Ex-fugitive prosecuted over smuggling ring
By Liang Yiwen |
February 14, 2012, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
LAI Changxing, a smuggling kingpin and once the No. 1 fugitive at the center of China's biggest corruption scandal, has been prosecuted for smuggling and bribery, Xiamen prosecutors said yesterday.
Lai, 53, who was involved in a smuggling operation that dates back to the 1990s in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeastern Fujian Province, and his family fled to Canada in 1999.
There he claimed refuge, saying the allegations against him were politically motivated.
He was deported last July after a legal battle in which a Canadian court dismissed concerns that he could be tortured or executed if he was returned home.
The General Administration of Customs finished an investigation into his case and handed him over for prosecution at the end of last year.
The case has now been handed to the Xiamen Intermediate People's Court. In a statement yesterday, the prosecutors office of Xiamen said Lai's criminal act was clear and the evidence conclusive.
They had decided to charge Lai with masterminding a criminal ring engaged in smuggling and bribery, the statement said.
The legal rights of Lai as well as other suspects and their lawyers have been protected, the statement said.
China has accused Lai's business empire, the Yuanhua Group, of organizing a smuggling ring that implicated more than 200 senior figures.
According to the local customs and anti-smuggling agency and the Xiamen prosecutors office, Lai smuggled a huge number of commodities, such as cigarettes, cars, petroleum, cooking oil, chemicals and equipment, through Xiamen Customs from 1996 to 1999, bribing dozens of government officials and ordering subordinates to do the same.
Lai and the other suspects involved have admitted the charges.
Lai, 53, who was involved in a smuggling operation that dates back to the 1990s in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeastern Fujian Province, and his family fled to Canada in 1999.
There he claimed refuge, saying the allegations against him were politically motivated.
He was deported last July after a legal battle in which a Canadian court dismissed concerns that he could be tortured or executed if he was returned home.
The General Administration of Customs finished an investigation into his case and handed him over for prosecution at the end of last year.
The case has now been handed to the Xiamen Intermediate People's Court. In a statement yesterday, the prosecutors office of Xiamen said Lai's criminal act was clear and the evidence conclusive.
They had decided to charge Lai with masterminding a criminal ring engaged in smuggling and bribery, the statement said.
The legal rights of Lai as well as other suspects and their lawyers have been protected, the statement said.
China has accused Lai's business empire, the Yuanhua Group, of organizing a smuggling ring that implicated more than 200 senior figures.
According to the local customs and anti-smuggling agency and the Xiamen prosecutors office, Lai smuggled a huge number of commodities, such as cigarettes, cars, petroleum, cooking oil, chemicals and equipment, through Xiamen Customs from 1996 to 1999, bribing dozens of government officials and ordering subordinates to do the same.
Lai and the other suspects involved have admitted the charges.
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