In his heyday, he ran a business empire worth more than US$6 billion, handled half the Marlboro cigarettes sold in China and was bringing in a 10,000-tonne oil tanker every third day free of duty.
Now Lai Changxing , China's 'smuggling king' of the 1990s, is in detention in Vancouver, fighting a losing battle against repatriation. On August 31, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his application for refugee status, the biggest blow in his six-year struggle not to be sent home.
'That makes him removal-ready,' said Lois Reimer, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
For the Canadian government - which is eager to increase trade and investment with China and welcomed President Hu Jintao's visits this month - Lai has become an embarrassment that it wants to be rid of. During bilateral meetings, Chinese officials raise the issue and ask when it will be resolved.
'Lai will pursue every legal channel to remain in Canada,' said his lawyer, David Matas, by e-mail from Winnipeg. 'He is concerned about being killed in prison in China without being formally executed. His brother died in prison after having failed to entice Lai back to China, and there was no autopsy.
'There's no doubt he will be jailed. There is an intermediate risk of torture. The government of China, the president, the prime minister and the central committee of the Communist Party, have all said that he is guilty. And he has not even been charged yet,' he said.
