Speaker 1so epay called me i was sitting in my car at the trader joe's parking lot this is diane bass
Speaker 2a criminal defense attorney in southern california and i
Speaker 1answered the phone he said this is epay mitsuhara and matt gave me your number i would like you to represent me
Speaker 2diane is the lawyer for the bookie matt boyer she says this call from epay came as a complete surprise epay had been fired by the dodgers in south korea and his plane had just landed in the united states
Speaker 1the very first words out of my mouth i didn't think i just blurted you came back this is you know my defense lawyer
Speaker 2hat shohei's lawyers had said shohei was a victim of theft and they were turning the matter over to the authorities diane says it was clear to her that epay didn't understand the gravity of the situation because
Speaker 1i knew he was going to be indicted and he'd been out of the country so why would he come back and he said oh i shouldn't have i felt so terrible for him and i said well no your family is here you did the right thing
Speaker 2as a criminal defense attorney diane knew that what had just happened to epay was going to
Speaker 1fundamentally change his life and i said i'm so sorry you lost your best friend and he said well it's my fault you know and he basically owned it and then i just quickly said look i really wish i could represent you but i can't i had a conflict of interest because matt had given the government information about him you hang up the phone with him what are you thinking what are you feeling i felt really badly for him he sounded so sweet i knew he was in a world of trouble
Speaker 2epay was in a world of trouble and it began as soon as he stepped off the plane at lax i'm espn investigative reporter tisha thompson from 30 for 30 podcasts this is the betrayal of shohei otani episode 5 the feds
Speaker 3federal investigation questions about wire transfers four and a half million dollars to a southern california bookmaker and he has no idea This episode is
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Speaker 2from Seoul landed at LAX, there was a surprise waiting for him.
Speaker 6Legal lesson for all your listeners, every international airport is considered a border. And at a border, restrictions on search and seizure do not apply. So the federal government have full license to conduct warrantless searches at the border.
Speaker 2This is Martina. This is Martina. This is Martina Strada. At the time, he was U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. And it was up to him to decide if there was enough evidence to bring charges in the Shohei Ipe case.
Speaker 6And so we needed to investigate, A, was Mr. Otani involved in this illegal conduct? And B, if he wasn't, how did this happen and who was responsible?
Speaker 2They needed to get to the bottom of what really happened between Shohei Ipe and Matt Boyer's illegal sportsbook. They needed Ipe's phone.
Speaker 6Often phones are quite a get. You'll be surprised at what people have in their phones. It's a treasure trove of information for investigators. We had agents waiting.
Speaker 7And we knew that he was coming in. And so as a result, they do what they do. And they ended up having a conversation.
Speaker 2This is Chris Seymour. He was an IRS special agent in LA for more than two decades when agents intercepted Ipe at the airport. They take his phone. Voluntarily. He gives up his phone. Voluntarily. Seymour had already been investigating Matt Boyer for years. He was the lead agent at the raid on Matt's house. And now it fell to him to investigate the alleged theft of Shohei Otani's money. Even though he admits in the beginning, he didn't even know who the guy was.
Speaker 7Shohei who? I drove downtown Los Angeles to have a big image of Shohei on one of the buildings. It's huge. It's massive. And I was like, who's that? I'm that guy who had no idea who he was.
Speaker 2But after getting hold of Ipe's phone at the airport, it was Seymour and his team who read through nearly 40,000 texts between Ipe and Shohei.
Speaker 7There was a ton of information to process. So we had to break it into chunks. This person handles this. That person handles that. My focus was going through X amount of text messages and looking for anything that would, indicate who was doing what.
Speaker 8And it was all in Japanese?
Speaker 7Yes. We had to use Google Translate to try to break through some of it.
Speaker 8What were the text messages about?
Speaker 7Just commonplace things. Get something to eat. Hey, we're going to do this. Or what time's this? Maybe a video game. But it was very mundane. Vanilla, I guess, is a common word I would use.
Speaker 2Are you talking like a couple hundred texts a day? A couple thousand texts a day?
Speaker 7A lot. It was prolific is what I think. I would say.
Speaker 2Was it employee, employer, or was it two buddies? I mean, Ipe said they
Speaker 8were as close as brothers. It was friends chatting. A lot of friends chat about betting. Didn't see it. Not one indication that someone was betting on something.
Speaker 7Didn't see it.
Speaker 2Seymour says they never found any texts between Ipe and Shohei about gambling or sports betting. But Ipe did talk a lot about betting with Matt Boyer. When Ipe was still in South Korea, I had asked during our interview if I could see the messages between him and Matt. But Ipe told me.
Speaker 9I deleted every text I had with Matt.
Speaker 2Seymour found two years' worth of encrypted messages on Ipe's phone. And he already had everything they'd found on Matt's phone, which he had seized during the war. Seymour was able to create a timeline of what happened. When Ipe first starts betting, the conversation is pretty mundane.
Speaker 10I've just been messing around with soccer.
Speaker 2This is a voice actor reading Ipe's messages.
Speaker 10There are games on 24-7, LOL. I took UCLA, but they lost outright.
Speaker 2Seymour zeroed in on messages about the game. There's a lot of logistics, like Ipe asking Matt how he wants him to pay off his debts and how to make a wire transfer.
Speaker 10I apologize for the delay. I've never done a wire transfer.
Speaker 2By January 2022, about three months after Ipe started betting with Matt's sportsbook, Ipe asks if Matt would reload his account because Ipe says he's lost it all. Boyer agrees and bumps him 50 grand. Thirteen days later, Ipe messaged Matt.
Speaker 10Fuck, I lost it all, LOL.
Speaker 2So Ipe asks for another $50,000.
Speaker 10That will be my last one for a while if I lose it.
Speaker 2But the encrypted messages show that instead of quitting, Ipe keeps betting. And Matt keeps extending him credit.
Speaker 10Any way you can bump me a little bit, I need to wait a week to send another big wire.
Speaker 2This pattern continues for months. Ipe says he needs just a little bit more, says this will be the last time. Matt gives him credit. Ipe loses. And loses. And just keeps losing.
Speaker 10I'm terrible at the sport betting thing, huh? LOL. Any chance you can bump me again? As you know, you don't have to worry about me not paying.
Speaker 2Matt told me that by this point in his relationship with Ipe, he had seen the wires and thought Shohei was paying for the bets. So he was willing to let Ipe get deep into debt.
Speaker 10I swear on my mom, this will be the last ask before I die. I'll pay it off once I get back to the States. Sorry for keep on asking.
Speaker 2Matt writes back, No problem. Done, bud. Merry Christmas. E-Pay's messages to Matt are so casual, so relaxed. When you read them, there's no hint at how high the stakes had become for both of these men. Because by May of 2023, E-Pay owed Matt at least $2 million and was still asking for more credit bumps into June.
Speaker 10I got my ass kicked again, LOL.
Speaker 2Matt writes back a long message telling E-Pay that he'll bump him, but adds, it's just imperative that the $500 is sent every week. He means the $500,000 wires.
Speaker 10E-Pay responds, I'm the worst, LOL. Can't catch a break. Can I get one last bump? I swear this is going to be my last until I get the balance down significantly.
Speaker 2Matt gives him the bump. The next day, E-Pay sends another ask.
Speaker 10I have a problem, LOL. Can I get one last? Last, last bump? This one is for real. Last one for real.
Speaker 2Matt writes, Done. I have the same problem. To be honest with you, E-Pay, as long as you can guarantee the $500 every Monday, I'll give you as much as you want because I know you're good for it. In my interview with Matt, he said he felt like he understood E-Pay's psychology, that he could relate to struggling with a gambling addiction. And here Matt is in the messages, essentially telling E-Pay that he gets it, because he has the same problem. E-Pay ultimately bet with Matt's sportsbook for about two years. Martín Estrada, the former U.S. attorney on the case, says in that time, E-Pay did an extraordinary amount of gambling.
Speaker 6I myself was shocked to see Mitsuhara had bet on over 19,000 sports events over a few years. I mean, even if I wanted to, I couldn't do that many bets.
Speaker 2Reading the encrypted messages, some might see Matt as a predatory bookie preying on someone's weakness, and E-Pay as someone descending further and further into gambling addiction. But the federal investigators see it very differently.
Speaker 6I'm not convinced he was just a gambling addict and had no choice. I think it's more, he got this great opportunity, but then he saw a bigger opportunity to enrich himself and took advantage of it. Because he says
Speaker 2investigators quickly realized E-Pay wasn't just using Shohei's money for sports betting.
Speaker 7What did the baseball card say to you? That's a question. That's a real question.
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Speaker 2Yeah, it's special. On April 2nd, 2024, the Dodgers were in the middle of a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants. The scandal had erupted less than two weeks
Speaker 12earlier. Ohtani swings and misses at 98.
Speaker 2The Dodgers were in the middle of a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants. would go on to win all three games. Shohei went three for 11 with a home run, a double, and two RBIs.
Speaker 11What we didn't know is
Speaker 12before those games,
Speaker 2Shohei had spent the day in interviews with federal
Speaker 6investigators. Before I'm going to go on the record and say anyone is a victim, I'm going to make real sure that they are, in fact, a victim.
Speaker 2Tina Strada and his prosecutors needed to assess what Shohei may or may not have known.
Speaker 6Mr. Ohtani was cooperative with the federal investigation from day one. That's not often the case. Even with people who have nothing to hide, people are worried about dealing with the
Speaker 2feds. Investigators spent much of their time going through Shohei's finances, trying to understand the complex network of bank accounts and people managing Shohei's wealth.
Speaker 12Shohei had, he had bookkeepers, he had accountants, he had sports agents, and he had ePay and tax specialists as well.
Speaker 2Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Mitchell was the lead attorney investigating ePay. He says the money from Shohei's endorsement deals and other investments in the U.S. was managed by a financial team, led by Shohei's sports agent, Nez Bolelo.
Speaker 12He had that team in place the entire time. So he never, according to the people who we spoke to, he never, you know, was involved in checking the accounts on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2Shohei didn't meet with his financial team very often. But when he did, he would bring ePay, because no one on the financial team spoke Japanese.
Speaker 12And it kind of makes sense. Like, you know, the bank records are in English, he doesn't speak or read English, so he has a team for that.
Speaker 2Shohei told the feds he generally didn't ask too many specific questions.
Speaker 12And when we asked him about checking on the status of your accounts, he would ask, he would ask ePay, to ask the agents, to ask his team, you know, what is my overall financial picture. And then they would relay that to ePay, who would then convey that to Shohei.
Speaker 2ePay having knowledge about Shohei's finances is very different from the typical interpreter-player relationship. Money was something that we never touched, we never saw. Kota Ishijima, a former MLB interpreter, says she's never heard of any interpreter other than ePay. becoming involved in a player's financial affairs. And Mitch Lively, the other baseball player that ePay interpreted for, says ePay wasn't part of his banking.
Speaker 11In my relationship with him, he didn't access any of my money.
Speaker 2But ePay wasn't just an interpreter for Shohei. The Angels paid him to be an interpreter, but he also worked directly for Shohei himself as his personal assistant, according to the feds. When Shohei arrived in the United States in 2018, ePay helped him. ePay helped him set up a Bank of America account. According to the feds, Shohei's salary from the Angels went into this account. Shohei was the only signatory, meaning no one but Shohei could legally withdraw money from it.
Speaker 12And the money was not touched for several years.
Speaker 2Shohei told the feds he thought the money in that Bank of America account was being managed by his sports agent, Nez. Nez is a big deal at CAA. Creative Artist Agent. The biggest and most valuable agency in the world. Nez told the federal investigators that he asked ePay about this account. But ePay told him it was private, and Shohei didn't want anyone to have access to it. So Shohei's sports agent was told there was a private bank account with millions of dollars in it that Shohei didn't want anyone to know about. What did Nez think was going on with that account? Why would Shohei. Why would Shohei need it to be private? Nez Bolelo declined our request for an interview. But according to the feds, he never asked Shohei himself about the account. And never hired a second Japanese speaker to double-check what ePay was telling him. Even though he was managing tens of millions of dollars for baseball's biggest star. Instead, Nez Bolelo told investigators he had no reason not to believe ePay. But the feds didn't just take one guy's word for it. They hauled in Shohei's financial advisor, his tax accountant, and his bookkeeper. Two of them told investigators they asked the agent about the private account. And Nez Bolelo told them the same thing. Shohei wants to keep that account private. He just took ePay's word for it. What is your understanding, based on your conversation, of how much the agent understood?
Speaker 12So the financial bookkeepers and financial advisors and the accountants were asking the sports agent for the account that ended in the 5848 number. And then the sports agent would ask ePay for it. And then ePay would lie and say, Shohei doesn't want you to look at that.
Speaker 2The last four digits of the private bank account appear in court documents. 5848. That's the same bank account number I wrote down in my notebook when I saw the wire transfers. It's the same number. same Bank of America account that sent money to Matt Boyer's operation. And now the feds had uncovered a damning detail. The bank account had been dormant since its creation and was accessed for the first time on the same day that Matt's operation told ePay he needed to start paying off his betting losses. The feds spotted a $40,000 payment from the private bank account sent a month later and matched it to money received by Matt's operation. They could also see the big $500,000 wire transfer starting in May of 2023.
Speaker 7Although you see the name Shohei Ohtani as the sender, you know that's just a bank account. You know that's just a place where it originated from.
Speaker 2These big transfers from Shohei's account started just as Shohei's salary with the Angels went way up from $5.5 million to $30 million. The account was suddenly even more flush with cash. And soon after, new charges began to appear. They began in January 2024 and continued until we broke the story about two months later. The charges were from eBay and another online marketplace called Whatnot, and the purchases were being sent to someone named Jay Min at the Dodgers clubhouse. But when the feds interviewed a Dodgers employee who handles the mail, he said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't the mail, the employee told them Jamin wasn't a real person. Ipe had told the employee that he was going to be receiving packages under that name. When Seymour opened them, along with boxes and briefcases he seized from Ipe's car, he found they all contained baseball cards. What did the baseball cards say to you?
Speaker 7That's a question. There's a lot of cards and there was a lot of some high dollar ones in there. It was as if he had some other plan and that this was an escape strategy or this was his way of converting his loss, the gambling loss and everything in the funds, into something that could be worth something in the future, almost like an investment.
Speaker 2The charges for the cards totaled $300,000. I think my favorite one
Speaker 7would be Yogi Berra. So I was like, this is cool. This is an old Yogi Berra card. This is actually really cool.
Speaker 2A Yogi Berra card can be worth nearly $200,000. Seymour also remembers seeing other highly collectible cards like a Juan Soto, which can fetch more than $300,000. But the value of a baseball card depends on a number of factors, including its condition and how rare it is.
Speaker 7You can tell that some of these were very high quality. They're high graded.
Speaker 2They had the plastic case around them and.
Speaker 7Yeah, but they were also specially typed cards with the cork and with the pieces of the fabric of the jerseys. So these were not just your dime store cards.
Speaker 2When I spoke to Ipe's high school friend, he told me Ipe had been an avid baseball card collector as a teenager. He would study the cards, reading facts and statistics about different players. And his friend remembered how Ipe would try to sell the baseball cards for a profit.
Speaker 7I found one of Ipe's best friends from middle school and Ipe loved to go to the baseball card conventions and buy baseball cards of his favorite players. That makes sense. And he had Shohei Ohtani cards. Oh, lots of them. Yeah. What did that say to you? I expected that maybe he was trying to get Shohei to sign them for him at one point. I don't know. My gut is telling me. That that's what he was trying to do with those.
Speaker 2Was there a smoking gun in Ipe's case where you're like, there it is?
Speaker 7The recording of him calling in to do the wires.
Speaker 2You can't just send a big wire payment out of a bank account without the bank asking a lot of questions. Since Shohei was the only signatory on the account, he was the only person who could authorize payments from it. This call may be monitored and recorded. This is a Bank of America recording from February 2022. Seymour would track the Bank of America call to the same cell phone number I called when I interviewed Ipe. Could you tell me?
Speaker 3Could you tell me the name of the payee and the amount of the transaction, please? It's for $200,000. What is your relationship to the payee? He's my friend. Okay. Have you met your friend in person? Yeah, many times. Will there be any future wires to your friend? Possibly. What is the reason for this transaction?
Speaker 2For a car loan. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a car loan? The bank employee doesn't buy it and freezes Shohei's account. But Ipe doesn't give up. He calls back and gets a different bank employee. Like before, Ipe says his name is Shohei Otani. But this time, the bank wants him to answer security questions. Things only Shohei should know. But because Ipe helped Shohei, he's not going to give up. He's not going to give up. Ipe helped Shohei set up the account. Because Ipe's job is to pretty much know everything about Shohei. And because by now, Ipe had linked his cell phone and his personal email to Shohei's bank account, Ipe is able to provide answers that convince the bank employee to reopen the account.
Speaker 12What I found to be the most persuasive was when I heard Ipe in those bank-recorded phone calls.
Speaker 2This is Jeff Mitchell, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the bank. The feds found that Ipe impersonated Shohei on the bank calls 24 times.
Speaker 12He's trying to kind of authorize money and wire transfers out of Shohei's account. And you could hear Ipe in his own voice in perfect English say, Hi, I am Shohei Otani. And you know it's not Shohei. So once we obtained those, I think that was like the last piece of evidence that we waited for.
Speaker 2Shohei Otani could have said, Ipe, just pretend to be me. Just get it done. I authorize you to do this. I don't want to deal with it. You just deal with it. Did you have to go through sort of that mental exercise of, did he have permission to do this? Even though technically he shouldn't have said he was Shohei Otani. He is Shohei Otani's personal assistant representative. He does all his banking. He does his driver's license. He does all these things.
Speaker 12You know, we had so much evidence at that point. So by the time we actually had the recorded phone call, you know, it wasn't really like that mental leap to kind of say, OK, now we have enough to prove our case.
Speaker 2Mitchell points to the larger body of evidence that the feds gathered. And one particular encrypted message that to the feds was as good as an admission of guilt.
Speaker 12He confessed, you know, Boyer at one point said, well, it's not like you stole the money, right? And then Ipe replied. Actually, no, I really did steal the money.
Speaker 2Mitchell was paraphrasing. But the exact words Ipe used in the message are important. Here is the actual exchange. It happened right after our story broke. Ipe wrote Matt. Have you seen the reports? Matt responded. Yes, but that's all bullshit. Obviously, you didn't steal from him. I understand it's a cover job. I totally get it. But Ipe wrote back.
Speaker 10Technically, I did steal from him.
Speaker 2What does Ipe mean? What does Ipe mean by technically I did steal from him? Is he trying to claim he didn't exactly steal from Shohei? Or is it a confession?
Speaker 6Good morning. My name is Martin Estrada. I'm a United States attorney based here in Los Angeles. We are here to announce today the filing of a federal criminal complaint against Ipe Mizuhara. Ipe Mizuhara. A person who until recently was.
Speaker 2On April 11th, 2024, just three weeks after we broke the story, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Mitchell filed a court document. It contained a 36-page affidavit signed by IRS Special Agent Chris Seymour that laid out the government's case against Ipe Mizuhara. And it was Martin Estrada who announced to the world just how much trouble Ipe was in.
Speaker 6The federal complaint filed just a few minutes ago charges Mizuhara. For bank fraud for allegedly stealing more than $16 million from Mr. Otani. According to the complaint, Mr. Mizuhara stole this money largely to finance his voracious appetite for illegal sports betting.
Speaker 2The charges meant Ipe was now facing up to 30 years in federal prison.
Speaker 6Mr. Mizuhara is expected to make his appearance in the next coming days, and he'll make his appearance. In this district.
Speaker 3All right, thank you very much.
Speaker 6Mizuhara was given this golden. opportunity. He basically got the key to the castle. He got that opportunity, but it wasn't
Speaker 2enough. How do you describe Mitsuhara? Who is he really in your mind?
Speaker 6I think he is a fraudster. He's a person who saw a chance to take advantage. He went and befriended Otani as soon as he signed his contract, saw an opportunity, seized that opportunity, and took advantage of this guy who's really relying on him as a Sherpa to get through the United States and understand the customs here. Otani was a victim, clear victim, not just of the gambling fraud. There were other things Mitsuhara was doing too. So he basically treated Otani like his personal piggy bank, which in my view is. Especially with all the opportunity that Mr. Otani gave to him is inexcusable.
Speaker 2The evidence that federal investigators gathered in their case is damning. Impersonating Shohei on the phone to the bank, raiding Shohei's private bank account, using his money to buy baseball cards, and to pay off gambling debts. Who would do this to their best friend? People who have spent a lot of time observing and covering Shohei's bank accounts have been able to see that he's not a fraudster. Shohei and Ipe have always believed that they were close, inseparable.
Speaker 5If Shohei Otani was there, Ipe was there. If Ipe was there, Shohei Otani was there. I don't know that I ever saw them apart.
Speaker 11The portrayal was that Mitsuhara and Otani are best friends. Longtime best friends, right? They were beyond friends. There was something there that was like a brotherhood.
Speaker 2Even Ipe told me they were like brothers.
Speaker 9He's best. He's best. We're friends. We are like brothers. I mean, we're with each other every day. Yeah. I spend more time with him than my wife, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we're like a family to me.
Speaker 2Yeah. But what if even that isn't true? How did you develop your relationship with Ipe?
Speaker 9We're not friends or anything. We're just business partners.
Speaker 2That's next on The Book. The Betrayal of Shohei Otani The Betrayal of Shohei Otani is based on reporting by me, Tisha Thompson, with support from Tim Kuhn and the ESPN Investigative Unit. Our producer is Carrie Ann Thomas. Our senior producer is Max Greenberg. Our senior editorial producer is Preeti Varathan. Our associate producer is Gus Navarro. Story editing by Audrey Quinn, Elaine Tang, Eric Neal, and Mike Drago. Additional editing by Rebecca Hudson. Our archival producer is Jennifer Wheelock. Our line producer is Catherine Sankey. Production managers are Jason Schwartz and Sheena Williams. Fact-checking by John Mastroberodino with David Sabino. Additional editorial review from Masa Niwa. Voice-over by Genta Nakahara. Original music by Allison Leighton-Brown and John DeLore. Sound design by John DeLore. Chris Buckle is vice president of ESPN Investigative Enterprise and Digital Journalism. Marsha Cook, Brian Lockhart, Heather Anderson, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30 for 30. David Roberts, Mike Foss, and Roxanna Scott are executive producers for ESPN.
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