Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter officially charged with bank fraud in California

The US Attorney’s Office has confirmed that Shohei Ohtani’s translator, Ippei Mizuhara, has been charged with unlawfully transferring more than $16m from the Los Angeles Dodgers player’s bank account without his knowledge to pay off his own substantial gambling debts with an illegal operator. 

Mizuhara has been charged with theft and bank fraud and, if found guilty, could face a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in jail. 

In a federal affidavit submitted with the complaint, it stated that Mizuhara transferred money from a checking account belonging to Ohtani between November 2021 to January 2024 from devices and IP addresses associated with Mizuhara, who acted as Ohtani’s translator and de facto manager. 

In 2018, Mizuhara accompanied the MLB star, in his capacity as translator, to a bank branch in Arizona to help him open a bank account. According to the affidavit, Ohtani’s salary was paid directly into this account, to which Mizuhara had no access. 

According to the affidavit, Mizuhara told Ohtani’s US-based financial advisors, who did not speak Japanese, that Ohtani had denied them access to the bank account. 

In 2021, Mizuhara began gambling with an illegal sportsbook and ran up substantial losses. The complaint states that Mizuhara averaged around 25 wagers a day, with the bets ranging from $10 to $160,000, with an average bet amount of $12,000. The number of bets totaled 19,000, although none of the wagers involved baseball.

According to a spreadsheet obtained by the authorities, Mizuhara had total winnings of $142m and total losses of $183m during his gambling spree. 

At this time, the translator allegedly changed the contact information on Ohtani’s bank account to his phone number and an anonymous email address linked to Mizuhara, as per Ohtani’s bank records.

It is alleged that on another occasion Mizuhara phoned the bank and pretended to be Ohtani to deceive staff into authorizing wire transfers from Ohtani’s account to associates at the illegal gambling firm. 

One recorded phone call from the bank on June 20, 2023 revealed that during one of the time’s the translator impersonated Ohtani he transferred $500,000 to an associate of the bookmaker. 

It was revealed on March 20, 2024, that at least $4.5m had been transferred from Ohtani’s accounts to the gambling operation. 

Mizuhara also used the account to buy 1,000 baseball cards via social marketplaces eBay and Whatnot at a cost of around $325,000. He used an alias – Jay Min – and requested the cards be mailed to the clubhouse of Ohtani’s team, the LA Dodgers.

In an interview with law enforcement last week, Ohtani denied permitting Mizuhara to make the wire transfers. The Dodgers star ceded his mobile phone to the authorities, who concluded there was no evidence linking Ohtani with any of Mizuhara’s gambling and payment activities. 

The Inland Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Unit and Homeland Securities Investigations continue to scrutinize the case. 

Mizuhara is expected to appear in the US District Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles in the near future. 

Assistant US Attorneys Jeff Mitchell of the Major Frauds Section, Dan Boyle of the Environmental Crimes and Consumer Protection Section, and Rachel N. Agress of the International Narcotics, Money Laundering, and Racketeering Section are prosecuting the case.

MBL initially started an investigation into Mizuhara at the end of March, with sports broadcaster ESPN reporting that the Dodgers fired Mizuhara earlier in the month amid accusations he stole money from Ohtani to cover gambling debts. 

Once the investigation began, Mizuhara spoke to ESPN, originally claiming Ohtani was wiring him money in $500,000 increments but later changed this to say that the player had no knowledge of the transfers.

Authorities told the sports broadcaster that Ohtani first learned of his translator’s activity on his bank account and Mizuhara’s gambling activity during a team meeting after the Dodgers’ opener in Seoul, South Korea.