https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/25/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-gambling-allegations-mlb-baseball
Shohei Ohtani addressed the media on Monday after allegations emerged that his former interpreter stole huge sums from his bank account
I am extremely skeptical of all of this. The story has already changed, from I paid off his debts to he committed fraud and stole the money.
Also, how do you not notice $4.5m missing? He must have accountants and money managers. And most questionable, why would your interpreter have the access and ability to transfer millions of dollars?
Time will tell.
It’s 100% him just covering for the interpreter, who he was good friends with. He paid off the debts and now Ohtani’s PR folks are trying to fix it all by throwing the interpreter under the bus. They probably told Ohtani he has to go along with it to protect his career
Or he was using the dude as a gambling proxy. He's in this situation because the bookie outed him. If all he wanted to do is bail out his bro, there's a hundred ways to do that while keeping his hands clean.
Face it, the dude got blackmailed, the feds caught wind of it, and the bookie talked.
While there's a good chance the truth is Ohtani has a gambling problem, it's entirely possible he just paid off the debt and didn't know doing so was illegal. Couple that with translation issues and you can see why they'd backpedal, then wait.
Not only that but why/how would an interpreter have any access to bank accounts? That seems way more unlikely than Ohtani using him as a fall guy for betting.
Regardless, I hope the truth comes out one way or another.
I believe that he never bet on baseball. I don't believe that he had no idea his friend was in gambling debt and that the money was stolen.
"I'm shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here."
"Your winnings, sir."
"Oh, thank you very much."
It could be both that his friend had a bad gambling habit and went into debt and he participated himself.
Either way we'll never hear the actual truth, Ohtani is equivalent to Jesus in Japan now so if the dodgers or California punished him in any way every Japanese sponsor of the MLB would be in an uproar.