New details are emerging from Shohei Ohtani’s translator, Ippei Mizuhara’s gambling scandal, including an audio of him pretending to be the Japanese star while calling the bank.
Shohei Ohtani has enjoyed incredible success already during his tenure with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’s won back-to-back MVPs as well as consecutive World Series titles.
Even this season, Ohtani is a contender for the Cy Young Award, pitching at an elite level. Despite all his success, though, there have been some low points for the Japanese superstar as well.
In 2024, the Dodgers fired interpreter Ippei Mizuhara following accusations that he had stolen millions of dollars from Ohtani to pay off his gambling debts. Now, new details have come to light.
Ippei Mizuhara called banks pretending to be Ohtani to steal funds
The scandal broke when authorities discovered payments from Ohtani’s accounts to that of a prominent Southern California bookmaker in 2024.
And while some fans questioned how Mizuhara managed to pull it off, an episode of ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast shared the audio of the translator impersonating Shohei to fool the bank.
“Who am I speaking with?” the bank employee asked. “Shohei Ohtani,” Mizuhara replied. “Thank you. How may I help you?” the employee responded.
“So I tried to log in to online banking, and it tells me that it’s not available to me at this time, and try to call,” said Mizuhara.
“Can you tell me the name of the payee and the amount of the transaction, please?” the employee asked. “It’s for $200,000,” Mizuhara said.
The audio recording is clear evidence of the strategy that Mizuhara used to dupe Ohtani out of millions during their time together.
Details of the scandal show Shohei Ohtani lost a lot of money
Mizuhara had worked with Ohtani since he was 18, and was a confidant as well as an interpreter. However, he still reportedly defrauded the Japanese star for approximately $16 million.
In 2025, Mizuhara was sentenced to 57 months in prison after he entered a guilty plea. At the same time, Ohtani was cleared of any wrongdoing in the matter.
The Japanese star has gone from strength to strength in his career, though, and will be attempting to achieve a historic third consecutive World Series win with the Dodgers in 2026.
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