Now all those of you who think that this is about the place where you do your weekly grocery shopping, you couldn’t be more wrong! This is about a Chinese banker and his very personal supermarket.
A five-episode documentary that apparently recently broadcast on Chinese state television tells the tales of Lai Xiaomin, the former head of state bad-asset manager China Huarong Asset Management Co. Ltd who was arrested in late 2018 and is currently awaiting trial on charges such as bribery and embezzlement.
Lai is said to have once commented that he would have preferred a career in politics, but since he had the job of running the asset management firm, he would ‘stay and enjoy it’.
And enjoy it he certainly did: he is rumoured to have had 100 mistresses, many of which also received management positions at Huarong subsidiaries. There was a rule of sorts: The longer a woman’s relationship with Lai, the higher the position they could get.
And he loved cash: Authorities have discovered 3 tons of cash worth some $29 million in different currencies at his properties in Beijing. In the documentary Lai confesses to drive banknotes by tone trunk load to the apartments, comparing it to a trip to the supermarket.
But apparently he didn’t spend any of the money, which with 100 mistresses in itself is quite remarkable, and so the cash, the properties, the artworks etc he was given as bribes were confiscated, as were the millions he had apparently stashed away in his mother’s bank account.
Lai is most likely facing a very harsh sentence, considering the scope of his crimes, which goes to show that even crimes which pay very well ultimately don’t pay.
The grumpy older man 