French prosecutors have issued an international arrest warrant for disgraced businessman Carlos Ghosn.
Prosecutors in Nanterre, France said that the arrest warrant against the former head of Nissan and Renault was one of five issued.
Ghosn fled to Lebanon in 2019 while out on bail facing financial misconduct charges in Japan.
The Ghosn warrant is based on an investigation opened in 2019 into money laundering and abuse of company assets reportedly over millions in alleged suspect payments made between the Renault-Nissan alliance and Suhail Bahwan Automobiles (SBA), a vehicle distributor company in Oman owned by billionaire Suhail Bahwan.
The Nanterre prosecutors’ office described this as the next step in a two-year investigation, one of two separate cases involving Ghosn in France focusing on payments made to SBA.
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In an interview last year with The Associated Press, Ghosn was determined to fight to restore his reputation.
A statement sent to AP from his PR team called the French warrant “surprising.”
The statement also suggested that the warrant was ineffective as Ghosn “is subject to a judicial ban on leaving Lebanese territory”, where he currently resides. Lebanon does not extradite its citizens.
Ghosn has citizenship in Lebanon, France and Brazil.
