Ohtani interpreter

[Seven]

The entire situation surrounding Ohtani this year has been a mess. At this point, I don't think we'd ever find out the truth about the betting scandal/interpreter scandal. A part of me wants to clear Ohtani of wrong doing, but the cynical other part of me, believes that Ippei was the fall guy. And the end of the day the MLB would not want to lose their Golden Goose, even if he bet on games.

Whoever handles his PR should be launched into the sun, they've done a terrible job. As a side note, I believe Ohtani does speak English, but is more comfortable speaking through an interpreter. There's nothing wrong with that, and while I do respect his privacy, Celebrities now aren't afforded the privacy they once were. Especially ones of his caliber. He's for all intents and purposes, the face of the MLB.

[G1911]

He seems to understand it and can speak English when he wants to - https://www.newsweek.com/video-shohe...mments-1609029

I would think this makes it less and less plausible he had no idea what his interpreter was saying in his public statements on the issue though.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by G1911

He seems to understand it and can speak English when he wants to - https://www.newsweek.com/video-shohe...mments-1609029

I would think this makes it less and less plausible he had no idea what his interpreter was saying in his public statements on the issue though.

I have met several pro athletes from other countries that play the I don't speak English card. It lets them not have to do interviews or interact with the bat shit crazy fans wanting autographs and pictures as much.

[Section103]

Ive met people who were born in the US and have lived here their entire lives who will selectively use the "I dont speak English" escape. I would too if I knew any other language well enough to pass.

[Beercan collector]

Just heard on ESPN the amount is now 16 million

[packs]

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

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

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

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

[G1911]

Perhaps a stupid question, but

If Ippei made something like $300K-$500K from the ball team and Ohtani per year, it is realistic that he would even be able to rack up $16M of gambling debt? Obviously an illegal bookie is not really regulated, but I would think that, you know, after the first million of debt they would stop taking your bets and that for such large scale clients they would make sure you have some ability to actually pay. It does not make sense to me that they would allow such massively impossible debt without a guarantee or some contact with Ohtani. Surely the bookie knows the translator doesn't have that kind of cash himself.

[philo98]

Originally Posted by packs

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

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

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

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

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

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

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by packs

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

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

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

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

If you're handling your own account, then what you say is correct. However, if you've given someone else that you trust access to your account, either the notifications are going to that person or if they are going to you, you would probably ignore them. If what is now being reported is true, Ohtani gave complete access to his accounts to the interpreter who prevented anyone else from accessing them. His interpreter also impersonated Ohtani on the phone when talking to the bank about account activity.

It sounds like Ohtani had complete trust in his interpreter who used that to take advantage of him and steal a lot of money. The part that is hard to understand (as someone else pointed out) is how would a bookie allow so much debt to be built up by someone who clearly didn't make that much. Unless the interpreter was telling the bookie he was making bets for Ohtani (which I have not seen reported), it's hard to understand how he could be given that much credit to keep losing money. Also, if winnings were being deposited to a different account (owned by the interpreter) than where payments were coming from (Ohtani's), how would he explain that to the bookie? A way to cover the connection to Ohtani?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by packs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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