Following the 2019 Hollywood escape of former Renault and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, Japan enacted a law today allowing courts to track with GPS the whereabouts of indicted persons released on bail .

The law allows the installation of geo-tracking devices to prevent people released on bail from fleeing outside of Japanese territory.

Defendants will be prohibited from removing or destroying them, and from entering areas barred by the courts, such as ports and airports.

In case of violation, it will be possible to take them into custody and impose a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Geo-tracing of people released on bail and people under house arrest exists in many countries.

Ghosn’s incredible escape

Requests for GPS approval for defendants released on bail were made after Ghosn fled abroad in December 2019.

The 69-year-old French-Lebanese-Brazilian businessman fled to Lebanon, a country that does not extradite its citizens.

“To prevent incidents like this from happening again, we need to discuss how to close the loopholes in the (security) system by increasing the bail amount based on the value of all the accused’s assets and adopting an electronic way of tracking with GPS,” he suggested at the time. the conservative and largest circulation newspaper in the country Yomiuri Shibun.

Ghosn’s incredible escape on private jets chartered by accomplices “demonstrates that the wealthy with backing are able to flee abroad regardless of the strictness of the bail conditions imposed by the courts,” Tsunehiko Maeda, a former prosecutor, said at the time.

The businessman had been released on bail in Tokyo while barred from leaving the Japanese territory pending trial for alleged financial wrongdoing when he headed Nissan.

A judicial investigation in France led in April 2022 to the issuance of an international arrest warrant against him for passive bribery, misappropriation of corporate assets, breach of trust and gang money laundering. He disputes these accusations of French justice.