Audio Clip Released By The DOJ Reveals Ippei Mizuhara Perfectly Impersonating Shohei Ohtani To a Bank Employee - Just Kidding Any Of Us Could Have Stolen The Money

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Hand up, I kinda forgot about the Shohei Ohtani-Ippei Mizuhara gambling/fraud/theft scandal. I guess that's just how fast the news cycle moves these days, but this story was NUTS when it dropped. Literally after the first game of the regular season last year we found out about Shohei's beloved friend and translator Ippei stealing millions from him and gambling with the money. For quite a while it was tough to see a scenario where he was completely innocent. Shohei was that oblivious? Ippei controlled that much of his life? Conspiracy theorists wanted to believe that MLB+feds were covering Ohtani's ass to protect the superstar. If he was implicated it would instantly become one of the craziest sports stories of all time. 

As we found out information little by little, it was revealed that Ippei was impersonating Shohei to the bank that was holding all of the money. Shohei trusted his friend to control his money, so Ippei used that trust to link his phone to all of Ohtani's accounts. Reasonable thought would lead you to believe Ippei did one hell of an impersonation and really pulled a fast one on the bank. Some Ethan Hunt type shit. You assume when you hear the conversations you are forced to tip your cap and understand how it could be possible to pull this off. It HAS to be hard to constantly steal millions from someone else's bank and raise zero suspicions, right? Today they released the audio.  

Mastermind shit

(The Athletic) The agent goes through a two-factor authentication process, asking Mizuhara to recite a six-digit number relayed by text message to the phone number linked to the account — a number that matches Mizuhara’s personal cell.

The agent later asks for details about the transaction.

“Now recently, we’ve come across a trend of fraud and scams, so we have been monitoring the online transactions closely to make sure our clients are not the victim of either,” the agent says. “What is the reason for this transaction?”

Mizuhara says that it’s for a car loan.

“What is your relationship to the payee?” the agent asks.

“He’s my friend,” Mizuhara says.

“Have you met your friend in person?” the agent responds.

“Yes, many times,” Mizuhara says.

Mizuhara is later asked if “there will be any future wires to your friend?”

“Uh, possibly,” he responds.

So pretty much any one of us could have stolen Shohei's money from this bank. Ron sounded more legit pranking Veronica Corningstone. 

Simply stunning. That audio from the bank sounds like a teenager prank calling a pizza shop. I'm no fraud specialist but the bank has to be more secure than that. What are we even doing here?

Prosecutors are looking for a sentence up to five years and a possible deportation back to Japan, along with some sort of restitution payment, although there's no shot he's got anywhere close to $18M to cough up. And he almost got away with it, if not for clear, obvious evidence that he's 100% guilty. Was fun while it lasted I guess? 

Dude had it made as Shohei's pal and instead turned on his best friend for greed. Tough gamble on life that went up in flames in the worst way possible. 

P.S. How the fuck did Ohtani win the MVP and World Series with all of this going on behind the scenes? What's gonna happen when his personal life is all fine and dandy in 2025? We're all fucked. 

P.P.S. Why is this audio on a soundcloud?