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Mark O'Neill

Book details how mainland smugglers offered cash and sex to win over former vice-minister Li Jizhou

The phone on the desk of the Shenzhen police chief rang and the voice at the other end was curt and intimidating.

'What the hell are you doing with that shipment of 12 containers of new cars on board the Yuehai 335'? the caller wanted to know.

'We have investigated the shipment and found the cars are smuggled,' replied the police chief. 'So we have impounded them.'

'This is none of your business. Release the cargo. That's an order,' the caller said.

So the police chief handed the cars over to the importer, who sold them in the domestic market at a profit exceeding 100 per cent.

This was but one corrupt order issued by Li Jizhou, vice-minister of police from 1995 until his arrest in 1998. It was for such orders and abuse of power that he was sentenced to death in November 2001, suspended for two years - the highest-ranking official to receive such a sentence since the communist government was set up in 1949.

The story is one of many recounted in a new book from China Procurate Publishing that gives rare details of how one of the top men entrusted with enforcing the law went about breaking it.

Li's biggest benefactor was smuggling king Lai Changxing,  now fighting extradition from Canada and who,  the indictment said,  paid  Li hefty sums  in exchange for  the vice-minister  using his  power to force border police and customs to admit ships loaded with cargo without paying taxes and arranged car licences for use in the mainland and Hong Kong.

The book describes how Lai first met his prey in  December 1993 at a party in his home base of Xiamen.

Already a rich man, Lai wanted to expand the scope of his smuggling operations  and no one would be a better catch than Li, who  in June that year  was appointed   No2 in a National Anti-Smuggling Committee.

The two men got on well.  And by this stage, Lai was skilled in buying government and party officials.

His chance to buy Li came in December 1994, when Li's wife  called him to ask for money to run a hotel she wanted to take over. She received one million yuan the same day. No repayment was necessary, he insisted.

His next chance came when Li's daughter incurred  heavy debts when the company she set up in California  went bankrupt.

Lai immediately wired US$500,000 to her US bank account.

While Lai was staying at the five-star Palace Hotel in Beijing in early 1997, Li  visited him. Lai handed  him  $30,000  as he was getting in his car to leave. A short time later, Lai called Li and said  border police in Hainan had stopped a freighter suspected of smuggling diesel fuel. Li called the officer in charge  and the ship was allowed to enter.

That was the service Lai obtained with his money, enabling him to move crude oil, oil products, steel, cars and cigarettes into China without paying duty. Li also helped him obtain licence plates for  the smuggled cars.

But Lai's smuggling operation was not the only one Li was involved with. In 1992, when he went to Guangzhou on an inspection tour, the city's  deputy police chief assigned a slender fair-skinned divorcee named Li Sana to look after him, and she quickly became his mistress.  She wanted to make real money. A friend gave her a 30 per cent share in a  firm that would engage in  smuggling, with the aid of Li.

For the next three years, with Li's help, the company smuggled in  large quantities of merchandise, mainly cars, and kept the money offshore.

However, if anyone did not need  the money, it was Li.  Born in December 1942 in Yenan,   Li's father was a  party member, a soldier who had taken part in the Long March and worked in public security. His mother was also a soldier.

In 1969, he graduated from the economics faculty of People's University in Beijing and joined the People's Liberation Army.  Ten years later, he joined the police.

He rose swiftly through the  ranks and two years after his anti-smuggling committee appointment was made vice-minister.

If he had not taken the money, he and his family would have enjoyed a golden retirement. With his arrest came the loss of  a good pension, large  flat, servants, a car and a driver and free access to the best medical care available, as is provided to  officials of his rank.



Might and money paved police official's road to doom