The man once considered China’s most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that reached into the highest echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and involved a decade-long extradition fight.
Xinhua news agency reported that Lai Changxing (賴昌星) was convicted and sentenced yesterday morning by the Intermediate People’s Court in Xiamen, the port city which was his base. On top of the life sentence for smuggling and a concurrent 15-year sentence for bribery, the court ordered all of Lai’s personal property seized, Xinhua said.
The sentencing marked an end for what a decade ago had been one of China’s biggest political scandals. From Xiamen and through his company the Yuanhua Group, Lai ran an extensive smuggling network, using the amassed fortune to cultivate powerful political protectors.
Tainted in the scandal were a deputy police minister, who was later given a suspended death sentence, and the one-time provincial party secretary, who was politically untouched and became a member of the party’s ruling Politburo.
Lai’s network smuggled everything from cigarettes and cars to oil and textiles. The court’s verdict said the operation totaled US$3.3 billion, evaded US$1.7 billion in duties and other taxes and bribed 64 officials between 1996 and 1999, Xinhua reported.
The main office of the Xiamen court referred calls to its publicity department, where the telephone rang unanswered. After a broad corruption and anti-smuggling investigation unmasked Lai’s operation, he managed to flee the country, tipped off by local officials, and eventually reached Canada in 1999.
He then became the focus of a 12-year extradition battle — with Chinese leaders often worried that Lai might implicate senior officials in public comments — until he was deported last year.
In the heyday of his power, Lai lived a life of luxury in China, complete with a bulletproof Mercedes Benz. He is alleged to have run a mansion in which he plied officials with liquor and prostitutes.
At one point, state TV splashed pictures of the network’s allegedly ill-gotten gains: a tiger skin rug laid out on a conference table, confiscated cars belonging to corrupt bureaucrats, a sack of gold rings and a picture of a young woman, said to be a lover kept for one official by Lai.
Scores of officials and executives involved have been imprisoned and at least two executed over the scandal.
Aside from the deputy police minister, 10 others, from Xiamen’s deputy mayor to the city’s customs chief, were given life sentences or had their death sentences commuted to life.
Also ensnared in the scandal was the wife of Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), the Fujian Province party secretary until 1996 and then the party chief of Beijing and an ally of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民).
Politically connected Chinese said Jiang protected Jia, ordering investigators to curtail the probe.
After Lai fled to Canada, Jiang sent a diplomatic note in 2001 to then-Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, assuring Canadian authorities Lai would not be executed if returned — a key Canadian demand.
Still, Lai fought extradition until July last year, when a federal court in Vancouver ruled Lai should not be considered a refugee and upheld his deportation.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS