BEIJING (AP) — The man once considered China's most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison Friday for running a large-scale smuggling operation that paid off scores of Chinese government officials, state media said.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that Lai Changxing was convicted and sentenced Friday morning by the Intermediate People's Court in Xiamen, the port city which operated as his base. He had battled deportation from Canada for a decade, saying he risked torture or execution if returned.
Lai's smuggling operation reached to the highest levels of government, involving a deputy police minister and implicating a member of the Communist Party's decision-making Politburo. Lai's network smuggled everything from cigarettes to cars to oil. The court said the operation totaled $3 billion and bribed 64 officials between 1996 and 1999.
Lai became China's most-wanted man after he fled to Canada in 1999 and became the center of a 12-year extradition battle until he was deported last year.
Before fleeing to Canada he 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 the time, 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 some executed over the scandal. Among those punished were a former deputy police minister, who was quietly removed from his posts as vice minister for public security and deputy chief of an anti-smuggling task force. The deputy mayor of Xiamen and the city's customs chief were also punished.
In Canada, Lai had avoided deportation by arguing he could face the death penalty or be tortured and would not get a fair trial in his home country.
But that legal battle ended in July when a federal court in Vancouver ruled Lai should not be considered a refugee and upheld his deportation.
China promised Canada that Lai would not get the death penalty in 2001 when then-President Jiang Zemin sent the Canadian prime minister at the time, Jean Chretien, a diplomatic note with assurances Lai would not be executed if returned.
