Borders and immigration officials have been a bit of an issue for China's arch-fugitive Lai Changxing, ever since the early days of a career in which he built up the biggest smuggling empire in the history of the People's Republic.
Lai, 53, who was born to a poor family in Jinjiang, Fujian province, entered Hong Kong illegally in the 1970s, to return home as a self-made Hong Kong-based businessman several years later. It was that initial success that propelled him towards setting up the Xiamen Yuanhua Group in 1994, thanks to his many connections with senior government officials.
Over the years he became so powerful and well connected that in the late 1990s in Xiamen it was said his empire was the mainstay of the coastal city's economy.
Lai's downfall began when he fell foul of then premier Zhu Rongji, who had had enough of an upstart whose empire was said have smuggled US$10 billion worth of contraband and which had suborned numerous politicians and officials in Fujian.
Lai's empire allegedly smuggled a wide range of goods, including cigarettes and liquor worth billions of yuan, into the mainland, and some reports said the group also smuggled weapons. It was also investigated for tax evasion and bribery.
Details of Lai using beautiful women and money to bribe high-ranking officials at a multimillion-yuan complex in Xiamen known as the Red Mansion have been reported for years. The infamous six-storey building in Xiamen's northern Huli district was lavishly equipped with guest rooms, saunas, karaoke rooms and entertainment suites, used by Lai to lure officials into his web of corruption. It has now been converted into a job training centre, after serving as a museum of the corruption rampant in Lai's time, complete with its erotic art and massage tables.