The Hongcouver | How is China persuading graft suspects in Canada to ‘surrender’? An embezzler’s disastrous deal offers clues

For Chinese corruption suspect He Jian, seven years of life on the lam ended around 4.30pm on November 7 last year, on the stairs of Air China flight 992 from Vancouver.

After the flight touched down in Beijing, the former manager of the real estate arm of the Hebei Port Group was immediately taken into custody by two white-gloved officers who led him onto the tarmac by both arms. A “huge amount” of money involved in He’s bribery case was frozen, said China’s anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which documented the arrest in a series of photos.

He Jian allegedly fled China for Canada in 2010, and had been living a life of obscurity in the seaside town of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. That ended in 2015, when his name and photo were published on a CCDI list of its 100 most-wanted suspects said to have fled overseas. Reporters came knocking on his door.

But He was under no formal obligation to leave Canada, which has no extradition treaty with China. He faced no charges in Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal force which has jurisdiction over Nanaimo, said it had no information on his case.

According to the CCDI, He had voluntarily “returned to China and surrendered himself to the police”.

Then on December 6, the CCDI announced another victory involving a British-Columbia-based suspect – former Yunnan tax collector Li Wenge had also returned and “surrendered”.