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Comment by redstripe | Hacker News Reader

Is leaving a country really that hard if you have a little money? Seems like something you should be able to do without the assistance of green berets unless you're in a movie.

A country like Japan must have: 1. Dozens of private jets leaving it's airspace daily. 2. Hundreds of fishing boats leaving it territorial waters daily.

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This story proves how you can do it if you have a "little" money. Given that he was the highest profile prisoner in the country it's still hard to go to an airport or fishing port and corrupt your way out alone. An old businessman isn't a special operative or spy.

I think it becomes more difficult when you are an extremely high profile prisoner like Ghosn.

I just looked up his escape from Japan and it really does read like a scene out of a movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn#Flight_from_Japan

You need someone's help, if only to proposition the fishing boat captains. Best to have an intermediary there rather than risk being identified.

Former special forces are stereotypically more likely than most to end up in that kind of "fixer" role, even if they don't need their military skills for this particular job.

He was under house arrest and his residence was being actively surveilled so it was quite a feat just to get him to the airport. As I recall, one of the factors that made the whole thing possible was that the authorities had allowed him to retain one of his three passports. That mistake proved very costly.

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