With imposition of the death penalty possible and a decade behind bars probable, it’s hardly surprising that an estimated 4,000 Chinese citizens accused of embezzlement or taking bribes are hiding out abroad. But where, exactly, have they skulked away to? Some recent leave-takers have opted for Russia or Thailand. But Vancouver, Canada, is beginning to look like the ideal option. Beyond the beautiful scenery, the mild climate and the burgeoning community of fellow expats, there’s the appeal of Canada’s accommodating legal system and deportation process.
The most recent fugitives to discover this are a trio arrested in February and accused in connection with an alleged $100 million-plus embezzlement at a Bank of China branch in Harbin. Gao Shan, 41, and brothers Li Dongzhe, 40, and Li Donghu, 38, arrived in Canada in 2004, days before Chinese authorities began to investigate the massive fraud. Gao had been living modestly, but the Li brothers were enthusiastic partakers of the Lotusland lifestyle. Li Dongzhe, whom Chinese officials called the driving force behind the scheme, owned three BMWs and had purchased a $2.6 million home.
Following their arrests, all applied for refugee status. Although this was not granted, each will have many more opportunities to prolong his stay. On March 5 former assistant minister of public security Zhu Entao said at a press briefing it would take 11 years to get Gao Shan back to the mainland. “As more and more corrupt officials flee to Canada, with more and more embezzled money involved, Canada will have mounting conflicts with other countries,” editorialized Beijing’s Global Times -- a sign that the situation has become a diplomatic irritant.
Janis Fergusson, spokeswoman for the Vancouver office of the Canada Border Services Agency, admits that deportation can be a drawn-out process: “There can be simultaneous federal court actions, and each can proceed at a different pace. Some are with different arms of the government. It’s due process, and we have to abide by it.” Still, she adds, 1,300 to 1,400 people a year are removed from the Vancouver region alone.
Before the Harbin 3, the best-known Chinese fugitive was smuggler Lai Changxing, once referred to as China’s most wanted man, who has been under house arrest in Vancouver for almost a decade.
Canada does not have an extradition treaty with China and, in any case, generally refuses to deport people to countries where their lives might be in danger. But other countries complain that it is difficult to retrieve criminals. A Thai prosecutor once told a reporter, “We rank Canada as the slowest” among the 26 countries with which Thailand has extradition treaties.
The living proof is surely Rakesh Saxena. Accused by Thai authorities of perpetrating an almost $100 million fraud at the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, Saxena has called the Vancouver area home for more than 11 years -- most of that time under house arrest, at first in a luxury condominium, now in a tony riverfront home.
In 2006 it appeared that Saxena would finally be extradited to Thailand. Then a judge decided the September 19 coup represented a material change in circumstances -- which will extend the process, as the Vancouver Sun reported, “indefinitely.”
WHAT WE SAID ABOUT THE NYSE
JUNE 1970 The worst was still to come for the New York Stock Exchange when Institutional Investor declared that the bourse was “on the verge of being referred to in the past tense, as if it were a powerful patriarch who was being supplanted by his sons, or a brilliant invention that was becoming just a bit obsolescent.
“Of course, the Exchange still plays an essential role, everyone agrees publicly,” the piece continued. “But privately they seem to be thinking: looking ahead -- a few years down the road -- do we really need it?” NYSE members, said II, “may be thinking about putting on their life jackets but they still can’t believe that their ship, the great unsinkable Titanic, could ever really go down.” The NYSE, at that time recovering from the paperwork crisis of the late ‘60s, not only stayed afloat but thrived, even as critics carped about its devotion to floor-based trading in an increasingly electronic world. Then came the uproar over the compensation of former chief Dick Grasso, who left in 2003. Current CEO John Thain has earned praise for merging the NYSE with ArcaEx, taking it public and buying European bourse Euronext -- all aimed at keeping the Big Board’s head above water in ever-more-competitive global stock markets.
