8 ms·

As reported in the news, he had two French passports and was allowed to carry one of them in Japan in a locked case. Presumably he broke the lock and used it to

by gryson 7y ago

As reported in the news, he had two French passports and was allowed to carry one of them in Japan in a locked case. Presumably he broke the lock and used it to enter Turkey and Lebanon.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> As reported in the news Do you have a source for this? It would be unusual (and incompetent) for the Japanese to permit this.
- gryson 7y ago
  "Ghosn carried second French passport with him after release from jail: source" in the Japan Times https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/02/national/carlos-ghosn-met-lebanese-president-fleeing-japan-sources-say/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/02/national/carlos...
glofish 7y ago
You shouldn't even need to show a passport to fly through a country's airport if you transit through. I wonder why the plane did not go directly to Lebanon - it is probably to avoid raising suspicion.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > You shouldn't even need to show a passport to fly through a country's airport if you transit through There are all kinds of manifest declaration requirements that would need to be ignored.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jen20 7y ago
  This is only true in some countries. It’s not in the USA for example, which requires that even connecting passengers clear the US border and customs at their point of entry.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    And Canada. They’ve finally started doing a better job of not requiring you to pickup your luggage while transiting only to drop it off another belt a minute later. But that’s not universal.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    I think the US and Canada are the exceptions rather than the rule. (Because of course they charge people for a transit visa)
    - CPLX 7y ago
      It’s more likely that the “because” has to do with people claiming asylum. If you don’t require transit visas it becomes fairly trivial to get into the US and claim asylum while supposedly in transit to somewhere else.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        I don't understand that rationale. Even if you have a transit visa you could still claim asylum. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-request-asylum-border.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-... The only trick would be if the government a priori refused transit visas to people suspected of seeking asylum without hearing the asylum case, which would be a gross violation of immigration law.
        true_religion 7y ago
        It wouldn’t violate the law to refuse a transit visa to someone who hasn’t yet made an asylum case and is currently located in a foreign country. How could it? I think you may be thinking of refusing to honor an existing valid visa at the border, rather than refusing to issue one at all before someone travels.
        jki275 7y ago
- Merrill 7y ago
  9000 km by the great circle route is too far for executive jets. And you'd go via Turkey to avoid flying over Syria and Israel.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  The real question is how he left in the first place. Doesn’t Japan have exit controls? Did they sneak him into the airport as maintenance personnel and then get him on a plane?
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    I was curious about this and didn't get an answer, but I found this: Japan now supports tourism efforts but charging 1000¥ to leave the country! https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/10/national/japans-%C2%A51000-departure-tax-diet-approves-law-use-revenue-levy-set-start-2019/#.Xg4jud5Oldo https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/10/national/japans...
    - rmah 7y ago
      Um, that's $10 USD.
  - Leherenn 7y ago
    There was a BBC article a couple of days ago, saying it had been reported he was helped by a band. They came to his place then left with him hidden in an instrument case (I would assume a Bass). The airport part is not clear, but either they not very thorough when checking instruments for private jets, or they bribed someone I guess.
  - sveng 7y ago
    It’s a wild story if this article is to be believed: https://nypost.com/2019/12/31/ex-nissan-honcho-carlos-ghosan-fled-japan-by-hiding-in-musical-instrument-case-report/ https://nypost.com/2019/12/31/ex-nissan-honcho-carlos-ghosan... (Hiding in a musicians’ case; used by musicians who really weren’t). Surely this will be made into a movie or even a series.
k_sze 7y ago
I didn't know that a person can simultaneously have two valid passports of the same country. I thought you either have to declare the old one as lost or bring it to the passport office to have it invalidated, when you apply for a new one. How does this work?
- gryson 7y ago
  Typically for business travel. If you have to send your passport off to get a visa from an embassy, you might still have to travel to another country while waiting to get it back, for example. https://www.businesstraveller.com/features/apply-second-uk-passport/ https://www.businesstraveller.com/features/apply-second-uk-p...
- noirbot 7y ago
  I believe it's not too hard to do in some countries. It's usually to partition your travel history somewhat to avoid incidents. I know in the past, I'd heard that people in the US who had to do business in the middle east would often have two passports because there were enough countries that would take issue with you having visited Israel or Iran that you needed to keep them separate.
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    Three or more countries can participate in a Mexican standoff. If you want to visit them all, you can't show the same passport twice. Is there a limit on how many passports you can have?
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      I don't think this has been an issue in the last century. Countries will take a stance on it if it actually happens.
- wereHamster 7y ago
  People traveling through the middle east and Israel often have two passports. One they show the israeli immigration officers, and the other they show elsewhere. Israel will interrogate when you show up on their borders with an stamp in your passport from on of the arabic states. It's just a way to get around this kind of hassle.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
As a Lebanese citizen, I believe that he only needed to show a Lebanese ID card to enter the country.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Or nothing at all. Usually countries can’t deny entry by their own citizens, as long as you can prove who you are. They often do make it hard to get on the plane there though. But once you get to a port of entry, you’re fine.
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    >as long as you can prove who you are How can you prove who you are without an ID? Biometrics? Is logging in to Facebook enough?
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      There’s probably formalized policies everywhere on that. Likely they can lookup your passport photos. Since denying entry to a citizen can be a constitutional violation in many places, they’ll have some criteria for the documentation actually required. Sending you back to the embassy will just move the problem elsewhere. Things get dicier when there’s no records of you being a citizen (e.g. you were born elsewhere but acquired a citizenship because you were born to a citizen without registering it in any way).
      - buckminster 7y ago
        > Things get dicier when there’s no records of you being a citizen Perhaps because you successfully applied for British citizenship in the UK forty years ago but the government deleted all the records! Several instances of this came to light in the Windrush scandal a couple of years ago. The moral: if your citizenship is even slightly interesting you need to keep your passport current.
        7y ago
mcguire 7y ago
According to the article, Turkey was unaware he was in the airplane.

by gryson 7y ago

As reported in the news, he had two French passports and was allowed to carry one of them in Japan in a locked case. Presumably he broke the lock and used it to enter Turkey and Lebanon.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> As reported in the news Do you have a source for this? It would be unusual (and incompetent) for the Japanese to permit this.

gryson 7y ago
"Ghosn carried second French passport with him after release from jail: source" in the Japan Times https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/02/national/carlos-ghosn-met-lebanese-president-fleeing-japan-sources-say/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/02/national/carlos...

glofish 7y ago

You shouldn't even need to show a passport to fly through a country's airport if you transit through. I wonder why the plane did not go directly to Lebanon - it is probably to avoid raising suspicion.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> You shouldn't even need to show a passport to fly through a country's airport if you transit through There are all kinds of manifest declaration requirements that would need to be ignored.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jen20 7y ago
This is only true in some countries. It’s not in the USA for example, which requires that even connecting passengers clear the US border and customs at their point of entry.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  And Canada. They’ve finally started doing a better job of not requiring you to pickup your luggage while transiting only to drop it off another belt a minute later. But that’s not universal.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  I think the US and Canada are the exceptions rather than the rule. (Because of course they charge people for a transit visa)
  - CPLX 7y ago
    It’s more likely that the “because” has to do with people claiming asylum. If you don’t require transit visas it becomes fairly trivial to get into the US and claim asylum while supposedly in transit to somewhere else.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      I don't understand that rationale. Even if you have a transit visa you could still claim asylum. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-request-asylum-border.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-... The only trick would be if the government a priori refused transit visas to people suspected of seeking asylum without hearing the asylum case, which would be a gross violation of immigration law.
      - true_religion 7y ago
        It wouldn’t violate the law to refuse a transit visa to someone who hasn’t yet made an asylum case and is currently located in a foreign country. How could it? I think you may be thinking of refusing to honor an existing valid visa at the border, rather than refusing to issue one at all before someone travels.
        jki275 7y ago
Merrill 7y ago
9000 km by the great circle route is too far for executive jets. And you'd go via Turkey to avoid flying over Syria and Israel.
Scoundreller 7y ago
The real question is how he left in the first place. Doesn’t Japan have exit controls? Did they sneak him into the airport as maintenance personnel and then get him on a plane?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  I was curious about this and didn't get an answer, but I found this: Japan now supports tourism efforts but charging 1000¥ to leave the country! https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/10/national/japans-%C2%A51000-departure-tax-diet-approves-law-use-revenue-levy-set-start-2019/#.Xg4jud5Oldo https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/10/national/japans...
  - rmah 7y ago
    Um, that's $10 USD.
- Leherenn 7y ago
  There was a BBC article a couple of days ago, saying it had been reported he was helped by a band. They came to his place then left with him hidden in an instrument case (I would assume a Bass). The airport part is not clear, but either they not very thorough when checking instruments for private jets, or they bribed someone I guess.
- sveng 7y ago
  It’s a wild story if this article is to be believed: https://nypost.com/2019/12/31/ex-nissan-honcho-carlos-ghosan-fled-japan-by-hiding-in-musical-instrument-case-report/ https://nypost.com/2019/12/31/ex-nissan-honcho-carlos-ghosan... (Hiding in a musicians’ case; used by musicians who really weren’t). Surely this will be made into a movie or even a series.

k_sze 7y ago

I didn't know that a person can simultaneously have two valid passports of the same country. I thought you either have to declare the old one as lost or bring it to the passport office to have it invalidated, when you apply for a new one. How does this work?

gryson 7y ago
Typically for business travel. If you have to send your passport off to get a visa from an embassy, you might still have to travel to another country while waiting to get it back, for example. https://www.businesstraveller.com/features/apply-second-uk-passport/ https://www.businesstraveller.com/features/apply-second-uk-p...
noirbot 7y ago
I believe it's not too hard to do in some countries. It's usually to partition your travel history somewhat to avoid incidents. I know in the past, I'd heard that people in the US who had to do business in the middle east would often have two passports because there were enough countries that would take issue with you having visited Israel or Iran that you needed to keep them separate.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Three or more countries can participate in a Mexican standoff. If you want to visit them all, you can't show the same passport twice. Is there a limit on how many passports you can have?
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    I don't think this has been an issue in the last century. Countries will take a stance on it if it actually happens.
wereHamster 7y ago
People traveling through the middle east and Israel often have two passports. One they show the israeli immigration officers, and the other they show elsewhere. Israel will interrogate when you show up on their borders with an stamp in your passport from on of the arabic states. It's just a way to get around this kind of hassle.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

As a Lebanese citizen, I believe that he only needed to show a Lebanese ID card to enter the country.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Or nothing at all. Usually countries can’t deny entry by their own citizens, as long as you can prove who you are. They often do make it hard to get on the plane there though. But once you get to a port of entry, you’re fine.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  >as long as you can prove who you are How can you prove who you are without an ID? Biometrics? Is logging in to Facebook enough?
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    There’s probably formalized policies everywhere on that. Likely they can lookup your passport photos. Since denying entry to a citizen can be a constitutional violation in many places, they’ll have some criteria for the documentation actually required. Sending you back to the embassy will just move the problem elsewhere. Things get dicier when there’s no records of you being a citizen (e.g. you were born elsewhere but acquired a citizenship because you were born to a citizen without registering it in any way).
    - buckminster 7y ago
      > Things get dicier when there’s no records of you being a citizen Perhaps because you successfully applied for British citizenship in the UK forty years ago but the government deleted all the records! Several instances of this came to light in the Windrush scandal a couple of years ago. The moral: if your citizenship is even slightly interesting you need to keep your passport current.
      - 7y ago

mcguire 7y ago

According to the article, Turkey was unaware he was in the airplane.