At 10:30 pm on a cold December night in 2019, a former titan of the global automotive industry lies in a box on a plane waiting to escape from Japan.
“The plane was supposed to take off at 11 p.m.,” Carlos Gon recalled.
“The 30 minutes in a box on the plane, waiting for it to take off, was probably the longest wait I’ve ever had in my life.”
Now, for the first time, the man, who was once the boss of both Nissan and Renault, described in detail his daring escape.
In exclusive BBC interview, Carlos Gon tells how he disguised himself to slip unnoticed through the streets of Tokyo, why a large box of music equipment was chosen to smuggle him out of Japan, and the excitement he felt when he finally landed in his native home – Lebanon.
“The thrill was that I would finally be able to tell the story,” he said.
The BBC recalls that Carlos Gon was arrested in November 2018 for allegations by Nissan that he had lowered his annual salary and misused company funds, which he denied.
The cost cuts he undertook at Nissan – initially controversial – ultimately showed that he had saved the carmaker, making Gon a respected and recognizable figure. The boss insists he has become an “indirect victim” in Nissan’s response to Renault’s growing influence, which still owns 43% of the Japanese company.
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Describing the moment of his arrest at Tokyo airport three years ago, Carlos Gon said: “It’s like you were hit by a bus or something really very traumatic happened to you. The only memory I have from that moment is shock, blocking,” he said. he.
Carlos Gon was taken to a detention center in Tokyo, where he was taken to a cell wearing prison clothes.
“Suddenly I had to learn to live without a watch, without a computer, without a phone, without news, without a pen – nothing,” he said.
For more than a year, Gon spent long periods in custody or under house arrest in Tokyo after being released on bail.
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At a time when he is under house arrest, when he was told that he would not be allowed any contact with his wife Carol, he decided to find a way out.
“The plan was that I couldn’t show my face, so I had to be hidden somewhere,” he said. “And the only way to be hidden (was) to be in a box or in luggage so no one could see me, no one would recognize me, and the plan would work.”
The idea of using a large box for musical instruments “is the most logical, given that it was time for many concerts in Japan.”
“It had to be a normal day, with a normal walk in normal clothes, a normal attitude and suddenly everything changed.” Without drawing any attention to himself.
From Tokyo, Carlos Gon travels by arrow to Osaka, where a private plane waits at the local airport to take off. The box was waiting for Gon at a nearby hotel. “When you enter the box, you don’t think about the past, you don’t think about the future, you only think about the moment,” he said. “Don’t be afraid, you have no emotion other than a huge concentration on” that this is your chance, you can’t miss it. If you miss it, you will pay with your life, with the life of a hostage in Japan. “
Carlos Gon was transported from the hotel to the airport by two men, father and son Michael and Peter Taylor, posing as musicians. Gon thinks he was in the box for about an hour and a half, which seemed like “a year and a half.”
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Americans Michael Taylor and his son Peter were extradited from the United States to Japan and are now facing three years in prison on charges of aiding and abetting the escape of Carlos Gon
Photo: AP / BTA
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The private plane took off on time and Carlos Gon was now free – a night flight, changing planes in Turkey before landing in Beirut the next morning.
Lebanon does not have an extradition treaty with Japan, so Carlos Gon is allowed to stay there.
But his aides, Americans Michael Taylor and his son Peter, were handed over from the United States to Japan and now face three years in prison.
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