Ice Queen pledged to sell fast food
THE world's most notorious woman drug trafficker was allowed to settle in Canada because she promised to run a fast-food chicken franchise, according to a Toronto newspaper.
Hong Kong-based Lee Chau-ping, known as the Ice Queen, made only two short trips to La Ronge, Saskatchewan, before the authorities approved her immigration as an entrepreneur willing to invest C$170,000 (about HK$958,000), the Globe and Mail reported.
The paper said Lee, her husband - with whom she had not lived for at least two years - and their two school-age children were admitted as immigrants in Vancouver on May 22, 1992.
They had been briefly interviewed at a Canadian immigration office in Seattle, in the United States.
Less than a week earlier, Guangdong authorities had raided and shut down several of her factories making the drug ice.
Lee disappeared from Canada 18 months later leaving her children, her husband and more than CS$1 million in assets.
She faces criminal charges in Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Canada and is on the Interpol wanted list.
The Canadian Government wants to strip her of her Canadian assets including a C$800,000 house in Vancouver's Kerrisdale area, a house in British Columbia, and jewellery.
The Globe said Hong Kong authorities were 'shaking their heads about how easy it is for Asian criminals to get into Canada'.
'Their amazement echoes longstanding criticism from several quarters that the federal Government's business immigration programme really amounts to selling passports to the carriage trade and to criminals,' the paper said.
