Like several of China’s most wanted, millionaire Zeng Hanlin fled his homeland to avoid facing trial for an alleged $8 million fraud.
For more than a decade, the 65-year-old has been using the Canadian court and refugee determination system to stop efforts by Beijing to get him back – a process that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
Last week, Zeng Hanlin aka Hany Zeng aka Han Lin Hany Zeng, dubbed, one of the China’s  most wanted fugitives, was returned to China, the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing said on Friday.
He was put on a non-stop flight from Toronto and arrived at the Beijing Capital International Airport escorted by Immigration Canada officials.
“Thanks to the joint efforts of Chinese and Canadian police, Zeng was repatriated after fleeing China 12 years ago,” Xiao Zuosheng, a press officer for the Ministry of Public Security, said.
The ministry issued a “red” wanted notice for the former multimillionaire through the International Criminal Police Organization as early as 2000, said Xiao. He declined to comment on whether Zeng will face fresh charges or the death penalty, according to China’s state agency, Xinhua.
Roughly 580 of China’s economic fugitives are still at large in foreign countries, with most fleeing to North America and Southeast Asia. Zeng is one of the top 10 fugitives facing charges of economic fraud.
One of them is Lai Changxing in Vancouver. Lai, 53, fled to Canada after he was accused of smuggling $8 billion-worth of oil, cars and cigarettes from overseas into the eastern city of Xiamen between 1996 and 1999, the report said.
China asked the Canadian government to extradite Lai in 2000, but since no official extradition treaty exists between the two nations, Lai continues to battle to stay in Canada.
Last month, a microblog purportedly set up by Lai attracted more than 10,000 followers within hours before it was shut down, Chinese state media reported.
A Sina.com microblog in the name of Lai Changxing, a property investor who is accused of smuggling goods worth billions of dollars into China before he fled in 1999, the Global Times newspaper reported.
However, within seven hours it had already attracted 13,000 followers, the report said.
Like Lai, Zeng claimed he would be tortured and executed without a fair trial in China.
Zeng’s lawyer called the federal court ruling that led to Zeng’s removal a “devastating loss”.
But Federal Court Judge Richard Boivin’s  said that there is no indication that Chinese officials would upgrade Zeng’s charges to financial fraud, which carries the death penalty.
“The applicant’s arguments are speculative as there is no evidence that the death penalty or torture can reasonably be anticipated in this case,” Boivin wrote in his ruling.
The court also dismissed Chinese law professor Vincent Yang’s testimony at Zeng’s refugee hearings who said Zeng is at risk of facing an unfair trial, torture to extract a confession and death.
Zeng’s lawyers referred to an earlier when Canada deported Fang Yong, convicted of embezzling about $290,000 from a bank, to China where he was sentenced to death.
China Daily said that from 1997 until 1998, Zeng, a native of Guangdong province, worked as the chief executive at Guangdong Feilong Group, which specializes in transport services and machinery production.
During that time, he used forged bank savings statements and fake remittance certificates to sign equity transfer agreements with Chengdu Lianyi Industrial Company in Sichuan province, swindling stocks worth 65 million yuan ($9.8 million), according to a report by Xinhua News Agency.
He fled to Canada, where in June 2004 he was arrested for failing to have a valid visa. He applied for refugee status after entering Canada on a Dominican passport but the Canadian government rejected his request due to his probable connection with crime, Xinhua reported.
Last month, Canada completed its risk assessment for Zeng’s repatriation and decided to deport him to China. Zeng’s lawyer tried to have the order revoked, citing a possible death sentence or torture, but failed.
Meng Qingfeng, a top economic crime investigator with the Ministry of Public Security, told China Daily that the biggest legal hurdle in repatriating fugitives is the absence of extradition treaties between China and some Western nations.
Trying to get fugitives back via other channels, such as immigration laws, is more complex and involves lengthy procedures, he said.
China has signed extradition treaties with 37 countries and criminal justice agreements with 47 others, he said, although the ministry hopes to improve cooperation with the international community and reach extradition treaties with more countries.
“China will adhere to relevant international conventions to protect the human rights and other legitimate rights of fugitives in line with China’s laws and regulations,” said Meng, who urged fugitives to turn themselves in, insisting they will be treated in a just manner by judicial departments in the legal framework.
Huang Feng, a criminal law professor at Beijing Normal University, said on Friday that the Western world “should understand and take a fair attitude on China’s criminal justice system and its application of the proper law procedures”.
China needs to prevent suspects from fleeing to other countries while enhancing criminal justice cooperation with international society, he added.
China’s Ministry of Public Security said in a  statement that Canada had repatriated several suspects to China in recent years, showing honest cooperation between the law enforcement organs of the two countries.
In January last year, Chinese man Cui Zili was repatriated from Canada, where he had lived for seven years, for allegedly being involved in a 20-million-yuan fraud in 2002.
Deng Xinzhi, who worked with Cui, was repatriated from Canada on Aug. 22, 2008. Deng was sentenced to life in prison in 2009.
Immigration Canada has said that each asylum seeker costs taxpayers more than $50,000 from legal aid to public housing and education costs, to an allowance of several thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, at Press Time a news report said that another Chinese official has fled to Canada after embezzling 94 million yuan ($14 million U.S.).
Li Huabo, a section director at a county finance bureau in eastern Jiangxi province fled to Canada with his wife and two daughters at the beginning of the month, the Global Times newspaper said, citing local reports.
Chinese police were trying to find out where he went in Canada, it said.
He allegedly stole money from provincial funds intended for projects such as upgrading farmland and building reservoirs, the report said.
Li, a gambling addict, set up his own travel agency in Poyang county to make it easy to travel to Macau, the southern Chinese territory that has become Asia’s casino capital, the report said.
Authorities said they found a letter to an alleged accomplice in his office after his disappearance describing how he embezzled the money over four years, the report said.