China’s #1 Corrupt Official
Was given the death sentence
For a lot of bribes
And a lot of mistresses.
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Corruption.
It seems the Chinese Communist Party can’t get enough of it.
What do you expect when your founding principle is “kill people and take their stuff”?
But the good thing about corruption is that since so many officials are corrupt, Chinese
leader Xi Jinping can use it as a charge to take down his political enemies.
And his so-called anti-corruption purge has helped him strengthen his grip on power.
In China, no one is safe from the purge.
Not even top Party members, like former Security Chief Zhou Yongkang.
In 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison for graft.
Of course, Zhou had done a lot more than just steal some money, but that’s what they officially
sentenced him for.
And in 2018, the deputy mayor of Luliang, Zhang Zhongsheng, was convicted of accepting
bribes worth $166 million dollars.
And he was sentenced to “immediate death.”
Yes, in China, you can get the death penalty for economic crimes.
Zhang is still alive though, because his death sentence is waiting for confirmation from
the Supreme People’s Court.
And more recently, there was Lai Xiaomin.
He was board chairman and Party chief of the state-owned asset management company China
Huarong.
In early January, he was also sentenced to death for corruption.
Over the past ten years, Lai had accumulated nearly $280 million dollars in bribes.
“The scale of the crime is unprecedented.
Not in the 72 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China has anyone
been charged with taking bribes this large.”
Although to be fair, for most of that 72 years, the Communist Party had kept people way too
poor to pay bribes that large.
But it wasn’t just money that was on Lai’s plate.
No, no, he really went all in.
Chinese Social Media had coined a nickname for Lai: “The 3 One Hundreds”.
One hundred Houses, one hundred connections, and one hundred lovers.
This headline says it all: “He housed 100 lovers in one neighborhood, all of the kids
called him daddy.”
You’d think that putting 100 mistresses in the same area would cause problems, but
I guess when you have 100 mistresses, it’s all about efficiency.
And it makes sense how this guy got so many lovers.
Lai’s connections with his company China Huarong would introduce him to women, and
the women would help Lai occupy his many real estate properties and hide his money.
“To avoid getting caught, Lai would accept bribes in cash, and personally stow them in
a safe in one of his properties.
He would drive in circles to avoid any people tailing him.
He and his lovers would refer to this house using the codename ‘Supermarket.’”
Wow, and I bet his wife thought he was being so thoughtful by offering to go to the supermarket
all the time.
More on that in a moment.
Because what Lai Xiaomin did was unimaginable.
Mainly because “He managed to have over 100 women - among them were past wives, current
wives, and all kinds of mistresses - live harmoniously with each other, without any
disputes.”
In its own horrible way, that’s actually pretty impressive.
I mean, how did Lai even keep track of all these lovers?
Well, apparently Lai would number the women so it was easy to remember them.
Perfect!
Now you might wonder, what did Lai Xiaomin’s wife think about all this?
Well, wrong question, because it’s actually wives, plural.
He had two wives.
The second one, he married illegally in Hong Kong.
One of the things he was sentenced for is bigamy.
In 2020, Lai was featured in a documentary produced by China’s Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection, where he discusses his process of accepting bribes, along with
the hardships.
Let’s hear him out.
“I’d drop the money off in one of my houses, I called it ‘The Supermarket’.
I just put it there.
It’s all confiscated now.
What was I supposed to do with all that dirty money?
I was too afraid to spend it.
It was nerve wracking.”
I kind of feel sorry for the poor guy.
He was in too deep!
He couldn’t spend the money, because he would get caught.
But still people bribed him, and how could he refuse?
I think it’s only fair that they should let him write a book before they execute him.
On the day of his arrest, Lai was about to go swimming with his 23-year-old secretary
when detectives showed up at his office.
But he knew this day was coming.
Lai Xiaomin was not your average corrupt official.
I mean, he was the Party secretary and chairman of one of China’s four big state-owned asset
management firms.
Under Xi Jinping’s rule where death penalties are on the menu, I can almost understand why
all of his hundred lovers didn’t have any disputes.
They weren’t harmoniously living with each other, they were cooperating with each other.
Because if word got out, everything would fall apart.
And now it has.
Investigators started looking into his unusually large number of real estate investments in
April 2018.
And in November that year, they finally arrested him after they found 3 metric tons of cash
in his apartment.
And that just goes to show: Crime really does pay.
Until they execute you.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from one of you, a fan who supports China
Uncensored through the crowdfunding website Patreon.
Scott Young asks: "In the credits it looks like you are visiting China.
How did you and Shelly avoid being taken into custody and sent off to a labor camp?
Thanks."
The trick to not being taken into custody in China is...to not go to mainland China.
The only parts of China I go to now are Taiwan—which is not controlled by China;
Hong Kong—which I can never go back to now that the National Security Law is in place;
and the South China Sea—which was probably a bad idea at the time and I can’t believe
I made it back alive.
Thanks for your question, Scott.
And thank you for watching.
Help us keep uncensoring China by supporting us through Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
A dollar per episode makes a huge difference.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.