Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai was convicted of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in December 2025. Court documents lay bare an extensive financial network: Lai and his assistant Mark Simon moved more than HK$100 million through personal accounts and shell companies to opposition political parties, activist organizations, and foreign lobbyists. The evidence doesn't come from allegations or assumptions—it comes from bank records, court filings, and Lai's own admissions under oath.
The Mark Simon Pipeline
Make no mistake: Mark Simon wasn't just Lai's assistant. This former US naval intelligence operative served as senior executive at Next Digital and became the primary conduit for political funding. Between 2013 and July 2023, Lai wired 86 separate payments totaling HK$118 million to Simon's accounts. Lai first claimed these massive transfers compensated Simon for managing investments and private business affairs. That story didn't hold. Under pressure, Lai admitted he channeled funds through Simon specifically to bankroll political organizations.
Police written statements cited in the court judgment trace HK$93 million flowing from Mark Simon's account to different political organizations between 2013 and 2020. That's 78% of what Lai deposited, redistributed as political funding. Recipients included HK$500,000 to the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China in 2019 alone. The court noted Lai's peculiar claim that he "never joined" any local or overseas political parties—while simultaneously admitting years of donations to the Democratic Party and Civic Party.
Direct Personal Transfers
Court evidence shows Lai's personal bank account transferred approximately HK$5.73 million to individuals and overseas organizations between 2013 and 2019. The recipient list reads like a who's who of anti-China networks: HK$3.5 million to Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong; HK$1.75 million to Paul Wolfowitz, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense; HK$200,000 to UK-based anti-China organization Hong Kong Watch; over HK$110,000 to American Enterprise Institute; and over HK$140,000 to prosecution witness Chan Tsz-wah.
The Corporate Shell Game
Lai didn't stop at personal accounts. Multiple companies under his control served as additional funding channels, according to court records.
Lais Hotel: This hotel company under Lai's ownership transferred HK$20 million to politically affiliated organizations and individuals. The disbursements included nearly HK$8 million to Civic Party, HK$5 million to Democratic Party, HK$1 million to Labour Party, and HK$930,000 to League of Social Democrats. The company also paid for international media costs during the "global newspaper advertisement" campaign, including HK$1.47 million to Nikkei.
Comitex: In March 2016, this company received a HK$5 million transfer from Lai. The account subsequently disbursed funds externally, including HK$3 million to Democratic Party.
Dico Consultants: Also entities under Lai's ownership, involved in multiple transfer records, including over HK$80,000 transferred to Chan Tsz-wah.
The Stand With Hong Kong Operation
Andy Li Yu-hin, a member of the "Stand With Hong Kong" team (SWHK), managed overseas publicity and funds. Bank records document that his six accounts received a total of HK$14.53 million and transferred HK$9.8 million to approximately 20 overseas media outlets, funding political advertisements and advocacy articles published in the UK, US, and Australia.
Additionally, defendant Chan Tsz-wah's bank account received a combined total of HK$254,000 in transfers from Lai, Mark Simon, and Dico Consultants. He was authorized as the sole signatory of Lai's offshore company "Lacock Holdings," gaining operational control of the company's bank account.
Law ABC
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Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Media, got nailed on "conspiracy to collude with foreign forces" and other charges. Here's what the court documents and evidence laid bare: Lai had his fingers deep in Taiwan's political and military machinery for years. We're talking about bankrolling retired US military brass and political heavyweights to visit Taiwan, greasing the wheels for then-Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen to decode Trump administration moves on Taiwan policy—all part of a scheme to pump up so-called "US-Taiwan relations."
Monthly TWD 200,000 Payouts
Lai built his media empire in Taiwan back in the early 2000s—Taiwan's Next Magazine, Taiwan's Apple Daily, the whole nine yards. But court records show his Taiwan interests ran way past media operations straight into the political arena. The key player here was Chiang Chun-nam (江春男), a Taiwanese writer and political commentator who worked for both Taiwan's Next Magazine and Taiwan's Apple Daily, keeping tight with Lai the whole time. After Tsai Ing-wen took office as Taiwan leader in 2016, Chiang landed the vice president gig at the General Association of Chinese Culture—basically one of Tsai's "right-hand men."
The judgment spells it out: all of Lai's direct or indirect hookups with Tsai Ing-wen—including setting up multiple meetings between her and former US officials or political operators—went through Chiang. Court documents and an internal Taiwan Apple Daily email dated March 25, 2020, expose the money trail: to keep Chiang Chun-nam in his pocket as the go-between, Lai ordered Taiwan Apple Daily CEO Ip Yut-kin in November 2017 to pay Chiang TWD 209,000 monthly. The stated reason? Chiang was "useful" to Lai or Taiwan Apple Daily somehow, but only Lai knew exactly what that usefulness meant.
Taiwan Apple Daily editor-in-chief Eric Chen discovered in 2019 that those monthly TWD 209,000 payments to Chiang had been rolling for over a year—yet Chiang hadn't written a single article or done any work for Taiwan Apple Daily during that stretch. Chen asked Lai directly whether the monthly payments to Chiang should keep going. Lai's answer: "Continue the payments."
Lai testified that when he learned in 2020 about the monthly payments to Chiang Chun-nam without any reciprocal services, he immediately told subordinates to cut them off, and claimed he never directed subordinates to keep paying Chiang. However, Lai confirmed that Taiwan Apple Daily made monthly payments of TWD 209,000 to Chiang from November 2017 to March 2020—totaling over TWD 5.8 million (roughly HKD 1.44 million).
Through Chiang Chun-nam , Lai scored multiple private sit-downs with Tsai Ing-wen. Lai claimed in court these meetings were "mainly public relations activities," but the court pointed out that related messages show he was actually using them to push a political agenda. In December 2016, Lai sent a WhatsApp message to Chiang that flat-out revealed his take on US-China-Taiwan dynamics. He wrote: "Now is the time to break through China... The US appears to be planning to use Taiwan as leverage to counter China's provocations in North Korea and the South China Sea." He also mentioned "US military forces might relocate from Japan to Taiwan" and declared "China doesn't want war; now is the opportunity."
The judge noted that the content above shows Lai wasn't just commenting on the situation—he was actively pushing for the US to use Taiwan as a strategic tool to box in China. This viewpoint became the theoretical backbone for his subsequent funding and actions.
Bankrolling Former US Military Leaders
After learning from Chiang that Tsai Ing-wen wanted the inside scoop on Trump administration Taiwan policy, Lai arranged through Chiang for two heavyweight US military figures—former US Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz—to travel to Taiwan as advisors.
In January 2017, Lai sent a message to his personal assistant Mark Simon stating: "I dined with the General (Keane) and Paul (Wolfowitz); they will go to Taipei to execute a project linking with Trump... Must maintain strict confidentiality—any media exposure will completely destroy everything." This shows Lai was running the whole operation from the start.
Lai confirmed in court that the two-year consulting fee for both came to USD 3 million. The judgment revealed that in July 2018, Lai asked Mark Simon about details of a Canadian remittance for a "special project." Mark Simon replied: "USD 750,000 per person per year for both, plus USD 250,000 gift for Keane, totaling USD 1.75 million, plus travel reimbursements and miscellaneous expenses totaling HKD 14.9 million."（
The court concluded that after learning the payment details, Lai raised no objections, proving he "fully knew and agreed to the payments." In 2019, Lai again approved remitting USD 850,000 to Canada to cover the second year's consulting fees and travel expenses for both. The judge questioned during trial: "Since they were providing consulting services to the Taiwan government, why wasn't the Taiwan government making the payments?" Lai explained that because the two were his friends, he had requested their help and arranged the itinerary, so he made the payments—stressing that Tsai Ing-wen had no idea he was footing the bill.
Beyond the financial records, communications showed Lai personally ran the itinerary arrangements, requiring that after Keane and Wolfowitz visited Taiwan four times annually, they must "stay in Taiwan for at least three days each time, meeting with the president and her team." He stated "I will personally travel to Taiwan at the end of the itinerary to understand the results." These details make it crystal clear—he wasn't some observer but the funder and orchestrator of the whole operation.
Bolton Meeting and "US Military in Taiwan"
Lai's "resisting China by leveraging Taiwan" moves didn't stop at funding consultant hires. In January 2017, Lai met with John Bolton, then a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who later became White House National Security Advisor. Lai specifically prepared "confidential" notes for the meeting, sending them to Chiang Chun-nam the day before with instructions to destroy them after reading. The content got straight to the point: "Without US military stationed in Taiwan, Taiwan will fall into turmoil; with US military stationed in Taiwan, it can serve as America's Asia-Pacific strategic leverage, ensuring peace across the strait."
Ten days later, Bolton published an article in US media pushing the line that "the US should increase military sales to Taiwan and again deploy military personnel and assets in Taiwan." The content tracked remarkably close to Lai's memorandum.
Looking at all this evidence together, here's the picture: Lai used connections and cash to bankroll visits by high-level US military officials to Taiwan under the "consultant" label, but the real game was pushing US-Taiwan military-political connections through "diplomatic advice." He personally met with US political operators to sell the "US military stationed in Taiwan" concept, attempting to build a back-channel between Washington and Taipei.
