Ippei Mizuhara was the translator and manager of Shohei Ohtani, a star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ippei also worked for Ohtani interpreting for non-baseball-related activities. In March 2018, Mizuhara took Ohtani to help him open a bank account to deposit his MLB salary. MLB salaries at the top of the sport are contracts in the hundreds of millions over the course of a few years. Mizuhara interpreted for Ohtani, who does not speak English, and the bank teller. Therefore, when the bank employee provided the bank account login information only Mizuhara was able to understand the information provided. To allow Mizuhara to handle hundreds of millions of dollars, in a language he did not comprehend, Ohtani entrusted a high level of trust in his management.
However, starting in September 2021, Mizuhara began sports betting with an illegal bookmaker. Quickly creating a habit and eventually being unable to pay his gambling debts, Mizuhara orchestrated a scheme to use Ohtani’s password to sign into Ohtani’s bank account and change the account’s security protocols. Then from November 2021 to March 2024, Mizuhara changed the registered email address and telephone number on the bank account so bank employees would call him when attempting to verify wire transfers from the account.
After this, Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani to deceive the bank’s employees into authorizing wire transfers on approximately 24 occasions. The funds were used for $60,000 worth of dental work, $325,000 worth of baseball cards, and ultimately obtained more than $16 million. Unfortunately, Ohtani was vulnerable having to trust the translations provided. Allowing an individual unmonitored access to monies causes significant vulnerabilities.
Photo by Justice Ellsworth
