Liu Han

Liu Han (Chinese: 刘汉; pinyin: Liú Hàn; 25 October 1965[1] – 9 February 2015) was a Chinese billionaire businessman, the former chairman of the conglomerate Hanlong Group, with interests in power generation and mining. His assets were officially valued at 40 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion).[2] He was convicted of murder, running a mafia-style gang, and many other charges, and executed in February 2015.

Liu Han
刘汉
Born(1965-10-25)25 October 1965
Guanghan, Sichuan, China
Died9 February 2015(2015-02-09) (aged 49)
Xianning, Hubei, China
Cause of deathExecution by lethal injection
Occupation(s)Chairman, Hanlong Group
PartnerYang Xueshan (杨雪善 former wife)
RelativesLiu Wei (brother; executed 2015)
Liu Canglong (刘沧龙 cousin)
In this Chinese name, the family name is Liu.

Early life

Liu Han was born in 1965 in Guanghan, Sichuan province,[3] the middle child in a family with three sons and two daughters. His father, Liu Zhangke (刘章科), was a veteran of the Korean War, who worked as a secondary school physics teacher after leaving the army. He died in 1990. His mother, Li Wanzhen (李万珍), worked as a street vendor.[4]

Early career and assassination attempt

In the mid-1980s, Liu Han began buying and reselling timber, construction material, and petroleum. In the early 1990s, he started to operate gambling dens in Guanghan with his brother Liu Wei. He entered the commodity market in the mid-1990s, trading soy beans and steel between 1994 and 1997, which earned him hundreds of millions of yuan.[4]

Liu's commodity trading resulted in a dispute with the Liaoning billionaire Yuan Baojing. Yuan lost nearly 100 million yuan and believed that it was caused by Liu's manipulation of a broker. He offered a former policeman, Wang Xing, 160,000 yuan for Liu's life. Wang in turn hired the contract killer Li Haiyang. In February 1997, Li shot at Liu twice in a Sichuan hotel but missed him. Li was captured and later sentenced to life in prison. Wang Xing then repeatedly blackmailed Yuan Baojing, who eventually hired his cousins to murder Wang in 2003. Yuan was convicted of murder and executed in 17 March 2006.[5]

Hanlong Group

Liu Han founded Hanlong Group in 1997.[2] In 2000, he moved the conglomerate's headquarters from Mianyang to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.[4] Around 2002, he became associated with Zhou Bin, a son of Zhou Yongkang, then Party Committee Secretary and top leader of Sichuan.[4][6] He built two hydroelectric stations in Ngawa in 2001. He sold the stations in 2005 for 500 million yuan to a British Virgin Islands company, which then resold them to a subsidiary of Datang Power for 2.7 billion yuan only two months later.[4]

In 2009, Hanlong Group bought a controlling stake in Moly Mines, a Perth-based Australian mining company.[7] Hanlong also bid $1.3 billion for Sundance Resources, another Australian mining company,[8] but the deal collapsed after Liu Han was arrested in March 2013 on multiple charges.[7]

Liu Han owned more than 70 subsidiary companies with business in energy, mining, real estate, finance, and securities. His assets were officially valued at 40 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion).[2][7]

Prosecution and execution

Liu Han and his brother Liu Wei attracted the attention of the central government after a January 2009 shooting at a Guanghan teahouse.[9] Liu Wei allegedly ordered the attack, which killed three men including the rival gang boss Chen Fuwei, who had been recently released from prison.[10] The brothers had allegedly ordered the killing of others, including a villager who led a protest against one of their real estate projects in Mianyang, a rival gang boss in Mianyang, and an old neighbour in Guanghan.[10]

Liu Han was arrested in March 2013, only months after Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, China's top leader. Xi launched an anti-corruption campaign which in its early days targeted Zhou Yongkang's associates in Sichuan.[7] The Liu brothers were tried at the Xianning Intermediate People's Court in Hubei province, and sentenced to death in May 2014.[7] Han was also deprived of his political rights for life, and ordered to forfeit all of his assets.[11] Liu Han was found guilty on thirteen charges, including murder, running casinos and a mafia-like gang, and selling firearms.[6] They appealed to the High People's Court of Hubei, which upheld the original sentences in August 2014.[2] Liu Han and Liu Wei were executed on 9 February 2015, along with three associates.[7]

Philanthropy

Until Liu Han's arrest and trial, he was best known as a philanthropist. He gained fame in China in the aftermath of the Great Sichuan earthquake of 2008, in which thousands of children died when several schools built by the state collapsed. In contrast, the school Liu Han built withstood the quake and all of its students survived the disaster unharmed. He also made major donations in the subsequent relief efforts.[12]

Personal

Liu Han had a passion for cars, and boasted that he owned 80 luxury cars. He was an avid gambler who sometimes gambled all night long. During his trial, he said he lost $128 million gambling in Macau, $15 million in the United States, and millions more in Singapore and Australia.[12]

References
  1. 刘汉被曝窝藏珠峰系走私犯陈岷 曾勾结赖昌星. Sina (in Chinese). 8 March 2014.
  2. Zhang Yan (8 August 2014). "Liu death sentences upheld". China Daily.
  3. Guo, Aibing. "Hanlong Ex-Chairman Liu Gets Death Penalty for Mafia-Like Crimes". Bloomberg. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  4. 知情人:刘汉曾花25万让女艺人与朋友过夜. Sina (in Chinese). 21 February 2014.
  5. "Billionaire executed for contract murder". Xinhua. 18 March 2006. Archived from the original on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  6. "China executes mining tycoon Liu Han, who had links to ex-security tsar Zhou Yongkang". SCMP. 10 February 2015. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  7. Forsythe, Michael (9 February 2015). "China Executes Billionaire Who Ran 'Mafia-Style' Criminal Gang". New York Times. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  8. Scott Murdoch (24 May 2014). "Hanlong chief Liu Han gets death sentence". The Australian. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  9. "China executes mining tycoon Liu Han". CNN. 9 February 2015.
  10. "Details of suspected crimes by gangster-turned billionaire". Xinhua. 20 February 2014. Archived from the original on 3 March 2014.
  11. Areddy, James T. (23 May 2014). "Former Chinese Mining Tycoon Gets Death Sentence". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
  12. "Philanthropist, big spender, warlord: Chinese tycoon's Australian faces". Reuters. 23 May 2014.
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