patrick.net

#carlosghosnjapanescapeThe other story that caught my eye was the allegation that Carlos Ghosn used an elite private security firm to rescue him from Japan. I have already outlined the security in place around his apartment. What I failed to mention two days ago was that I'm sure that all sorts of listening devices were installed to monitor any sort of conversations that he had with whoever.
A number of different countries have private security firms. The quality of firms and their personnel ranges from elite and brilliant former intelligence officers and top former special operations soldiers down to rowdy thugs who barely made it through their tour in the military. To make a long story short, these firms are employed to do work that is extremely-dangerous or so dirty that governments do not want to risk civilian and military personnel in such operations. These are operations, that if they fail, governments can claim that they had nothing to do with it.
The alleged extraction of Ghosn from Japan, is quite simply, like breaking a prisoner out of a maximum-security prison. If the operatives had failed to extract Ghosn, they would be looking at prison sentences between 4-10 years for attempted escape. If some Japanese security personnel had been injured or killed, the prison sentences would go up or they would be facing the gallows in Japan.
Very few private security firms would take such an illegal assignment. If they did, they would charge a huge premium of up to $30 million US. I doubt that Ghosn had that sort of "spare cash" sitting around. Most of his assets were impaired by various legal actions.
Any firm undertaking such an assignment would face an additional huge obstacle. A number of countries including the US spend a fortune on signal intelligence intercepts. Agencies like the US National Security Agency and their Australian, British and Israeli counterparts are constantly monitoring the airwaves for suspicious messages and phone calls. Israel even has the capability to "crack" encrypted phone, email, and WhatsApp messages. One mistake in a phone call, email, or messenger text would have blown this plan wide open. The Japanese authorities would have been alerted. If the private security company was based in the US or had contracts with US government agencies, they would be subject to civil and criminal prosecution in US District Court for mounting such an operation.