Ghosn’s Daring Escape Cost His Extraction Crew Their Freedom

How much did Carlos Ghosn’s freedom cost the father-and-son team that pulled off one of the most daring escape acts in business history?

Just about everything, it turns out.

When the fallen auto executive stared down financial-fraud allegations and possible prison time in Japan after his 2018 arrest, the former chairman of the car-making alliance between Nissan Motor Co., Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. turned in desperation to an experienced hand in the shadowy world of ex-military, private-security contractors: Michael Taylor.

Now the stuff of a Netflix documentary and inevitable Hollywood film, the former US Army Green Beret led a team that in late December 2019 smuggled Ghosn through security at Kansai International Airport in an audio-equipment box, then onto a private jet bound for Istanbul. From there, a separate plane took him to Lebanon.

Today, Ghosn is safely ensconced in the country of his childhood, which doesn’t extradite its citizens. Michael, 62, and his 29-year-old son, Peter, just reemerged last month from a long odyssey through the Japanese legal system—eight hours of interrogations every day, aggressive prosecutorial tactics, and long stretches in solitary confinement.

In interviews in Massachusetts and Beirut, both shared new details of the escape plot and a pressure campaign by Tokyo prosecutors to implicate Ghosn’s family.

Then there’s the unfinished business with Ghosn, who sat down in Beirut to talk about the aftermath of the escape.

Fresh from detention, the senior Taylor is reaching out to his former client, seeking to revisit the financial arrangements for the James Bond-style extraction mission, which he claims Ghosn has partially paid and totaled more than $1.3 million.

On top of that, Michael says he’s seeking roughly $3 million more to cover legal fees spent fighting extradition and navigating Japan’s judicial system—a fair ask, in his view, given the personal price he and his son paid to secure Ghosn’s freedom.

Michael claims that the former auto executive promised to help with any fallout from the escape during the fateful night of Dec. 29, 2019, as their Bombardier Global Express Jet made its way out of Japanese airspace.

“I feel like I’m reborn, and about to live a new life,” Michael recounted an elated Ghosn saying while sitting on the big black box used to smuggle him out. To which Michael said he responded: “I took care of you. If there are legal problems, will you take care of us?”

“Absolutely,” Ghosn said, according to Taylor.

Ghosn arrived as a free man in Beirut the next day. As news of the escape trickled out, a photo of him at celebratory dinner with his wife, Carole, and relatives offered clear proof. With media outlets across the globe clamoring for details, the names of the Taylors and their partner, George-Antoine Zayek, who was also on the plane, leaked out.

The escape was an especially humiliating moment for Japan’s government, which had been criticized for its treatment of Ghosn, credited with rescuing Nissan two decades earlier when Renault invested in the struggling Japanese carmaker.

With Ghosn out of reach and unlikely to ever face trial for allegedly misreporting his compensation and other financial improprieties, Japanese prosecutors went after the Taylors and Zayek with a vengeance. They swiftly issued arrest warrants for the three, even though Peter had left Japan on a separate, commercial flight after watching over Ghosn’s luggage and cash.

At first, the Taylors stayed outside the US. Lawyers advised them not to go back, although they said extradition to Japan was unlikely. “I didn’t want to evade it,” Michael said.

Even when US Marshals showed up to arrest father and son in May 2020 in Harvard, Massachusetts, Michael figured they were making a show for Japanese authorities. “The US is never going to give up one of its citizens” for helping someone skip bail in another country, for something that may not even be a crime, was his thinking, he said.

The Taylors fought Japan’s extradition demand for months. Lobbying efforts in Washington gained little traction. Complicating matters, perhaps, was Michael Taylor’s decade-old plea deal over an investigation into a Pentagon contract that he won to train Afghan special forces troops.

In September 2020, a US magistrate judge ruled that the Taylors could be extradited. The final decision was in the hands of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In October, Pompeo flew to Tokyo for regional security talks, where he met then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Hopes grew in the Taylor camp of a breakthrough. Instead, that same month, the State Department authorized their transfer. While former US President Donald Trump’s administration had repeatedly shown a willingness to depart from practice in high-profile criminal cases of interest to the White House, it appeared to show little appetite to help the Taylors.

Nor did the incoming administration of Joe Biden. Even after another judge delayed the extradition for several more months, well into a new presidential term, it became clear there would be no reprieve.

In March 2021, they were put on a Japan Airlines flight out of Boston. Surrounded by about a dozen officials and a sea of empty seats, the handcuffed pair weren’t allowed to use the plane’s bathrooms without an escort.

By the numbers, the extradition was unusual. Only 31 fugitives were brought to Japan for trial from 2000 to 2018, about one to two per year, and usually for murder or violent crimes. Given that the country only has bilateral extradition treaties with the US and South Korea, it appeared to be a rare win for Japanese authorities.

"They both betrayed us,” Michael Taylor said of the Biden and Trump administrations.

A spokesperson for the State Department said: “Due to privacy considerations, we will not discuss details of this individual case,” adding that the agency considers assistance to US citizens incarcerated or detained abroad among its top priorities.

Charged soon after arrival in Japan, the Taylors embraced a different legal strategy: They decided to plead guilty and seek leniency.

“I helped Carlos Ghosn escape Japan while he was on bail,” Michael, voice quavering, told the Tokyo District Court. “I deeply regret my actions.”

He also told the court that he was broke. Judges rejected their arguments, saying they were motivated by money and that their actions had thwarted the course of justice. Michael was sentenced to two years in prison, Peter 20 months.

Now, having been released early after a transfer to the US, Michael is less repentant about helping Ghosn. He said he would do it all over again, based on what he knew at the time. After leaving the military, he secretly helped the US government, investigating crimes and providing security for high-profile individuals and training militia. Rescuing abducted children and others in trouble was something he did on the side, without seeking money, he said.

It was no different with Ghosn’s extraction, according to Michael. When the topic of remuneration for the escape came up with Ghosn, Michael said they could discuss it later, but he was extradited before that conversation happened.

Looking back, Michael credits the success of the operation to meticulous planning, some of which he withheld from Ghosn. Michael shared new, unreported details about the escape.

There was, for instance, a detailed backup plan in case Ghosn had been discovered at the airport. Michael had a taxi waiting outside the private-jet terminal. If things went bad, he and Ghosn would hop on a bullet train to Yokohama, where Michael had identified three cargo ships that were leaving that night. They would make their way to the Philippines and bribe their way out of the country, Michael explained.

Michael’s work for Ghosn didn’t end there. Before his own arrest back in the US, Taylor had also helped to arrange security for Ghosn’s post-escape press conference in Beirut. In January 2020, a worldwide audience saw a defiant Ghosn lambaste (in English, Arabic, French and Portuguese) the Japanese judicial system and deny charges of any wrongdoing.

Outside, sitting in a car and in radio contact with the guards, was the man who had orchestrated the entire plot. Given that this was Ghosn’s first public appearance since the escape, they feared there might be an attack against him, or even a kidnapping attempt.

Asked whether he harbors any ill will toward Ghosn, Michael said “he couldn’t do much for us” during the extradition battle with Japan.

Yet Michael makes clear that a man of Ghosn’s presumed wealth can do something now. He’s hoping to meet him in Beirut soon. How he responds, said Taylor, “will tell me a lot about him as a human being.”

Michael’s ties to Lebanon run deep. Born on Staten Island, he joined the US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) straight out of high school. He first set foot in Beirut in 1983, and was en route to the US Embassy when a bomb blew it up in April of that year. He carried survivors out of the rubble.

Taylor speaks Arabic and his wife is Lebanese. His extended family, as well as Ghosn’s, are part of the country’s Maronite Christian community. While quiet and seldom the first to speak, his military training has made him hyper-aware of risk. Preparations for family road trips and winter storms were meticulous. He used to carry a parachute on commercial flights, until his family asked him to stop.

Security photos of Michael at the time of Ghosn’s escape show a fit figure with a square jaw and buzz cut. Prison time has taken away much of the muscle mass he once carried.

Michael said he spent roughly 16 months of his two-year sentence in solitary confinement in a mold-infested cell. During one 90-day stretch, the door to the room opened only once. Nor was he allowed to call his ill father, who died during his prison term. Showers were rare.

He and Peter say prosecutors promised them shorter terms if they yielded to demands to deliver any information or incriminating evidence about the involvement of Ghosn’s wife Carole and two of his children, Maya and Anthony, in organizing and executing the plot.

Peter, in particular, was targeted because he was in direct contact with Ghosn’s kids, as well as with his Japanese lawyers. Both were pressed for any details that could implicate them and pile pressure on Ghosn. Michael refused: “Why should his wife and children be punished for trying to help him?”

A spokesperson at the Japanese Justice Ministry’s Bureau of Corrections declined to comment.

And what does Ghosn, one of the world’s most famous fugitives, make of all of this?

“I’m glad that it is over for them,” he said in an interview in Beirut. “The human cost has been tremendous.”

As for any additional payments to the Taylors, Ghosn declined to go into the details of any agreements. “I am not the type of person who does not honor his contract, particularly for those who have been helpful,” he said.

Ghosn is effectively trapped in Lebanon, with an Interpol Red Notice out for his arrest. (Zayek faces the same dilemma.) French investigators issued international arrest warrants in April for Ghosn and four others for allegedly siphoning millions of euros from Renault.

The Taylors, meanwhile, are looking forward to putting the affair behind them. Michael aims to grow his vitamin-drink business, which he started after leaving security contract work. He’s delivering samples of Vitamin 1 and working to get the product into more sports clubs and stores in the Boston area.

Peter, who speaks Arabic and has a degree in finance from the Lebanese American University, is relocating to Dubai. He wants to launch new businesses and foster some that he’s involved with, including a Nigerian brewery and a digital-marketing company.

“It was a surreal situation,” Peter said. “Jail can do two things – it can break you or deepen resolve, and this experience has improved my confidence and made me stronger.” —With Iain Marlow and Masumi Suga