WEBVTT - James Jones and Michael Taylor - Summer Staff Picks 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.520 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:08.319 Thing from My Heart Radio. It's officially summer, and that 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:10.800 means it's time for our tradition and here's the thing 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:15.320 where our staff shares their favorite episodes from the archives 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.320 in our Summer Staff Picks series. One of my favorite 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.320 episodes was with filmmaker James Jones, director of the Apples series, 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.920 wanted the escape of Carlos Gone. The conversation so intrigued 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.080 me I wanted to explore the story even deeper and 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.080 interview one of the subjects of the film, Michael Taylor, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.720 which I did earlier this year. Here's my conversation with 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:45.200 James Jones and Michael Taylor. Bernie Madeoff, Elizabeth Holmes, Sam 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.720 Bankman Freed. It's easy to think that shocking levels of 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.080 greed and corruption are simply nothing new in the world 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.840 of white collar crime. But what is new is an 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:00.720 accused chief executive evading prosecution by escaping to a foreign 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.160 country in a box. That's the story of Carlos gon, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:11.040 former CEO of both Nissan and Renault. Goen was arrested 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.040 on the eve of a proposed merger between the two 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:18.360 companies and charged with financial misconduct. He was first placed 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.360 in solitary confinement and then house arrest, awaiting trial in Japan. 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.360 That is until former Green Beret Michael Taylor and his 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:32.479 son Peter shipped him off to Lebanon. The scandal ultimately 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.880 resulted in the sentencing of the tailors and former Nissan 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:40.680 executive Greg Kelly, while Goon walks free, maintaining his innocence. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:46.360 Documentarian James Jones, director of the BAFT winning Chernobyl The 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.520 Last Tapes, brought this story to life in the four 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.240 part series Wanted the Escape of Carlos Gon on Apple TV. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.120 The series weaves questions surrounding a corporate takedown and the 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.520 potential framing of Gone with the claims of CEO excess. 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.240 I wanted to know what was the background of someone 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.840 who went from CEO to fugitive in such a swift 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:10.840 fall from grace. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.320 So he is a fascinating character. So he was born 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:21.560 in Brazil, in a town in the deepest Amazonian jungle, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.440 grew up mainly in Lebanon, went to university in France, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.280 but was always kind of viewed as an outsider. You know, 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.560 he was never really accepted by the French establishment. He 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.440 never played the game of sucking up to politicians, going 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.400 to the right clubs, you know, having dinners with captains 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.840 of industry. He kind of thought he was so brilliant 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.760 he could play by his own rules, which ultimately left 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.120 him without many allies when it all came crashing down. 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.280 He worked for Michelin, the tire company, which is where 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.160 he kind of showed that he had this skill for 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.640 like cost cutting and turning companies around, and then was 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:00.400 recruited by Reno and became known as Lacoste Killer, and 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.600 you know, broke kind of French unions and sacked a 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.359 lot of people, shut down factories, was like hugely controversial. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.760 And then when Reno took over Nissan, they thought, this 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:14.800 is the guy to go to Japan and just like 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.239 modernize this company, be ruthless, fire the people he needs 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.480 to fire, and just like save this company from death. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:29.640 It's so strange to hear someone reference going into the 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.960 Nissan culture to strip down and to make a Japanese 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.800 car company leaner and better and more competitive, when you're 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.480 always under the impression that the Japanese companies, particularly car companies, 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.440 are the leanest and meanest of them all. When Gone 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.880 goes over to Japan, does he find a lot of 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:49.600 fat there? 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.960 He does. There were practices that had just always been 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.800 the same way. There were you know, car companies, own 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.960 shares in supermarkets, so all these kind of weird idiosyncrasies 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.520 that the Japanese staff just saw as normal, you know, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.800 and it took an outsider like Going. And another interesting 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.920 thing about Going is I think, you know, some people 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.920 in Japan said to us, you know, he was viewed 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.520 with great suspicion to begin with, but the fact that 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.919 he was like culturally hard to place. You know, he 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.279 wasn't French, he wasn't American, you know, he was willing 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.080 to be the bad go Yeah, exactly. He didn't kind 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.160 of stand on ceremony. He was absolutely ruthless, and on 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.840 some level, perhaps because they were facing you know, complete extinction, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.120 they kind of went with it. And the results were 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:38.960 so quick. He said, if I don't turn this round 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.240 within three years, are quit. He turned it around within 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.400 a year, and you know, it was just massive efficiencies 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.280 straight off the bat. And you know, I think initially 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.640 people thought he'd cooked the books, but it was it 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.120 was just the same ruthlessness he had, and he's he's 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.800 an interesting guy because he's obviously brilliant, but he's not 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.400 someone like a Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg who has 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:06.479 one design or iconic brand or something that's associated with him. 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:08.919 What he did, he just had this focus and this 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.039 work ethic, and he inspired the people around him to 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.440 commit to going further than they'd ever pushed before and 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.159 sticking with him when he made hard decisions. And so 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.640 what was so fascinating making the series is you see 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.880 how all these things that made him brilliant, as the 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.560 success started to go to his head, he kind of 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.400 lost them. You know, he wasn't working so hard. He 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.320 was spending a lot of time on the private jet 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.960 go you know, throwing parties at Vesai, going to Rio Carnival, 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.160 you know, whereas his employees were still buying their own 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.760 stationery and you know, desperately working and trying podcasts wherever 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.119 they could. And actually, like it was just a really old, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:52.400 kind of tragic story of success. It's like losing sight 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.200 of what made you so great and suddenly people around 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.560 you thinking, you know, this emperor has no clothes. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.440 I'm aware of this story, and you decided you wanted 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.040 to make this documentary after Gone went to Lebanon and 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.040 after the tailors went to prison. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.920 Yeah, so I became aware of the story really when 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.440 he escaped. You know, I remember the headlines around the world. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.640 The New York Post had this like enormous double bass case, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.440 and you know, the rumor was he was smuggled out 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.599 in a music equipment box. But the film came about, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.240 I think it was the summer of twenty twenty one, 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.000 and Apple wanted to do a series on the story. 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.159 They had approached this production company. At that point, we 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.520 had no access to Gon. It was a couple of 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:41.040 months before the tailors were extradited to Japan, effectively swapping 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:45.080 places with the man they'd helped escape. So we started 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.760 with very little really. You know, we knew this was 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.560 an amazing story. There was a kind of Hollywood heist 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.200 element to it of one of the world's most famous 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:57.159 business people being smuggled out of an island, a very 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:02.120 kind of closely monitored country, smuggled inside a music box 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:03.279 on a private jet. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.719 I want to be clear for our audience. When you 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.120 say music box, you mean the cases that they stowed 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:09.480 musical equipment. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.880 In right exactly. Yeah, and there was like a guitar 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:12.600 case on top. 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:14.560 Gone was a bit of a band, and there was 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.440 a little guy. So that made getting him out of 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.280 the country slightly easier than I would have been if 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.400 he was six foot five or something. So you became 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.160 aware of the story after the escape. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.320 Yeah, exactly. The name was familiar. You know, he was 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.200 this kind of superstar in the car industry. But you know, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.160 I'm a journalist a filmmaker, but I don't follow the 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.760 car industry that closely. I mean, I remember, you know, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.320 there was shock you know, in Japan, he was like 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.800 a demigod. You know, there were like manga comic books 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.800 about his life. He was voted you know, the man 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.360 women would most like to have children with, you know, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.520 and he's not a conventionally handsome guy. So you know, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.400 he had this aura and this incredible reputation and then overnight, 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.120 suddenly all that just came crashing down. 0:07:57.720 --> 0:07:59.840 I watched the film and I look at a timeline 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.640 when you likely got involved. So when you see the party, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.560 he goes to the Versai at a restaurant Corveracai, and 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.680 he has this party, and yet you have a lot 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.520 of footage from that party. How did he film the party? 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.800 Yeah, so the Ghones had organized the Marie Antoinette themed 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.760 party at Versailles, and like, if you know your history, 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.320 Marie Antoinette is you know the symbol. You know, her 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.600 famous quote is let the meat cakes. She's the symbol 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.880 of kind of extreme inequality. And you know, within France, 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.520 people getting their come up, and so like perhaps an 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.000 unwise party theme for a man who's using his company 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.240 brace the yeah, bit of hoo race, you can say. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.640 And yeah, the party organizers hired a videographer to shoot 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.959 all these people dressed in kind of Marie Antoinette themed 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:51.240 you know, garbs, and it's kind of completely revolutionary France. Yeah, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:53.920 I mean it stirs up a revolutionary in all of us, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:54.240 I think. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:09:00.880 See, so you get some wonderful footage things like that, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.280 the party, you're sit downs with Gone and his wife. 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.040 But Going in particular that shot I'm assuming in Lebanon 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.280 after the fact, when he's when he's once he's escaped 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:15.160 to Lebanon exactly, and and Gone strikes me as it 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.400 seemed like one of those situations where James Jones could 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.080 have left the room for several hours and gone could 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.200 have spoken into the camera ceaselessly, you know, decrying his 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.520 innocence about what he seems like somebody who he could 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.000 go on and on forever to maintain his innocence. He's 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:32.880 almost never going to be satisfied. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.680 Absolutely, he feels wronged. You know, when I asked him, 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.000 do you feel sorry for the victims in this story? 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.040 You know, there's been a huge amount of collateral damage, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.240 lives ruined by this whole saga, and he kind of 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.920 there's one moment he looked blankly at me and said, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.680 if there's a victim here, it's me. You know, can't 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.280 he can't see beyond that. He feels there was a 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.480 conspiracy in Japan to take him down, and everything flowed 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:56.839 from that. 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.880 But but at the same time your documentary and I 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:01.880 could be wrong, maybe this is just what I glean 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.240 from it. There's a whiff of the idea, or even 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.160 just a slight whiff of the idea that that's certainly possible. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.680 Meaning you walk away from watching your program with the 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.120 idea that the political life and the policies that are 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.520 enforced by the Japanese government are very often controlled by 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.680 business itself. Nissan isn't just some company. Nissan, like Sony, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.640 is a huge company with tentacles into every corner of 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.640 the world, and one of the major companies with the 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.800 Japanese headquarters. And to say that people wanted to derail 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:41.880 the Reno Nissan merger is not a foolish idea, correct, absolutely. 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.480 I mean, the interesting thing about this series, in this 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.959 whole story, is that it's not a black and white 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.880 story of kind of good versus evil. There are lots 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.960 of kind of contradictory truths, and like, there's no doubt 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.040 in my mind that there was a conspiracy to take 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.840 down Carlos Gone. You know, you believe there was a conspiracy. 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:03.640 There was absolutely at first. And so Nissan is like, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.400 as you say, one of the crown jewels in Japanese industry. 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.360 The thought of that being, you know, subsumed by a 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.240 French company Reno was just an insult to Japanese pride, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.600 and so they wanted and they realized that Carlos Going, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.360 having led them to huge success, saved them from extinction, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:25.000 was now thinking about pulling off this merger, partly because 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:26.679 he would do quite well out of it. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.480 How was Reno viewed as a car company. 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.959 I think by the Japanese as you know, a kind 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.400 of poor relation. You know, they didn't admire French kind 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:42.080 of mechanics design. They bought a huge steak in Nissan 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.440 at a time when Nissan was was about to go bust, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.200 so it was a kind of marriage or convenience. But 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.880 then the idea that they would be fully subsumed by 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.480 a full alliance was just anathema to them. So there's 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.880 no doubt in my mind that Nissan and the Japanese 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.559 justice system decided to take Carlos going down. 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.560 Eventually is excoriated for paying himself huge amounts of money, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.120 and the Japanese were like, listen, no one deserves to 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.360 be paid that amount of money when you're producing cars. 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:14.960 I mean, no one at the head of a company, 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.280 no matter how successful it is, should be paid this 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:18.600 amount of money. Is that correct? 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.600 That's right? And I think it's partly a cultural thing, 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.040 you know. I think in France extreme wealth is viewed 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.240 with great suspicion. Likewise in Japan, where you're kind of 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.880 you know, these companies are kind of hierarchical. You work 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.000 there for your whole lifetime and incrementally increase your salary. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.040 Carlos Gone comes some more of a kind of American 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.840 business background, where the CEO is rewarded, you know, proportionately 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.720 with the company's profits. So he thought he was worth, 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.120 you know, five times what he was getting. He saw 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.719 himself on a level with Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, all 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.280 these kind of people. Carlos Gon's problem is that it 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.320 wasn't Carlos Going Inc. He was working for two companies 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.560 that had shareholders. He was an employee of these two companies, 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.600 whereas in his mind he became bigger than these companies 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:07.640 and deserved whatever he wanted to take. 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.480 Now, when you think that gol was framed, you think 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.760 that he was set up in order again to derail 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.960 the merger, and the Japanese powers that be wanted to 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.040 hobble him, if you will. How much was he being 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.679 paid in those final years and how much was he 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.240 accused of stealing from the company. 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.280 So the interesting thing is that he kind of operated 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.080 in this gray area where he was paid by both 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.160 companies and he could kind of operate the way he 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.720 wanted because there wasn't the scrutiny. He surrounded himself with 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.160 yes men at both companies. He spent a lot of 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.760 his time, increasingly on a private jet, often flying to 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.760 places not on business but to kind of enjoy the 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.760 trappings of his success. But what's interesting is that even 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.400 though it was a conspiracy at first, they almost then 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.520 stumbled across evidence of real corruption, you know, so almost 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.240 by mistake they found on the laptop. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:06.880 On the Nissan side of the Rennao side. 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.040 So the Nissan lawyers basically went and searched his former 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.520 lawyer's office in Beirut, discovered a laptop which had a 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.800 hard drive with all these flows of money which he'd 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:24.240 kept secret from Nissan basically to and from Middle Eastern businessmen. 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.400 And he was writing checks from Nissan and Reno and 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.600 then through very convoluted means, through shell companies and so on, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.320 he was receiving tens of millions of dollars back into 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.960 his pocket, and he kept that secret. And when we 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.120 put it to him, he doesn't really have a convincing 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.240 answer for why, you know, he would be writing these 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.800 checks and receiving money and keeping it secret from his employees. 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.720 So that is why he's now wanted not only in 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.960 Japan from where he escaped, but the French now want 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:55.360 to put him on trial for corruption. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.720 So I guess what's frustrating and confused for me is 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.920 that on one hand people maintained that the Japanese government 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.240 set him up. On the other hand, he stole from 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.280 both companies. Which is it right? 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.280 Well, that's the thing, you know, we we pose the 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.240 question in film four. The title is victim or villain, 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.920 and it doesn't need necessarily need to be either or 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.000 you know, he can be a victim of a conspiracy 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.440 who suffered greatly, was in solitary confinement, interrogated without a lawyer. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.840 You know, they call the Japanese justice system the hostage 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.520 justice system because you're effectively kept hostage until you confess. 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.520 So there's no doubt that he and his family were 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.480 victims at that point. The problem for him is that 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.880 they did then stumble across real corruption and the case 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.040 just became you know, these allegations are much much more serious, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.240 and so it's very hard for him to dismiss the 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.680 label of villain unless he's willing to go and stand 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.440 trial in France, which he's not. You know, right now, 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.400 he's a fugitive in Lebanon, and as far as I 0:15:58.400 --> 0:15:59.720 can see, that's where he's going to spend the rest 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:00.080 of us. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:09.479 Director James Jones, and later I'll speak with Mike Taylor himself. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:15.400 If you enjoy conversations with documentary directors uncovering corporate corruption, 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.480 check out my episode with Alex Gibney, director of Enron, 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:21.560 The Smartest Guys in the Room. 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.560 The ghosts of all my films tend to follow me, 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.520 and I often keep in touch with sources and interview subjects, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.920 and in odd ways they keep coming back to films 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.160 I make henceforth, so they kind of reverberate. It's a 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.440 little bit like that moment in Ghostbusters. So they say, 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.680 don't cross the streams. Well, my streams are constantly getting crossed. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:48.400 It seems like characters from one film are intruding into another. 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.400 To hear more of my conversation with Alex Gibney, go 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.840 to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, James Jones 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.880 shares the intricacies of how Carlos Gon was smuggled out 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:14.359 of Japan in a box. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:19.040 listening to Here's the Thing. Former automobile executive Carlos Gon 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.040 is a fugitive currently living the life of a free 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.600 man in Lebanon. I was curious to learn that while 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.040 the Japanese authorities couldn't get their hands on going due 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:35.600 to Lebanon's extradition laws, was the money he allegedly laundered recoverable. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.639 That's a good question. I mean, I think some of 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.560 his assets in France were frozen. I think some of 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.439 his assets in the States as well. But you know, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.480 I think most of that money that ended up in 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.560 his pocket was in shell companies arranged from Lebanon, you know, 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.000 either within Lebanon itself or it in kind of tax 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.200 havens around the world. So I think Carlos Gohn is 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.280 still living a pretty comfortable life. He's living in the 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.359 mansion paid for by Nissan. He's got his super yacht 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.399 paid for by the you know, the money from the 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.439 Middle Eastern businessman. So I think the thing that kills 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.240 him is that his legacy has gone. You know, his 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.280 reputation will never recover. He's a fugitive. We all know 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.040 him now as a man who escaped in a box, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.520 and that kills him because he would have gone down 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.240 in you know, the Automotive Hall of Fame as one 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.480 of the genius businessmen of the twenty first century. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.280 So he decides to escape. Now, the tailors, I want 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.159 you to describe how they come together. I doubt that 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.840 tailors have a website called We'll put You in a 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.440 Box and Smuggle You at Lebanon dot com. How did 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.200 that relationship get forged? 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:47.600 So, Mike Taylor is a former Green Beret. He'd served 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.360 around the world, and then after leaving the military, he'd 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.720 actually spent some time in Lebanon during the Civil War. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.240 There had met his wife, who is Lebanese, who is 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.840 a kind of distant cousin of Carlos Gohen's wife. So 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.560 I think Carlos Gohan's wife kind of started putting the 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.560 word out in Lebanon, saying, you know, Carlos is going 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.240 to die in a Japanese prison. He's in sology confinement. 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.320 It's freezing cold. You know, he's not going to, you know, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.560 live much longer. I'm never going to properly see him again. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:14.280 You know. 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.040 Beirut is like a big village. Everyone knows everyone, and 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:21.080 someone said, there's this guy, Mike Taylor, and he's got 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.800 quite a reputation. He'd helped journalists escape from the Taliban. 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.520 He'd he had a specialty in kids who are abducted 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.320 by one parent. He'd go in and get the kid 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.520 back for the parent who paid him to do it. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.600 And so he just had this like amazing reputation. He 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.679 met Carlos Gohan's wife in Beirut. They talked about a 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.119 possible plan. But you know, this is not getting someone 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:45.520 out of Egypt or something like that. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:46.240 This is Japan. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.280 It's an island, a CCTV everywhere going is under house arrest. 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.400 This is like, you know, for someone like Mike Taylor, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.360 this is you know, if you're a mountain climber, it's 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.359 like climbing Everest or whatever. This is just like the 0:19:58.480 --> 0:19:59.360 ultimate challenge. 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.200 Tayl we used to call a soldier of fortune, right exactly. 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.120 This is a great challenge for him. 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:07.760 It's a great challenge, and you know, I'm sure he 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.080 realizes that at some point it could be quite lucrative, 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:12.760 but I think just and also I think on a 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.640 personal level, he met Carlos Goen's wife and felt great sympathy, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.359 felt like there was an injustice, thought the Japanese system 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.959 was was unfair and cruel, and so he started formulating 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.399 this plan. And you know, they could have gone by boat, 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.000 but it was winter, the sea could be choppy, and 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.239 he thought, let's get him in a Let's get him 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.720 in a box, take him on a private jet, you know, 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.720 small airport, not in Tokyo. You know, the security is 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.399 more lax on private jets. He did a test and 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.720 saw that they check the luggage going into it into Japan, 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:47.919 but not coming out. He made sure the box was 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.119 too big to fit through the X rays. So he 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.720 was like, you know, it's a military operation, planning every 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.840 single detail because he was prepared. He was prepared. 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.719 But for me, when I'm curious about us, who contacted 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:05.320 TA who's working with Gone? That access as tailor? 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.800 So that I mean basically because Carlos Gone was pretty 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.359 clear that his phone was tapped, and you know he 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.000 could tell that because one day he called a newspaper 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.800 journalist to say, they're a guy standing outside my house 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.560 and we have evidence that Nissan did use spies to 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.879 follow him and other people they were kind of going after. 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.160 And the day after he called the journalist, the spies 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.719 didn't come to stand outside his house, so he thought, okay, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:32.879 I know they tapped my phone. So he had to 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.879 get a special burner phone, but was essentially communicating with 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.119 his wife, who was communicating with Mike Taylor. So his 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.280 wife was in Lebanon at this time. So she is 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.640 a fascinating character because she's his second wife. She's kind 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:51.960 of beautiful, blonde, charismatic, incredibly warm, and she was kind 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.159 of associated with Gohon's transformation from this kind of nerdy 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.200 mister Bean character, yes, to someone who loved lavish parties. 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:03.760 And yes, stressed different, dress differently, had hair implant, you know, 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.119 laser eye surgery, sharp suits, and you know, suddenly was 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.200 on the red carpet at can you know, this was. 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.840 Like a totally unknown world. This is red carpet going exactly. 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.320 So she was seen, I mean, a bimbo is too strong, 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:20.800 but certainly someone who enjoyed the finer things in life. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.200 But what you saw over the course of this whole 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.359