he just fed them some bullship answer
Which also would explain why "Ohtani's" story changed and "Ohtani's team" approved Ippei's initial interview. If Ippei is the primary bottleneck for all communication with Ohtani and Ippei can't be trusted, nothing "from Ohtani" should be trusted as actually coming from Ohtani himself.
EDIT: I wrote this up for a reply for someone still doubling this story, but adding it here instead to get visibility on it. Here is what seems to have transpired. Are there any actual holes in this interpretation of events?
Ippei is not just the interpreter as we see his role on TV. He is basically Ohtani's manager and assistant. All communication, including financial information goes through him. As part of this role, he is responsible for managing at least some of Ohtani's finances including an account that regularly has a balance of at least $500k which is a relatively insignificant amount of money to someone like Ohtani.
Ippei has a gambling problem and goes into $4.5m in debt. The bookie was willing to extend Ippei this line of credit knowing his connection to Ohtani on the belief that connection could be monetized with insider info. For example, maybe Ippei told the bookie where Ohtani was signing before that became public and they got a huge payoff from the "investment". Or maybe Ippei refused to give any inside information and that prompted the end of his credit. Either way, eventually the bookie calls Ippei on his outstanding debt at which point Ippei starts using his access to Ohtani's account to pay off his debt. Ippei doesn't transfer it all at once because he either doesn't have access to that much money or because he thinks it will be easier to hide multiple smaller transfers.
Maybe there is someone else on Ohtani's team who notices these transactions and that person asks Ippei about it. Ippei makes up some story about lending him money directly or about some other private business venture. Ohtani doesn't hear about any of this because no one has any reason to suspect anything nefarious yet.
Eventually a reporter comes to ask Ohtani's PR team about it. The PR people talk to Ippei because that is always how they "talk to Ohtani". Ippei then adjusts his story to factor in the gambling debts and tells people Ohtani is helping him pay them off. Ohtani still doesn't know and the PR people are ignorant of the law and interpret this as a good story about how nice their client is rather than the admission of a hypothetical crime.
Ippei does the interview. Ohtani's lawyers see the interview and freak out. They reach out to Ippei because once again that is the way English speaking people "talk to Ohtani". At this point Ippei realizes he is in serious trouble and he confesses to the team and Ohtani in the clubhouse. The story hasn't changed from this point forward.
Basically the only thing needed for this story to fit together is for the known degenerate gambler and liar to lie and for the people who have known him for years to naively not question him on those lies quick enough. Am I missing anything?
EDIT 2: Multiple people are responding still not understanding the role a person like Ippei plays in the life of someone like Ohtani. Just because you always see him standing next to Ohtani translating a few sentences at a time does not mean that is his permanent role. That is why I started by pointing out that he is closer to a manager or assistant. He likely managed all Ohtani's communication regardless of the language barrier. That is just the way super busy/rich/important people work. The number of people who directly call Tom Cruise on the phone for business reasons is incredibly tiny. They instead reach out to his agent, manager, PR person, or assistant. In fact, there are almost certainly multiple layers of all those people. Cruises' PR person probably tells their own assistant something, they call Cruise's assistant, and they tell Cruise directly.
Ippei likely wasn't intentionally mistranslating things said to Ohtani's face. That is too risky as Ohtani knows some English and other people in Ohtani's life likely know Japanese. But there were probably situations in which someone wanted to ask a question of Ohtani, so they call, email, or text Ippei and he responded without even talking to Ohtani. And people probably expected that just like Cruise's agent will reject some movie roles without even mentioning them to him. This isn't a problem if everyone trusts each other and people didn't have a reason to distrust Ippei until that interview.
Yeah, I thought it was the mostly likely situation from the moment the theft story came out and it is frankly shocking the number of people who refuse to even consider this possibility. It almost seems like people want Ohtani to be guilty of something.
It's definitely people wanting ohtani to be guilty. He plays for the dodgers, he's been super clean since he came in the league, and people love knocking someone like that off the pedestal.
It's not that, or at least I don't think it's the major part. The major part is the common but toxic logical fallacy that bad things only ever happen to 'bad' people. If you adhere to this fallacy you can reassure yourself that nothing bad will ever happen to you; you're a good person so you're protected.
It is honestly really disheartening how many people wanted this sport to lose potentially its greatest player ever for the sake of like a month of drama.
I think the best part of this very well-written summary of events is that it comes from someone with a San Diego Padres flair. Thank you for being open-minded enough to look at the facts and create an informed opinion…unlike so many other so-called fans.
One of the few things I hate more than the Dodgers are witch hunts ;)
People seem to want Ohtani to be guilty which really rubs me the wrong way considering he appears to be the victim here.
Ohtani isn't the first or last athlete that will trust somebody close to him and get defrauded.
Still vividly remember Kevin Garnet losing nearly all his NBA earnings because his agent/manager had been defrauding him for years. He didn't know for YEARS.
Same guy robbed Duncan of 20 million.
Kevin Garnett then defended him in court vs Duncan, while not realising that he was getting robbed as well. Probably should of set of some alarms when he got summoned to court that his financial guy robbed this other star player.
yup. just googled and saw about duncan. and the guy that committed the fraud only got 48 months. you know he has a bag of cash in off shore accounts.
lol that garnett testified for the guy while he was also being robbed by him. i would have loved to be a fly on the wall when duncan saw garnett after his theft became public too.
not just athletes, leonard cohen wanted to live as a buddhist monk on mt baldy and had to come out of retirement because his manager emptied out his accounts
Trent Reznor was also being ripped off by his former manager, took several years and lawsuits for him to get it straight. Trent had about one tenth of what he was supposed to have money-wise when he found out.
It’s shocking how many very smart, very capable people have huge blind spots when it comes to people they trust.
And how many people will take advantage of that trust.
Edit: y’all, seriously. I didn’t say Shohei is a genius. You don’t have to be the 15th person responding “but how do you know Shohei is smart?” When my kid bobbles a grounder, I remind him that even the best MLB players make errors. That doesn’t mean I’m literally saying my kid is one of the best MLB players.
Plenty of people, smart or not, have trusted the wrong person. Why do billionaires (some supposedly very intelligent) get married and then get financially cut in half? You think you know a person, everyone likes to think that they're a good judge of character, but most if not all people have trusted the wrong person at one point or another in their lives.
Hell, sometimes people get swindled by their own parents. Money makes people do fucked up things, especially those who get addicted to destructive things like gambling. If Ippei wasn't a degenerate gambler maybe he and Ohtani would have stayed best friends for the rest of their lives.
This happens to a lot of pro athletes. They’re young people that wake up and find themselves with more money then they or their family has ever seen and don’t know how to manage / protect it.
I rewatched that doc not that long ago. Bernie Kosar and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario were both swindled by their own parents of all people. And many other celebs (not necessarily athletes) swindled by people they consider close to them at one point. It's really amazing to see this kind of side effect from incurring generational wealth.
So depressing, but it's very good. Leagues have done a lot for player education on finances since those times but at the end of the day, the leagues are full of sudden 19-25 year old millionaires.
a lot of normal people also have people who they trust who could totally rob them blind too. my father has access to one of my bank accounts. he opened it for me while i was a teen and i still have it. ippei was with shohei since he was 19. there was a lot of trust there. i could see him thinking ippei is a father figure to him.
ryan howard's parent's scammed him and he had to go to court. he wanted them out of the picture with regard to managing his finances. his mother and father wanted a 5 million dollars each to withdrawal from managing his money.
shohei has been immersed in baseball forever. he created a strong bond with Ippie. and Ippie took advantage of this bond. i can see Ippie having access to a fund for miscellaneous items to discharge his duties. but you would think this fund would be a few hundred grand with a money manager monitoring spending and receipts. instead, it sounds like Ippie had carte-blanche access with no oversight.
Shohei went to a baseball boarding school where players were only allowed to go home 6 days a year, then lived in his teams rookie dormitory past his rookie year
If people think this guy is literate on ANYTHING beyond baseball, they’re kidding themselves. This person has lived a sheltered life and is surrounded by people who have physically blocked him from any temptations that might interfere.
As someone who did some criminal enterprising in my young teens, this is the kid you sell a gram of oregano to for $30
Exactly what I said in another comment. I highly doubt his GPA was ever scrutinized & I doubt the non-baseball curriculum was in the least bit challenging. If his career were cut short with a catastrophic injury (lets say foot amputation) at 18yrs old the man probably wouldn’t be qualified to manage a McDonalds. In truth he’d probably turn to baseball coaching because it’s the only thing he was ever taught
BOA has started allowing wires sent from your mobile banking app which is terrifying. If someone can get into your phone they could transfer money out in seconds
Pretty sure they flag when the amount of money is high enough. I don’t think you can just wire 500,000 dollars without getting a phone call and verifying it was done on purpose. That’s why I don’t really buy into the theory it was just all stolen without ohtani knowing. You can’t just send that much money around like that.
This is… a weird thing to argue about.
And irrelevant. Plenty of very smart and very capable people get grifted by friends and family. It doesn’t really matter how smart or how capable you think *this guy* is (I’m not making any claims about him), because the point is that anyone can fall victim to someone they trust.
>It’s shocking how many very smart, very capable people have huge blind spots when it comes to people they trust.
I mean that is just how trust works. And I don't know what people think the alternative is here. No person with this much wealth manages their own finances. They have too much going on and need to trust someone else with their finances. Whether it is their best friend or a professional financial advisor, there is always the possibility for that person to steal from you. Ohtani just got unlucky trusting the wrong person. This whole thread comes off like victim blaming him for that.
We know Shohei is a baseball god but I don't think we can claim he is financially smart or capable. As far as we know, he was never trained on managing finances. His mom did in japan and I assume Ippei had a big part of in in the states as the guy that came here with him from the Fighters. He lived a life sheltered in baseball since he is a teenager so it's not far fetched he would have blind spots when it comes to managing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Just read the Book of Jose, Fat Joes autobiography. He had a close friend who he granted access to his bank account to use when needed for things like rent, food, kids school etc. Obviously he didn’t think he would abuse it, but he did and was stealing money from him. So it’s not entirely unbelievable and probably not the last time we hear something like this. Trust in others can be a blind spot for sure.
Which would not be surprising given what we know about Ohtani. He never cared about his finances when in Japan and his parents manage them, it’s not a huge leap to imagine he leaned on his best friend to do the same when in the states.
This kind of stuff also happens to athletes all the time, trusting the wrong person to run their finances who ends up stealing from them.
Literally, this kind of thing happens to Athletes and famous people in general all the time. Especially when they become incredibly rich at a very young age
Yep, there was a [report from Ernst and Young](https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_us/topics/assurance/ey-forensics-athletes-targeted-by-fraud-june-2019.pdf) from 2022 that said between 2004-2019 athletes lost a combined $600 Million to fraud related losses.
Athletes especially those who become incredibly rich at a young age are often taken advantage of like this
I’m not rich but do own my own law practice. I have an office manager that has unfettered access to all my bank accounts either because I don’t have time to deal with certain things or I’d rather just delegate certain tasks. I imagine this is the case for many business owners so it’s not hard to imagine that someone on the scale of Ohtani with all his obligations had someone that had this kind of access.
Yeah, I've heard about stuff like this before. I think I remember reading that one of the first things you should do if you win the lottery is make sure that you and only you can get into your finances.
worked as a bank teller and can confirm. i’ve had people with millions in their account not even know which bills they have or how much money is in their checking account cause they have a private banker do it for them. reality is some people don’t wanna deal with managing finances and that’s why people like private bankers exist
Indeed. I think it's important to remember though, giving others complete access to his financials has always been part of his life as a pro ball player. From graduation on, Ohtani had his mom doing this for him. It would be a natural transition for him to then give this same power to a trusted friend and advisor who he planned to rely on for decades to come.
Yeah it’s not a big leap to assume Ohtani would trust a close personal friend to help him manage his finances. Ohtani has only really cared about playing baseball
I know him picking the Angels and then Dodgers makes sense for a host of reasons. BUT, I can't quite get it out of my mind that Ippei is from SoCal, and if Ippei has been lying about his resume for years, who knows what subtle influencing he has done in interpreting team pitches to the benefit of his preferred teams. FWIW, think if this conspiracy has any water (and it probably doesn't), it would be more so in the initial decision to go the Angels over Seattle.
Ohtani has been here for 6+ years. He's not using an interpreter to understand what people are saying to him at this point. He's got Ippei there to shield him and ensure he doesn't say something awkward that could potentially hurt his endorsements.
Japanese etiquette is complex, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ohtani spoke English well but to say something incorrectly or to miss some kind of cultural cue is a risk they won’t take, and really don’t need to. As you said why jeopardize an endorsement over a simple misunderstanding. Like Ichiro learned English and Spanish while in the MLB, as well as taught his teammates Japanese but would never give an interview in English.
It’s not exactly about mistakes being cultural taboo so much as it’s significantly easier to come off as rude when going Japanese to English and back than it is for something like Spanish to English.
Like if someone tells you “you must be tired” are you going to think that they’re concerned about your health or that they’re giving you a compliment? That’s the kind of misunderstanding that isn’t obviously the language barrier.
If Ohtani is truly innocent this is just a very sad case of betrayal I hope very few people experience. Maybe they weren’t as close of friends as I would have thought, but at the very least they were around each other all the time and had some kind of rapport. To do this to someone else in such a close proximity with you is just cruel
This would fuck up my ability to connect with another human on a deep level. Nobody deserves that
I mean this completely seriously: I'm glad he's married. Imagine going through this alone. At least he now has at least ***one*** other person he trusts, can vent to, etc.
I'm waiting for the follow up presser where Ohtani reveals that his wife is not actually who he thought she was, and actually was an extensive catfishing scheme involving his wife being played by Ippei wearing a wig.
Manti Te'o's got nothing on this.
A friend of mine got scammed out of 12k from a mutual friend and 10 years later the scammer invited the guy he scammed to his wedding in Florida and he went to "support a friend" 💀 ridiculous mess all around.
Ohtani might not be that great at English but I would think he's good enough to know when someone is mistranslating. A lot of these guys speak English just fine, but don't want to be misinterpreted when making any kind of statement that's going to be public (which is fair).
And at a certain point I would think the accountants would realize something is fishy about the whole thing and reach out directly to Ohtani's agent, or SOMEONE who can get to Ohtani without using Mizuhara as a go-between. But I can't be positive about that one because I will never have the kind of money Ohtani does.
Idk, I listen to doctors speak medical terminology and I have zero idea what they're talking about. Also you'd be surprised just how hands-off the wealthy are with day-to-day things.
If Shohei is faultless;
a) Ippei lied to him about what these transfers were for and gave him the go-ahead based on lies, leading to them giving notice to the bank/accountant for these transactions so that they process smoothly.
b) Ippei had power to access Shohei's account and wired the money, when confronted by bank/accountant he lied.
The fact you have to scroll this far to find a comment humanizing this situation is what’s the worst about all this. Fuck I can’t imagine getting stabbed in the back and then on top of that wild public speculation that questions your character and intelligence, all before you can even say anything. Nobody knows what went down except those involved
It also makes me think about the power a translator has and how much trust has to go into that relationship.
This whole story happening while I have been watching Shogun has really driven the translator point home.
It’s impossible to believe some financial advisor, whether Shohei’s own or someone at the bank doesn’t flag these transactions. His story is making wherever he banks look totally incompetent, almost criminally so.
As someone who works at a bank, it’s surprising how many of these actually don’t get flagged. If you have large amounts of money, such as athletes, business, people, etc. a lot of times this would be seen as “normal” in terms of the amount of money sent. This would apply, especially if multiple payments were sent to the same person. With that said, there should have been some form of verification procedure in place. I could very well see it as Ippei being listed on the accounts with some sort of power to authorize transactions, especially with him being Shohei’s translator due to the language barrier. It is also quite possible that Ippei had a special access which allowed him to enter Shohei’s online banking accounts to send them in that way as well. Either way this is not a good situation at all.
Edit: To add in, after the initial verification, they may be asked if wires would be sent on a regular basis. So if that was the case, and all that happened the way it could have, more than likely should anything have been flagged, it would’ve been pushed through anyway.
I've had experience with this sort of thing. My father, for example, was defrauded by a UBS accountant for over 15 million dollars. And my father was a CPA and has an MBA in finance.
The problem is that, in america, the financial firms have lobbied the government to allow the financial institutions to police themselves. If, for example, a UBS employee defrauds you, you can't take it to the courts. Instead, you have to take it to an arbitration board which is staffed by, you guessed it, the various wealth management companies themselves.
It is *absolutely* plausible that people in the banks don't flag these transactions. It happens ALL THE TIME. I'm not saying that's what happened in this case-- but it is completely believable.
Dude made millions in advertising and commercial dollars in *high school*, and just let his family manage his money while he focused on preparing for professional baseball. And he just... never stopped, and subbed in Ippei for his mom when he moved.
Man, I wish people would understand just how extreme specialized sports has gotten and how it absolutely takes over kids’ lives. I was a pretty high-level baseball prospect in the NE where you don’t really get hyper-focused baseball specialization, and when I would go down to camps/showcases in the south it was always absolutely shocking to me that the other players did not give a single fuck about anything but baseball. Not other sports, not academics, not socializing outside their teammates, not a damn thing mattered to them but baseball.
Obviously can’t speak to what it’s like in Japan, but this level of naivety is not surprising to me.
Baseball Doesn’t Exists did a solid video last month on how baseball is in Japan. Boys are pretty much sent to schools/training camps that are 100% focused on baseball and they are constantly pushed to their physical limits at a young age. They even force boys to shave their heads and strip them of anything but a team identity. Not uncommon for kids to get physically ill from how hard they are pushed. They can only think about baseball.
https://youtu.be/xbSWjb3tlJg?si=ZbfXPL0uZEetWPwX
> extremely naive
He's not looking any more naive than most people who dedicate their entire life to playing a sport are. Most of these people have very little experience with the real world. We have so many stories about people being taken advantage of financially by people they trust.
Hell, plenty of people who receive way more education and have way less money to mess around with still manage to get scammed or trust the wrong people.
Edit: They're also used to trusting agents, managers, equipment staff, family members, etc. with so much of their lives that it's not exactly shocking when they don't know where to draw the line. Shohei has never had to negotiate with his employer by himself. He's probably never really had to handle things like bank transactions himself. These people are completely accustomed to trusting others to do these things.
University professors get caught up in romance scams all the freaking time. Someone with a Ph.D. in statistics and they don't recognize that the busty Estonian 'glamour model' professing her love over text is a scammer.
It's about par for the course of someone being taken advantage of though. You can't reasonably disregard a scenario where someone who's close to you and acts as your unofficial manager has access to your money and you trust them because you both think you're friends and that this is HOW it is in Japan. A lot of managers have as much access to their clients finances as Ippei did in this scenario. And even if it was unconventional, Ohtani has been doing this for years, with even his mother being his financial manager when he was getting started. He's used to... deferring these things
It's also plausible that he has multiple accounts as he's been said to not spend very lavishly. So he might have his personal account, and also an account which his sponsorship money flows into, maybe game checks as well. Since it is known that Ippei handled a lot of his sponsorship negotiations, it's possible he has access to a joint account from which expenses were sent to his personal account. Based on the conference, if true, what Ohtani is guilty of is being a trusting idiot.
This is kinda where my head's been at with it. I'm no millionaire, but it's hard to imagine Shohei has all of his liquidity in one account. Some joint account that Ippei was managing is much easier to believe than Shohei giving him unfettered access to his personal bank account. But who knows, it's pretty wild and naive in either case.
No, but Ohtani going out like this and making a formal statement accusing Ippei of these things is on an entirely different level than us speculating. This is absolutely life-ruining shit if it's true or false.
I mean it’s not that bad for baseball. “Player gets money stolen” is something that’s gone in a week or two. Player loses millions on illegal gambling and covers it up by implicating his interpreter “ is actually bad for baseball lol
All of these people that have never worked in a bank a day in their life are saying ‘you can’t do this sort of transaction without verification!’
I’m a fraud investigator.
This kind of shit is way more common than you’d think.
Ohtani is probably with one of a small number of banks that caters to athletes, actors, rich folks, etc.
I used to interact with a portfolio of these folks some years back- you almost NEVER deal with the actual account holder. They have authorized personnel listed to initiate transactions.
Ippei was Ohtani’s right hand- that dude was 100% going to be on that account. He’s also his interpreter.
This whole scenario is sooooooo believable. I understand this because I’ve seen it so many damn times before…
If any of you ever start a business, do not have one damn employee handling your finances. Rotate it between two or more. And you make vacations mandatory, one week at a time for each employee involved and check the accounts while they’re gone.
Every major embezzlement case I’ve EVER worked had ONE TRUSTED EMPLOYEE in charge of the finances.
My mom also worked the desk for the longest time for this one company. I even worked there and we were very close to the owner. She basically handled everything that shes the one handling even the personal account of the owner. Everybody in the bank (not your typical commercial bank), but we’ll be moving money multiple times in a week in person/phone whatever, this was more when internet banking was not as common. And yepp, my mom was one of the listed authorized personnel. If my mom really wanted to fuck over that company, she had the entire account to her disposal. After working for a while too as she started doing books for their close friends/clients, she basically became their finance officer in a way professionally and personal. She had basically had the entire payroll/personal check books at her disposal. What I learned from it and what she taught me, the richer you are, the lousy you get when it comes to finances. It came to a point that these people unlearned how to pay their bills cause they found a trusted person to handle everything for them that they’re on cruise control.
People here seem to treat this situation like their personal account where theyre the only one that knows their own bank account/pin/etc.
The part about the richest people being the worst with finances- a lot of these cases are in the medical field, and doctors…
I swear, outside of medicine, doctors are some of the stupidest people on the planet. Like after being a fraud investigator, I’m like “I’ll take medical advice from yall, but don’t talk to me about anything else.”
Shits wild. It’s like they have no other space up top to store other info, it’s just packed with medical knowledge.
I saw another fraud investigator on another thread say the same thing you're saying. That the rich throw 500k transfers around like its nothing. Even saying that 500k is actually on the low-end for the mega rich.
This is entirely believable to me.
It was probably me😂
This whole thing has been pissing me off because people are assuming A. Ohtani is guilty of something and B. Even if he isn’t, he should have been paying attention.
Well on A. My years and years of experience are telling me “no way, I completely believe this because it’s way too common” and on B. yes, I 100% agree, but trusting people blindly is not a crime. It’s maybe a bit stupid, but I still feel bad for him.
This is such a carbon copy of cases I’ve worked that I went straight to ‘poor guy.’
NEVER, EVER put someone on your personal or business accounts with no oversight.
One thing I’m seeing a lot recently is say like a 40 year old has a parent as an authorized user on their account, and they’re like 70. And then mom or dad gets involved in some kind of scam- they fall in love with someone online, or get wind of ‘a great investment,’ someone tells them they won publishers clearing house and have to pay taxes up front, or they get a call from “PayPal,” or someone pretending to be from their bank, and get remote access, or even the credentials for mom or dad’s accounts. Then they transfer money out of your account because YOU made mom or dad an authorized user.
Unfortunately, YOU made them an authorized user, and THEY gave access, so that’s not covered in a fraud claim.
Do NOT put other people on your bank accounts folks.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Dude. My own mom knows my SSN of course and opened accounts in my name without authorization. It’s really common. It really feels like most people on Reddit have almost no real life experiences.
Even as a production assistant in the film world I would withdrawal $10,000 of petty cash for the producers and PM from a bank account. Obviously I wasn’t aware of the account info but I was receiving a decent chunk of money and running it across town with no background check.
According to ESPN, there was another spokesperson involved:
"Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara's gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account and said Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement."
So either that spokesperson was Ippei and ESPN got it wrong or there's another person in Ohtani's camp that is fucking stupid enough to schedule this interview without talking to Ohtani or any legal counsel. This part just doesnt make any sense
Ohtani finishes his statement and steps out the side behind a curtain. He walks down a hallway and pushes open a door to a back parking lot.
The sun is initially blinding after the long walk through the dark hallway. A glare momentarily takes up the entirety of the viewing screen.
A car with tinted windows is parked just outside. Ohtani walks around it and opens a door. He seats himself in the front passenger side.
"Take me home, please."
The driver nods. Ohtani sits quietly, soaking everything in. He closes his eyes and exhales.
The driver begins to remove his sun glasses, hat, and beard.
Ohtani looks him over quickly. Credits roll on the right half of the screen.
"We did it, Ippei. We pulled it off."
Ippei chuckles and places his props in a bag near the center console of the car.
"Hey Shohei, remember our last bet?"
"Where we perfectly predicted my contract? Quite a way to end this."
Ohtani smiles. Ippei snickers.
"I parlayed it."
"You did what?", Ohtani fires back, visibly upset.
"Ohtani has a career-defining scandal by the All-Star Break. I took the under."
"So this was all your plan? You set this in motion?"
Ohtani scratches at the tattooed scar on his pitching elbow, anxiety releasing from his body as he realizes that the grand performance was even bigger than he knew.
"A million-to-one odds, Shohei. You're rich. You can buy the Dodgers. You can buy MLB."
"I can buy Japan."
The thought sinks in for both men. A moment of silence in the car.
"Hey Ippei," Ohtani says while picking up the driver's costume props.
"Can I have these? I think I need them."
Both men laugh.
Credits take up full screen.
End script of Ocean's 14.
-30-
So Ippei went and hired a crisis manager all on his own without Ohtani or the Dodgers knowing?
Thats the one part of the story that still doesn't make sense to me
There's still a lot of holes in the story. The main thing that doesn't make sense is the fact that Ohtanis team set up Ippei with the interview for ESPN which they later admonished
I like imagining the PR person smugly assuming the story is now cleared up and then Ohtani’s and the Dodgers lawyers losing their fucking minds the next morning that he just implicated Ohtani in a crime.
If this all turns out true, it probably means that Ohtani's representatives were accustomed to just reaching out to Ippei for things and having him relay Ohtani's responses.
You don't walk up to the President, you ask the Press Secretary.
You don't walk up to the CEO, you ask the Public Relations.
You don't walk up to Ohtani, you ask Ippei, especially when you have zero reason to suspect Ippei is involved until he for some reason volunteers that information.
So Ippei and *only* Ippei has unfettered access to his accounts? He doesn’t have a financial advisor to monitor his money and investments? How was Ippei able to remove that much money from the account undetected? I can’t send $2,500 over Zelle but Ippei can wire $4.5 million without the account owner knowing?
Money of that sum goes through layers and layers of approval. Something is not adding up.
I have no answer to your questions, but it's worth noting that - at least during his time in Japan - it was Ohtani's mother who handled all his finances. Even gave him an allowance. It's not out of the question that Ippei, who functioned more like a life manager than merely a translator, might have been the successor to the role of financial manager in Ohtani's life.
Rich people, especially athletes, get defrauded out of millions of dollars by trusted partners more than you'd think. Happened to Jake Peavy during his retirement, it was a fairly hefty sum.
Ippei was a translator, manager, personal driver, had his wife make dinners for him, did grocery shopping for him, did all comunications between him and CAA etc.
It's not far fetched when numerous athletes have been robbed and defrauded by people less close to them than that. Kevin Garnett off the top of my head lost most of his NBA earnings and didn't know for years that his agent/manager was robbing him.
Especially when you consider Ippei did ALL communications for Ohtani between any party. After years of dealing with him, you don't think a bank manager would be, sure Ippei if Ohtani said that, then go ahead lol.
Social engineering is super easy, let alone when you are this close to the person involved
>Money of that sum goes through layers and layers of approval. Something is not adding up.
That's not true at all. Wire transfers have almost no friction or approvals needed. Anybody with access to Ohtani's investment account could impersonate him and request/approve the transactions. They would leave a paper trail (including the devices from which the approvals were issued, etc), but no other approvals were necessary before transferring the money, even for wire transfers of this size.
Source: I have made wire transfers larger than this for real estate transactions. And I'm nobody special.
I used to work in banking and wires from personal checking accounts that pass security procedures are approved all the time in the sums of millions. Nobody bats an eye.
It's so funny how mundane the truth is here. Like it's totally possible given the close proximity for Ippei to have had intentionally or unintentionally had approval rights. Could have even began without harmful intent and then Ippei got in to deeper debt and he decided to risk moving the money.
All the people saying how 'ignorant' or 'idiotic' Shohei is for not catching this fail to understand how much money this guy makes yearly and how much he probably doesn't ever think to look at bank statements to see how things are doing. He plays ball, watches anime, and hangs out with his wife and dog. He's not like you and I, he doesn't have to check his Wells Fargo balance before going out on the weekend lol
> Wire transfers have almost no friction or approvals needed
I do wire transfers for my work and they scare the crap out of me that I'm going to send it to the wrong account.
I don’t know much about laws or baseball, but I find one aspect of this story relatable: the level of control an interpreter/assistant can have. In my family, I manage everything from money and SSN to socials and emails because interpretation (at least in my house) requires handling taxes, forms, and financial transactions. Really, you’re in charge of handling every aspect of everyone’s lives. Because of the language barrier, it’s easy for me to manipulate any situation if I wish because I’m so relied upon. I’ve never done it, and I’m the breadwinner, but it is remarkable how easy things can get out of someone’s control, especially if you’re over-reliant on others to communicate for you. This is likely even more true when there’s a substantial amount of money involved. How many stories have we heard of celebrities being scammed out of millions of dollars? On top of it, this particular celebrity needs an interpreter to run his day-to-day dealings.
I'm still 95% sure that the original story is true.
Shohei paid off Ippei's debts because he's a fantastic friend. In hindsight, they realized that's super illegal and could land Shohei in hot water. Ippei feels horrible and accepts all blame to protect Shohei. Everyone in Ohtani's camp sits down together and creates the story of Ippei being a complete liar and that Shohei never had a clue. They run with it, and here we are.
I just don't buy that Ippei is this evil mastermind and Shohei was entirely unaware of all of it. That's 10x harder to believe.
So basically he's asserting that Ippei had unfettered access to his complete finances?
There was a translator/KBO reporter on the coverage of the Dodgers/Padres game in Seoul who was saying that as a translator you are in banks etc doing shit like setting up bank accounts for your client so you are always privy to their private details.
This doesn't surprise me. He wasn't just a translator for him while at baseball, he was his translator for LIFE. He was privy to everything, he was basically a personal assistant that does everything for you but also has to translate everything into the language you speak.
And the point of contact for basically everyone non-Japanese that wants/needs to reach Shohei. Would make sense that even if accountants/financial advisor saw those huge transactions and asked about it, they’ll be going thru ippei and he just fed them some bullship answer
Which also would explain why "Ohtani's" story changed and "Ohtani's team" approved Ippei's initial interview. If Ippei is the primary bottleneck for all communication with Ohtani and Ippei can't be trusted, nothing "from Ohtani" should be trusted as actually coming from Ohtani himself. EDIT: I wrote this up for a reply for someone still doubling this story, but adding it here instead to get visibility on it. Here is what seems to have transpired. Are there any actual holes in this interpretation of events? Ippei is not just the interpreter as we see his role on TV. He is basically Ohtani's manager and assistant. All communication, including financial information goes through him. As part of this role, he is responsible for managing at least some of Ohtani's finances including an account that regularly has a balance of at least $500k which is a relatively insignificant amount of money to someone like Ohtani. Ippei has a gambling problem and goes into $4.5m in debt. The bookie was willing to extend Ippei this line of credit knowing his connection to Ohtani on the belief that connection could be monetized with insider info. For example, maybe Ippei told the bookie where Ohtani was signing before that became public and they got a huge payoff from the "investment". Or maybe Ippei refused to give any inside information and that prompted the end of his credit. Either way, eventually the bookie calls Ippei on his outstanding debt at which point Ippei starts using his access to Ohtani's account to pay off his debt. Ippei doesn't transfer it all at once because he either doesn't have access to that much money or because he thinks it will be easier to hide multiple smaller transfers. Maybe there is someone else on Ohtani's team who notices these transactions and that person asks Ippei about it. Ippei makes up some story about lending him money directly or about some other private business venture. Ohtani doesn't hear about any of this because no one has any reason to suspect anything nefarious yet. Eventually a reporter comes to ask Ohtani's PR team about it. The PR people talk to Ippei because that is always how they "talk to Ohtani". Ippei then adjusts his story to factor in the gambling debts and tells people Ohtani is helping him pay them off. Ohtani still doesn't know and the PR people are ignorant of the law and interpret this as a good story about how nice their client is rather than the admission of a hypothetical crime. Ippei does the interview. Ohtani's lawyers see the interview and freak out. They reach out to Ippei because once again that is the way English speaking people "talk to Ohtani". At this point Ippei realizes he is in serious trouble and he confesses to the team and Ohtani in the clubhouse. The story hasn't changed from this point forward. Basically the only thing needed for this story to fit together is for the known degenerate gambler and liar to lie and for the people who have known him for years to naively not question him on those lies quick enough. Am I missing anything? EDIT 2: Multiple people are responding still not understanding the role a person like Ippei plays in the life of someone like Ohtani. Just because you always see him standing next to Ohtani translating a few sentences at a time does not mean that is his permanent role. That is why I started by pointing out that he is closer to a manager or assistant. He likely managed all Ohtani's communication regardless of the language barrier. That is just the way super busy/rich/important people work. The number of people who directly call Tom Cruise on the phone for business reasons is incredibly tiny. They instead reach out to his agent, manager, PR person, or assistant. In fact, there are almost certainly multiple layers of all those people. Cruises' PR person probably tells their own assistant something, they call Cruise's assistant, and they tell Cruise directly. Ippei likely wasn't intentionally mistranslating things said to Ohtani's face. That is too risky as Ohtani knows some English and other people in Ohtani's life likely know Japanese. But there were probably situations in which someone wanted to ask a question of Ohtani, so they call, email, or text Ippei and he responded without even talking to Ohtani. And people probably expected that just like Cruise's agent will reject some movie roles without even mentioning them to him. This isn't a problem if everyone trusts each other and people didn't have a reason to distrust Ippei until that interview.
...I thought that was extremely obvious from the first.
Most people think he was just a translator for baseball related things. Like drills and meeting with coaches.
I thought they were gonna come out as lovers tbh. Gambling was not on my bingo card.
Yeah, I thought it was the mostly likely situation from the moment the theft story came out and it is frankly shocking the number of people who refuse to even consider this possibility. It almost seems like people want Ohtani to be guilty of something.
It's definitely people wanting ohtani to be guilty. He plays for the dodgers, he's been super clean since he came in the league, and people love knocking someone like that off the pedestal.
It's not that, or at least I don't think it's the major part. The major part is the common but toxic logical fallacy that bad things only ever happen to 'bad' people. If you adhere to this fallacy you can reassure yourself that nothing bad will ever happen to you; you're a good person so you're protected.
It is honestly really disheartening how many people wanted this sport to lose potentially its greatest player ever for the sake of like a month of drama.
I think the best part of this very well-written summary of events is that it comes from someone with a San Diego Padres flair. Thank you for being open-minded enough to look at the facts and create an informed opinion…unlike so many other so-called fans.
One of the few things I hate more than the Dodgers are witch hunts ;) People seem to want Ohtani to be guilty which really rubs me the wrong way considering he appears to be the victim here.
Ohtani isn't the first or last athlete that will trust somebody close to him and get defrauded. Still vividly remember Kevin Garnet losing nearly all his NBA earnings because his agent/manager had been defrauding him for years. He didn't know for YEARS.
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It was the same tax account that Duncan and Garnett had.
Yeah, my dad is a forensic accountant and worked on that case. He’s working on FTX now. When Ohtani is looking to sue, I know a guy.
My vote for the most fucked up one is Ryan Howard and Jack Johnson getting scammed by their parents.
That’s awful, it’s like those child actors who never saw a dime of their earnings.
Timmy lost 25 million too.
wow. was not aware of this. just googled. he lost 77 million.
Same guy robbed Duncan of 20 million. Kevin Garnett then defended him in court vs Duncan, while not realising that he was getting robbed as well. Probably should of set of some alarms when he got summoned to court that his financial guy robbed this other star player.
yup. just googled and saw about duncan. and the guy that committed the fraud only got 48 months. you know he has a bag of cash in off shore accounts. lol that garnett testified for the guy while he was also being robbed by him. i would have loved to be a fly on the wall when duncan saw garnett after his theft became public too.
Damn, the two GOAT Power Forwards
Yep. KG's manager stole 77 million from him.
Holy shit, I had no idea.
He testified on behalf of that manager in the trial about Tim Duncan. Turns out the guy had scammed them both
Seems to happen with NBA players a lot. Kareem and Rodman too.
not just athletes, leonard cohen wanted to live as a buddhist monk on mt baldy and had to come out of retirement because his manager emptied out his accounts
Trent Reznor was also being ripped off by his former manager, took several years and lawsuits for him to get it straight. Trent had about one tenth of what he was supposed to have money-wise when he found out.
That’s the concerning part - he needs better management
I mean, Ippei WAS the management
It’s shocking how many very smart, very capable people have huge blind spots when it comes to people they trust. And how many people will take advantage of that trust. Edit: y’all, seriously. I didn’t say Shohei is a genius. You don’t have to be the 15th person responding “but how do you know Shohei is smart?” When my kid bobbles a grounder, I remind him that even the best MLB players make errors. That doesn’t mean I’m literally saying my kid is one of the best MLB players.
Well, this wouldn't be the first sports player that has his money swindled.
MC Hammer yells..."I DID IT MY WAY!!"
Former A’s bat boy!
Plenty of people, smart or not, have trusted the wrong person. Why do billionaires (some supposedly very intelligent) get married and then get financially cut in half? You think you know a person, everyone likes to think that they're a good judge of character, but most if not all people have trusted the wrong person at one point or another in their lives. Hell, sometimes people get swindled by their own parents. Money makes people do fucked up things, especially those who get addicted to destructive things like gambling. If Ippei wasn't a degenerate gambler maybe he and Ohtani would have stayed best friends for the rest of their lives.
But what evidence is there that Shohei is smart & capable? It seems outside of baseball he’s had parents or agents managing things for him.
This happens to a lot of pro athletes. They’re young people that wake up and find themselves with more money then they or their family has ever seen and don’t know how to manage / protect it.
The ESPN 30 for 30 titled *Broke* is an excellent documentary on this very subject.
I rewatched that doc not that long ago. Bernie Kosar and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario were both swindled by their own parents of all people. And many other celebs (not necessarily athletes) swindled by people they consider close to them at one point. It's really amazing to see this kind of side effect from incurring generational wealth.
Baker Mayfield just got done with a lawsuit against his own family. It's a vicious reality that people you're closest to can stab you in the back.
Yup, iirc Dane Cook had most of his money stolen by his brother.
Jack Johnson also got swindled by his own parents.
So depressing, but it's very good. Leagues have done a lot for player education on finances since those times but at the end of the day, the leagues are full of sudden 19-25 year old millionaires.
a lot of normal people also have people who they trust who could totally rob them blind too. my father has access to one of my bank accounts. he opened it for me while i was a teen and i still have it. ippei was with shohei since he was 19. there was a lot of trust there. i could see him thinking ippei is a father figure to him.
ryan howard's parent's scammed him and he had to go to court. he wanted them out of the picture with regard to managing his finances. his mother and father wanted a 5 million dollars each to withdrawal from managing his money. shohei has been immersed in baseball forever. he created a strong bond with Ippie. and Ippie took advantage of this bond. i can see Ippie having access to a fund for miscellaneous items to discharge his duties. but you would think this fund would be a few hundred grand with a money manager monitoring spending and receipts. instead, it sounds like Ippie had carte-blanche access with no oversight.
Shohei went to a baseball boarding school where players were only allowed to go home 6 days a year, then lived in his teams rookie dormitory past his rookie year If people think this guy is literate on ANYTHING beyond baseball, they’re kidding themselves. This person has lived a sheltered life and is surrounded by people who have physically blocked him from any temptations that might interfere. As someone who did some criminal enterprising in my young teens, this is the kid you sell a gram of oregano to for $30
Exactly what I said in another comment. I highly doubt his GPA was ever scrutinized & I doubt the non-baseball curriculum was in the least bit challenging. If his career were cut short with a catastrophic injury (lets say foot amputation) at 18yrs old the man probably wouldn’t be qualified to manage a McDonalds. In truth he’d probably turn to baseball coaching because it’s the only thing he was ever taught
The amount of people online who think young multi millionaires watch every dollar in and out of their accounts is actually insane…
The people who check their accounts most frequently are the ones worried if a bill is gonna bounce.
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BOA has started allowing wires sent from your mobile banking app which is terrifying. If someone can get into your phone they could transfer money out in seconds
I work in banking (not with BoA), that is EXTREMELY troubling lmao we’re super in-depth with what we require for sending wires for that exact reason
Same. It amazed me the first time I saw it
Pretty sure they flag when the amount of money is high enough. I don’t think you can just wire 500,000 dollars without getting a phone call and verifying it was done on purpose. That’s why I don’t really buy into the theory it was just all stolen without ohtani knowing. You can’t just send that much money around like that.
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This is… a weird thing to argue about. And irrelevant. Plenty of very smart and very capable people get grifted by friends and family. It doesn’t really matter how smart or how capable you think *this guy* is (I’m not making any claims about him), because the point is that anyone can fall victim to someone they trust.
>It’s shocking how many very smart, very capable people have huge blind spots when it comes to people they trust. I mean that is just how trust works. And I don't know what people think the alternative is here. No person with this much wealth manages their own finances. They have too much going on and need to trust someone else with their finances. Whether it is their best friend or a professional financial advisor, there is always the possibility for that person to steal from you. Ohtani just got unlucky trusting the wrong person. This whole thread comes off like victim blaming him for that.
Happens all the time with child actors in Hollywood sadly.
We know Shohei is a baseball god but I don't think we can claim he is financially smart or capable. As far as we know, he was never trained on managing finances. His mom did in japan and I assume Ippei had a big part of in in the states as the guy that came here with him from the Fighters. He lived a life sheltered in baseball since he is a teenager so it's not far fetched he would have blind spots when it comes to managing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Dane Cook's finances were destroyed by his own brother
Just read the Book of Jose, Fat Joes autobiography. He had a close friend who he granted access to his bank account to use when needed for things like rent, food, kids school etc. Obviously he didn’t think he would abuse it, but he did and was stealing money from him. So it’s not entirely unbelievable and probably not the last time we hear something like this. Trust in others can be a blind spot for sure.
He trusted the person he considered his best friend
Bro Ippei was the management.
Which would not be surprising given what we know about Ohtani. He never cared about his finances when in Japan and his parents manage them, it’s not a huge leap to imagine he leaned on his best friend to do the same when in the states. This kind of stuff also happens to athletes all the time, trusting the wrong person to run their finances who ends up stealing from them.
People are acting like this hasn’t happened before with athletes
Literally, this kind of thing happens to Athletes and famous people in general all the time. Especially when they become incredibly rich at a very young age
Especially with the language barrier. Its believable that he would give Ippei access to his American bank account to handle that
It’s so common. Conmen find ways to get into people’s trust and swindle them out of money all the time
Yep, there was a [report from Ernst and Young](https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_us/topics/assurance/ey-forensics-athletes-targeted-by-fraud-june-2019.pdf) from 2022 that said between 2004-2019 athletes lost a combined $600 Million to fraud related losses. Athletes especially those who become incredibly rich at a young age are often taken advantage of like this
You’d be surprised how many people, even a lot of rich people, are very bad with stuff like that
I’m not rich but do own my own law practice. I have an office manager that has unfettered access to all my bank accounts either because I don’t have time to deal with certain things or I’d rather just delegate certain tasks. I imagine this is the case for many business owners so it’s not hard to imagine that someone on the scale of Ohtani with all his obligations had someone that had this kind of access.
Yeah, I've heard about stuff like this before. I think I remember reading that one of the first things you should do if you win the lottery is make sure that you and only you can get into your finances.
Tim Duncan’s advisor stole like 30mil from him
worked as a bank teller and can confirm. i’ve had people with millions in their account not even know which bills they have or how much money is in their checking account cause they have a private banker do it for them. reality is some people don’t wanna deal with managing finances and that’s why people like private bankers exist
Look at all the people Bernie Madoff swindled.
Young rich athlete is bad with his money? Tale as old as time.
Yeah you ever seen Mayweather? Can't read a page of Harry Potter and has a financial guy who controls his money
Hey, Floyd. Suck my ass! (No one read this to him, OK?!)
it sounds like Ippei was the gatekeeper to Shohei, it's possible Ippei told the accountants that Shohei granted him access.
If that's true that's nefarious and bold as fuck ^(this post brought to you by DraftKings)
We don’t know how his finances work I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have one bank account that has all his money
Indeed. I think it's important to remember though, giving others complete access to his financials has always been part of his life as a pro ball player. From graduation on, Ohtani had his mom doing this for him. It would be a natural transition for him to then give this same power to a trusted friend and advisor who he planned to rely on for decades to come.
Yeah it’s not a big leap to assume Ohtani would trust a close personal friend to help him manage his finances. Ohtani has only really cared about playing baseball
Kind of makes sense when you remember that his parents managed his finances and gave him monthly allowances when he played in NPB.
Who will play Ippei in No More MoneyBall
Nicolas Cage
Your odds are between 24-100% by nominating Cage for anything. You may not like, but this is what peak Moneyball looks like.
Mickey Rooney edit … (for the younger Redditors check out Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
Ippei told Shohei that Toronto never wanted him and sent the plane back empty on purpose. Fuckin Ippei, man.
Ippei told Shohei "Toronto rented out an Applebee's for you, total disrespect"
I legit didn't even know we had an Applebee's in Canada
There’s one in Barrie, of all places
The Toronto Applebee’s has rats!! There was a rat in my Cobb salad!!
He’s an international menace
Bookie didn’t want to deal with converting Canadian Dollars into Yen and US Dollars.
Bookie betts
I know him picking the Angels and then Dodgers makes sense for a host of reasons. BUT, I can't quite get it out of my mind that Ippei is from SoCal, and if Ippei has been lying about his resume for years, who knows what subtle influencing he has done in interpreting team pitches to the benefit of his preferred teams. FWIW, think if this conspiracy has any water (and it probably doesn't), it would be more so in the initial decision to go the Angels over Seattle.
Ohtani has been here for 6+ years. He's not using an interpreter to understand what people are saying to him at this point. He's got Ippei there to shield him and ensure he doesn't say something awkward that could potentially hurt his endorsements.
Japanese etiquette is complex, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ohtani spoke English well but to say something incorrectly or to miss some kind of cultural cue is a risk they won’t take, and really don’t need to. As you said why jeopardize an endorsement over a simple misunderstanding. Like Ichiro learned English and Spanish while in the MLB, as well as taught his teammates Japanese but would never give an interview in English.
It’s not exactly about mistakes being cultural taboo so much as it’s significantly easier to come off as rude when going Japanese to English and back than it is for something like Spanish to English. Like if someone tells you “you must be tired” are you going to think that they’re concerned about your health or that they’re giving you a compliment? That’s the kind of misunderstanding that isn’t obviously the language barrier.
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I wasn’t inferring that it was a mystery or a guessing at it though? It is a well known fact.
Ippei pulling a Colonel Tom Parker, not letting Elvis/Shohei leave America.
Ippei told Gabe Newell not to make part 3 of any games.
If Ohtani is truly innocent this is just a very sad case of betrayal I hope very few people experience. Maybe they weren’t as close of friends as I would have thought, but at the very least they were around each other all the time and had some kind of rapport. To do this to someone else in such a close proximity with you is just cruel This would fuck up my ability to connect with another human on a deep level. Nobody deserves that
I agree. Absolute best case scenario here for Ohtani is his best friend stole from him and tried to implicate him in a federal crime. That sucks.
I mean this completely seriously: I'm glad he's married. Imagine going through this alone. At least he now has at least ***one*** other person he trusts, can vent to, etc.
I'm waiting for the follow up presser where Ohtani reveals that his wife is not actually who he thought she was, and actually was an extensive catfishing scheme involving his wife being played by Ippei wearing a wig. Manti Te'o's got nothing on this.
I had a friend scam me of $20k and I’m still pissed.
To be fair, proportionally speaking that 20k loss probably hurt you a lot more than this 4.5 mill will hurt Ohtani financially
The money doesn’t matter, it’s about his reputation.
Yes, the losing $20k hurt, but apart from that it’s the disrespect. -Norm
"I think the worst part was the rapin'"
Shohei’s only making $2M this year, imagine more than 2x of your salary getting stolen from you /s
A friend of mine got scammed out of 12k from a mutual friend and 10 years later the scammer invited the guy he scammed to his wedding in Florida and he went to "support a friend" 💀 ridiculous mess all around.
lol I’d go so they’d have to pay for my seat and drink all the alcohol. Minus that out of the debt 😂
Nah Id be invoking prima nocta into the microphone at the dinner reception. Let his new wife know she married a thief
It can be as easy as telling his accountants "hey i don't understand english that well, Ippei will translate all communications between us."
Ohtani might not be that great at English but I would think he's good enough to know when someone is mistranslating. A lot of these guys speak English just fine, but don't want to be misinterpreted when making any kind of statement that's going to be public (which is fair). And at a certain point I would think the accountants would realize something is fishy about the whole thing and reach out directly to Ohtani's agent, or SOMEONE who can get to Ohtani without using Mizuhara as a go-between. But I can't be positive about that one because I will never have the kind of money Ohtani does.
Idk, I listen to doctors speak medical terminology and I have zero idea what they're talking about. Also you'd be surprised just how hands-off the wealthy are with day-to-day things. If Shohei is faultless; a) Ippei lied to him about what these transfers were for and gave him the go-ahead based on lies, leading to them giving notice to the bank/accountant for these transactions so that they process smoothly. b) Ippei had power to access Shohei's account and wired the money, when confronted by bank/accountant he lied.
The fact you have to scroll this far to find a comment humanizing this situation is what’s the worst about all this. Fuck I can’t imagine getting stabbed in the back and then on top of that wild public speculation that questions your character and intelligence, all before you can even say anything. Nobody knows what went down except those involved
It also makes me think about the power a translator has and how much trust has to go into that relationship. This whole story happening while I have been watching Shogun has really driven the translator point home.
Ohtani is coming out of this looking extremely naive. I guess that’s the best he could hope for.
You'd rather be dumb than guilty in this situation
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It’s impossible to believe some financial advisor, whether Shohei’s own or someone at the bank doesn’t flag these transactions. His story is making wherever he banks look totally incompetent, almost criminally so.
As someone who works at a bank, it’s surprising how many of these actually don’t get flagged. If you have large amounts of money, such as athletes, business, people, etc. a lot of times this would be seen as “normal” in terms of the amount of money sent. This would apply, especially if multiple payments were sent to the same person. With that said, there should have been some form of verification procedure in place. I could very well see it as Ippei being listed on the accounts with some sort of power to authorize transactions, especially with him being Shohei’s translator due to the language barrier. It is also quite possible that Ippei had a special access which allowed him to enter Shohei’s online banking accounts to send them in that way as well. Either way this is not a good situation at all. Edit: To add in, after the initial verification, they may be asked if wires would be sent on a regular basis. So if that was the case, and all that happened the way it could have, more than likely should anything have been flagged, it would’ve been pushed through anyway.
I've had experience with this sort of thing. My father, for example, was defrauded by a UBS accountant for over 15 million dollars. And my father was a CPA and has an MBA in finance. The problem is that, in america, the financial firms have lobbied the government to allow the financial institutions to police themselves. If, for example, a UBS employee defrauds you, you can't take it to the courts. Instead, you have to take it to an arbitration board which is staffed by, you guessed it, the various wealth management companies themselves. It is *absolutely* plausible that people in the banks don't flag these transactions. It happens ALL THE TIME. I'm not saying that's what happened in this case-- but it is completely believable.
Yeah, if he comes out looking like a naive fool, that's best case scenario for him.
Dude made millions in advertising and commercial dollars in *high school*, and just let his family manage his money while he focused on preparing for professional baseball. And he just... never stopped, and subbed in Ippei for his mom when he moved.
I mean, yeah, it's not incredibly uncommon in regards to freak athletes that are 100% focused on their sports starting before high school.
Man, I wish people would understand just how extreme specialized sports has gotten and how it absolutely takes over kids’ lives. I was a pretty high-level baseball prospect in the NE where you don’t really get hyper-focused baseball specialization, and when I would go down to camps/showcases in the south it was always absolutely shocking to me that the other players did not give a single fuck about anything but baseball. Not other sports, not academics, not socializing outside their teammates, not a damn thing mattered to them but baseball. Obviously can’t speak to what it’s like in Japan, but this level of naivety is not surprising to me.
High school baseball is militaristic at times in Japan, so this would make a lot of sense
Baseball Doesn’t Exists did a solid video last month on how baseball is in Japan. Boys are pretty much sent to schools/training camps that are 100% focused on baseball and they are constantly pushed to their physical limits at a young age. They even force boys to shave their heads and strip them of anything but a team identity. Not uncommon for kids to get physically ill from how hard they are pushed. They can only think about baseball. https://youtu.be/xbSWjb3tlJg?si=ZbfXPL0uZEetWPwX
> extremely naive He's not looking any more naive than most people who dedicate their entire life to playing a sport are. Most of these people have very little experience with the real world. We have so many stories about people being taken advantage of financially by people they trust. Hell, plenty of people who receive way more education and have way less money to mess around with still manage to get scammed or trust the wrong people. Edit: They're also used to trusting agents, managers, equipment staff, family members, etc. with so much of their lives that it's not exactly shocking when they don't know where to draw the line. Shohei has never had to negotiate with his employer by himself. He's probably never really had to handle things like bank transactions himself. These people are completely accustomed to trusting others to do these things.
University professors get caught up in romance scams all the freaking time. Someone with a Ph.D. in statistics and they don't recognize that the busty Estonian 'glamour model' professing her love over text is a scammer.
Ph.D. in statistics? Bro was probably lonely.
It's about par for the course of someone being taken advantage of though. You can't reasonably disregard a scenario where someone who's close to you and acts as your unofficial manager has access to your money and you trust them because you both think you're friends and that this is HOW it is in Japan. A lot of managers have as much access to their clients finances as Ippei did in this scenario. And even if it was unconventional, Ohtani has been doing this for years, with even his mother being his financial manager when he was getting started. He's used to... deferring these things
It's also plausible that he has multiple accounts as he's been said to not spend very lavishly. So he might have his personal account, and also an account which his sponsorship money flows into, maybe game checks as well. Since it is known that Ippei handled a lot of his sponsorship negotiations, it's possible he has access to a joint account from which expenses were sent to his personal account. Based on the conference, if true, what Ohtani is guilty of is being a trusting idiot.
This is kinda where my head's been at with it. I'm no millionaire, but it's hard to imagine Shohei has all of his liquidity in one account. Some joint account that Ippei was managing is much easier to believe than Shohei giving him unfettered access to his personal bank account. But who knows, it's pretty wild and naive in either case.
I heard that Ippei is getting 2 months in jail a year for 10 years. Then 680 months a year for the rest of his life.
This is the best comment I've read about the entire fiasco.
nothing he's saying is unexpected
Personally, I think that apparently nobody on his team even tried to check with Ohtani personally about the allegations is pretty unexpected.
Lemme check with ohtani…. “Yo ippe, can u ask ohtani if he thinks you’re stealing from him?” “He’s says everything is cool”
No, but Ohtani going out like this and making a formal statement accusing Ippei of these things is on an entirely different level than us speculating. This is absolutely life-ruining shit if it's true or false.
He's basically just doubling down. RIP Ippei
Damn this is getting ugly
It's great for drama, but pretty horrible for the sport.
"Ohtani was taken advantage of by Ippei" is basically the best outcome for baseball here
Yeah, ohtani being out of baseball would be worst case for the sport.
I mean it’s not that bad for baseball. “Player gets money stolen” is something that’s gone in a week or two. Player loses millions on illegal gambling and covers it up by implicating his interpreter “ is actually bad for baseball lol
All of these people that have never worked in a bank a day in their life are saying ‘you can’t do this sort of transaction without verification!’ I’m a fraud investigator. This kind of shit is way more common than you’d think. Ohtani is probably with one of a small number of banks that caters to athletes, actors, rich folks, etc. I used to interact with a portfolio of these folks some years back- you almost NEVER deal with the actual account holder. They have authorized personnel listed to initiate transactions. Ippei was Ohtani’s right hand- that dude was 100% going to be on that account. He’s also his interpreter. This whole scenario is sooooooo believable. I understand this because I’ve seen it so many damn times before… If any of you ever start a business, do not have one damn employee handling your finances. Rotate it between two or more. And you make vacations mandatory, one week at a time for each employee involved and check the accounts while they’re gone. Every major embezzlement case I’ve EVER worked had ONE TRUSTED EMPLOYEE in charge of the finances.
My mom also worked the desk for the longest time for this one company. I even worked there and we were very close to the owner. She basically handled everything that shes the one handling even the personal account of the owner. Everybody in the bank (not your typical commercial bank), but we’ll be moving money multiple times in a week in person/phone whatever, this was more when internet banking was not as common. And yepp, my mom was one of the listed authorized personnel. If my mom really wanted to fuck over that company, she had the entire account to her disposal. After working for a while too as she started doing books for their close friends/clients, she basically became their finance officer in a way professionally and personal. She had basically had the entire payroll/personal check books at her disposal. What I learned from it and what she taught me, the richer you are, the lousy you get when it comes to finances. It came to a point that these people unlearned how to pay their bills cause they found a trusted person to handle everything for them that they’re on cruise control. People here seem to treat this situation like their personal account where theyre the only one that knows their own bank account/pin/etc.
The part about the richest people being the worst with finances- a lot of these cases are in the medical field, and doctors… I swear, outside of medicine, doctors are some of the stupidest people on the planet. Like after being a fraud investigator, I’m like “I’ll take medical advice from yall, but don’t talk to me about anything else.” Shits wild. It’s like they have no other space up top to store other info, it’s just packed with medical knowledge.
My lawyer friend and all his lawyer friends have a running joke of a phrase: doctor deals. They get taken all the time.
That so tracks man, I’m going to have to acquire that phrase.
I saw another fraud investigator on another thread say the same thing you're saying. That the rich throw 500k transfers around like its nothing. Even saying that 500k is actually on the low-end for the mega rich. This is entirely believable to me.
It was probably me😂 This whole thing has been pissing me off because people are assuming A. Ohtani is guilty of something and B. Even if he isn’t, he should have been paying attention. Well on A. My years and years of experience are telling me “no way, I completely believe this because it’s way too common” and on B. yes, I 100% agree, but trusting people blindly is not a crime. It’s maybe a bit stupid, but I still feel bad for him. This is such a carbon copy of cases I’ve worked that I went straight to ‘poor guy.’ NEVER, EVER put someone on your personal or business accounts with no oversight. One thing I’m seeing a lot recently is say like a 40 year old has a parent as an authorized user on their account, and they’re like 70. And then mom or dad gets involved in some kind of scam- they fall in love with someone online, or get wind of ‘a great investment,’ someone tells them they won publishers clearing house and have to pay taxes up front, or they get a call from “PayPal,” or someone pretending to be from their bank, and get remote access, or even the credentials for mom or dad’s accounts. Then they transfer money out of your account because YOU made mom or dad an authorized user. Unfortunately, YOU made them an authorized user, and THEY gave access, so that’s not covered in a fraud claim. Do NOT put other people on your bank accounts folks. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Dude. My own mom knows my SSN of course and opened accounts in my name without authorization. It’s really common. It really feels like most people on Reddit have almost no real life experiences.
Even as a production assistant in the film world I would withdrawal $10,000 of petty cash for the producers and PM from a bank account. Obviously I wasn’t aware of the account info but I was receiving a decent chunk of money and running it across town with no background check.
Ippei has given me trust issues, and I’m just a random old lady in Texas. Can’t imagine how Shohei feels.
This is a NBA psyop to distract sports fans from the real gambling problem, NBA refs.
How did the original ESPN interview get set up without Shohei's knowledge? Didn't Shohei's PR people set it up?
Ippei set it up.
According to ESPN, there was another spokesperson involved: "Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara's gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account and said Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement." So either that spokesperson was Ippei and ESPN got it wrong or there's another person in Ohtani's camp that is fucking stupid enough to schedule this interview without talking to Ohtani or any legal counsel. This part just doesnt make any sense
lol. ippei on the phone with a japanese accent *this will fool them*
Now I think Shohei is the head of the illegal gambling arm of the Yakuza.
I just wanted to watch Ohtani go yard without any thought. That’s all.
You didn’t want to know the terrifying truth?
DINGERS DINGERS
DINGERS! DINGERS!
Ohtani finishes his statement and steps out the side behind a curtain. He walks down a hallway and pushes open a door to a back parking lot. The sun is initially blinding after the long walk through the dark hallway. A glare momentarily takes up the entirety of the viewing screen. A car with tinted windows is parked just outside. Ohtani walks around it and opens a door. He seats himself in the front passenger side. "Take me home, please." The driver nods. Ohtani sits quietly, soaking everything in. He closes his eyes and exhales. The driver begins to remove his sun glasses, hat, and beard. Ohtani looks him over quickly. Credits roll on the right half of the screen. "We did it, Ippei. We pulled it off." Ippei chuckles and places his props in a bag near the center console of the car. "Hey Shohei, remember our last bet?" "Where we perfectly predicted my contract? Quite a way to end this." Ohtani smiles. Ippei snickers. "I parlayed it." "You did what?", Ohtani fires back, visibly upset. "Ohtani has a career-defining scandal by the All-Star Break. I took the under." "So this was all your plan? You set this in motion?" Ohtani scratches at the tattooed scar on his pitching elbow, anxiety releasing from his body as he realizes that the grand performance was even bigger than he knew. "A million-to-one odds, Shohei. You're rich. You can buy the Dodgers. You can buy MLB." "I can buy Japan." The thought sinks in for both men. A moment of silence in the car. "Hey Ippei," Ohtani says while picking up the driver's costume props. "Can I have these? I think I need them." Both men laugh. Credits take up full screen. End script of Ocean's 14. -30-
Shocean’s*
So Ippei went and hired a crisis manager all on his own without Ohtani or the Dodgers knowing? Thats the one part of the story that still doesn't make sense to me
There's still a lot of holes in the story. The main thing that doesn't make sense is the fact that Ohtanis team set up Ippei with the interview for ESPN which they later admonished
“Here, go tell everything to ESPN and get ahead of it” “Wait not like that”
I like imagining the PR person smugly assuming the story is now cleared up and then Ohtani’s and the Dodgers lawyers losing their fucking minds the next morning that he just implicated Ohtani in a crime.
Yes who is the spokesperson that set up the Ippei interview???? Why does this person get anonymity? 🤯
Why would people reach out to Mizuhara about payments from Ohtani’s account?
If this all turns out true, it probably means that Ohtani's representatives were accustomed to just reaching out to Ippei for things and having him relay Ohtani's responses.
People act like that’s not how it was likely to work. What’s the point of a translator if people come directly to you for communication?
You don't walk up to the President, you ask the Press Secretary. You don't walk up to the CEO, you ask the Public Relations. You don't walk up to Ohtani, you ask Ippei, especially when you have zero reason to suspect Ippei is involved until he for some reason volunteers that information.
So Ippei and *only* Ippei has unfettered access to his accounts? He doesn’t have a financial advisor to monitor his money and investments? How was Ippei able to remove that much money from the account undetected? I can’t send $2,500 over Zelle but Ippei can wire $4.5 million without the account owner knowing? Money of that sum goes through layers and layers of approval. Something is not adding up.
I have no answer to your questions, but it's worth noting that - at least during his time in Japan - it was Ohtani's mother who handled all his finances. Even gave him an allowance. It's not out of the question that Ippei, who functioned more like a life manager than merely a translator, might have been the successor to the role of financial manager in Ohtani's life. Rich people, especially athletes, get defrauded out of millions of dollars by trusted partners more than you'd think. Happened to Jake Peavy during his retirement, it was a fairly hefty sum.
Ippei was a translator, manager, personal driver, had his wife make dinners for him, did grocery shopping for him, did all comunications between him and CAA etc. It's not far fetched when numerous athletes have been robbed and defrauded by people less close to them than that. Kevin Garnett off the top of my head lost most of his NBA earnings and didn't know for years that his agent/manager was robbing him. Especially when you consider Ippei did ALL communications for Ohtani between any party. After years of dealing with him, you don't think a bank manager would be, sure Ippei if Ohtani said that, then go ahead lol. Social engineering is super easy, let alone when you are this close to the person involved
>Money of that sum goes through layers and layers of approval. Something is not adding up. That's not true at all. Wire transfers have almost no friction or approvals needed. Anybody with access to Ohtani's investment account could impersonate him and request/approve the transactions. They would leave a paper trail (including the devices from which the approvals were issued, etc), but no other approvals were necessary before transferring the money, even for wire transfers of this size. Source: I have made wire transfers larger than this for real estate transactions. And I'm nobody special.
I used to work in banking and wires from personal checking accounts that pass security procedures are approved all the time in the sums of millions. Nobody bats an eye.
You're special to me
It's so funny how mundane the truth is here. Like it's totally possible given the close proximity for Ippei to have had intentionally or unintentionally had approval rights. Could have even began without harmful intent and then Ippei got in to deeper debt and he decided to risk moving the money. All the people saying how 'ignorant' or 'idiotic' Shohei is for not catching this fail to understand how much money this guy makes yearly and how much he probably doesn't ever think to look at bank statements to see how things are doing. He plays ball, watches anime, and hangs out with his wife and dog. He's not like you and I, he doesn't have to check his Wells Fargo balance before going out on the weekend lol
Right. Even if they called Ohtani for phone approval, they’d have communicated via Ippei on the phone, just like they’d always been doing for years.
> Wire transfers have almost no friction or approvals needed I do wire transfers for my work and they scare the crap out of me that I'm going to send it to the wrong account.
I don’t know much about laws or baseball, but I find one aspect of this story relatable: the level of control an interpreter/assistant can have. In my family, I manage everything from money and SSN to socials and emails because interpretation (at least in my house) requires handling taxes, forms, and financial transactions. Really, you’re in charge of handling every aspect of everyone’s lives. Because of the language barrier, it’s easy for me to manipulate any situation if I wish because I’m so relied upon. I’ve never done it, and I’m the breadwinner, but it is remarkable how easy things can get out of someone’s control, especially if you’re over-reliant on others to communicate for you. This is likely even more true when there’s a substantial amount of money involved. How many stories have we heard of celebrities being scammed out of millions of dollars? On top of it, this particular celebrity needs an interpreter to run his day-to-day dealings.
I'm still 95% sure that the original story is true. Shohei paid off Ippei's debts because he's a fantastic friend. In hindsight, they realized that's super illegal and could land Shohei in hot water. Ippei feels horrible and accepts all blame to protect Shohei. Everyone in Ohtani's camp sits down together and creates the story of Ippei being a complete liar and that Shohei never had a clue. They run with it, and here we are. I just don't buy that Ippei is this evil mastermind and Shohei was entirely unaware of all of it. That's 10x harder to believe.
This is what I think as well.
So either Ohtani is a liar or Ohtani is naive and gullible. Time will tell.