Lai Changxing, once the mainland's most-wanted fugitive, has been jailed for life by a court in Fujian for running a huge smuggling operation and leading a bribery ring.
Yesterday's verdict and sentencing by the Intermediate People's Court in Xiamen , the port city where Lai ran his empire, brought an end to a case that highlighted the depth and breadth of official graft and inflamed tensions between China and Canada for more than a decade.
In a trial that began early last month, Lai, 53, was charged with running an operation that avoided duties worth 27.4 billion yuan (HK$33.7 billion) on a variety of smuggled products ranging from cigarettes to petroleum products, cars and raw materials from 1995 to 1999.
The court handed down a concurrent 15-year sentence for his bribing of 64 government officials and also ordered the confiscation of the proceeds from his illegal activities.
'The crimes involve massive sums and particularly serious circumstances,' Xinhua quoted the court as saying. 'The Chinese government's determination to attack crime and root out corruption is unwavering.'
The report did not indicate whether Lai planned to appeal.
Lai fled with his family to Canada as investigators uncovered the vast smuggling operation in 1999, and applied for refugee status. He avoided deportation for more than a decade, arguing that he faced execution if returned to China, even though then-president Jiang Zemin assured the Canadian prime minister at the time, Jean Chretien, in 2001 that Lai would not be executed.
