A Case of Mistaken Identity

Ma Jian, the former spymaster was jailed for life today for corruption

Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption continues with a vengeance. Today a former top spy chief was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of accepting 109 million yuan (US$15.8 million) in bribes, and crimes related to insider trading and forced share transfers.

Ma Jian was appointed deputy head of China's Ministry of State Security in 2006, in charge of counter-espionage operations. However, the crimes he was convicted of spanned a 15-year period, between 1999 and 2004.

Ma accepted bribes from Guo Wengui

After four years of detention was tried at Dalian Intermediate Court in northeast China, where he was also fined 50.5 million yuan.
The court ordered all of Ma's personal property confiscated and demanded the return of his ill-gotten gains.

During the trial, Ma confessed to the charges and said he would not appeal.

He received bribes totaling 109 million yuan to benefit several associates, including the brash tycoon Miles Guo Wengui, who is in self-imposed exile in New York City.

Ma is the highest ranking security official to be jailed since Zhou Yongkang, a former Politburo member who once oversaw the government's security operations but was jailed for life in 2015.

The ex-spy has the same name as novelist, Ma Jian (above)

One would think this story is straight forward, except that some media outlets have used the wrong picture of Ma and used the one of novelist Ma Jian -- who had trouble presenting his novel China Dream in Hong Kong in early November.

Both the former spy chief and the novelist have the same Chinese characters in their names (马建) which makes it all the more amusing and the latter has joked about it on Twitter:

"My children are puzzled to learn that I am not the author of China Dream, who has just made them seaweed dumplings for supper, but am instead a former spymaster who has just been jailed for life for accepting 'extremely large bribes'," he wrote.

Ma tweeted his amusement at being "jailed for life"

"This is a strange China Dream. Am I a banned novelist dreaming that I'm a corrupt spy chief, or am I a corrupt spy chief dreaming that I'm a banned novelist?"

Perhaps this is potential fodder for Ma -- the novelist's -- next story.

Bagging Another Tiger?

China has confirmed Meng Hongwei of Interpol is being investigated

Hot on the heels of actress Fan Bingbing's tax evasion ordeal, on Friday evening there was a curious piece of breaking news -- the Chinese head of Interpol had disappeared and his wife reported him missing to French police.

It has now transpired that Meng Hongwei, 64, was detained by Chinese authorities as soon as he landed in China on a flight from Lyon, France on September 29.

His wife Grace is worried for her and her children's safety

He has been detained for allegedly taking bribes and "gravely jeopardizing" the country's ruling Communist Party and police. On Sunday Interpol received his resignation letter and has been replaced by South Korean Kim Jong Yang.

Who knows how long Meng will be investigated for and then possibly put on trial.

What is ironic is that when he was appointed head of Interpol in 2016 there were fears he would abuse Interpol's powers to forcibly repatriate Chinese dissidents and fugitives.

But in 2017 he only issued one red notice -- which means a request to provisionally arrest a suspect pending extradition -- for Chinese fugitive tycoon Guo Wengui at Beijing's request.

In 2014 China issued notices for 100 Chinese fugitive officials living overseas.

Beijing's campaign of cracking down on corruption has not abated, and it is willing to sacrifice its reputation on the world stage to take down senior officials, as Meng was also vice-minister of public security in China.

Meng's last message to his wife was an emoji of a knife

His disappearance would have been kept quiet longer if it wasn't for his wife reporting him missing to the French police. It shows that no one -- not even the first Chinese national to head Interpol -- is safe from being investigated, and that domestic issues trump international ones.

Grace Meng, his wife, showed the authorities and the media her last communication with her husband. He told her to wait for his call and then posted an emoji of a knife, hinting danger.

Did he know what would happen if he went back to China? Or did he only find out the moment he landed?

There are too many questions, but one thing is for sure -- it doesn't matter how high up you are, if you have allegedly done something wrong, you will be taken down.

Mysterious Circumstances, Mysterious Death

HNA group chairman Wang Jian died while visiting France

Just what happened to HNA group chairman Wang Jian?

It's shocking to hear the 57-year-old was posing on a wall in the small village of Bonnieux in Provence, France, when he fell 15 metres and then died from his injuries.

He was apparently trying to pose for a photograph when he fell from the wall that overlooked a cliff. He tumbled 10 to 15 metres to the rocks below.

Wang and Chen Feng set up the regional airline, HNA

Definitely not a good way to go.

It's an unfortunate time for Wang to pass away when his company, HNA is feeling the pressure from the Chinese government to shed its acquisitions that have been bought on ever increasing debt.

When Wang started HNA with co-founder Chen Feng, the company was a small regional airline based in Hainan province. From there it somehow managed to leverage its assets to become a conglomerate with assets worth and staggering US$230 billion.

Wang was apparently the mastermind behind all these deals, including a 25 percent stake in Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, and four plots of land in Kai Tak it bought at record prices. It had planned to use some of the land to build housing for its staff.

The company also bought a luxury home on the Peak now worth around HK$550 million and is hoping to use it as collateral to pay off some of its debts. Who wants to underwrite that deal?

HNA bought four plots of land at Kai Tak at record prices

HNA even attempted to buy the hedge fund business set up by Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director, but the deal was thwarted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an intergovernmental panel that reviews overseas acquisitions of American companies.

But those ambitious dreams are over now that HNA has had to shed these acquisitions as fast as it it has bought them in the first place.

Also questionable are some of the public listed companies under HNA. Seven of those companies have had their shares suspended for months, pending on what the parent group said was a restructuring.

Then HNA said the companies would resume trading on June 9, but since then the company has not announced any new changes to its business and the shares remain suspended.

There are still questions around who really owns HNA. Wang and Chen each own a 15 percent stake, there's another mysterious shareholder, Guan Jun, who has transferred his 30 percent stake of the company into a charitable trust that was set up in New York.

Guo Wengui has claimed HNA has bribed officials

Why would he donate his shares to a charity called Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation?

Fugitive billionaire Guo Wengui has been posting images and documents on Twitter and YouTube, alleging that HNA has bribed government officials and given relatives of at least one senior government official a major stake in the company -- possibly through Guan.

HNA had strongly denied the allegations and vowed to file a defamation suit against Guo, who once had close ties to China's top spy agency.

What's interesting is that the media went through great lengths to verify Wang's death, calling the gendarmeries in Provence, because with the way things go with HNA, you are never quite sure if they are true or not...