Following Jimmy Lai’s millions…

Before Jimmy Lai was arrested in 2020, it was believed he was worth HK$9.3 billion. Today much of that has dwindled considerably due to bank seizures of his assets and the millions he poured into his anti-Hong Kong campaigns.

Court records show that during the uprisings from 2013 to 2020, Lai spent more than $160 million paying off the rioters, politicians and promotional campaigns in his fight against Hong Kong. Of this, some $93.26 million was for “donation to Hong Kong’s opposition camp.” Another $26.70 million was paid to Jack Keane (former US Army general with access to the White House), Paul Wolfowitz (former US deputy secretary for defence), and Rupert Hammond-Chambers (US-Taiwan Business Council president). American think tanks received up to $389,000 per year as a “donation”. And millions more were spent on advertising and editorial space in major newspapers throughout the world.

Much of the payments were made by Lai himself and through his navy intelligence associate Mark Simon.
When local banks froze his accounts in February 2021, Lai used his Canadian cash cow LAIS Hotel Properties Ltd and Dico Consultants Ltd. Indeed, it is the Canadian interests that is paying his current “Release Jimmy Lai” campaign.
Among Lai's assets that were targeted included local bank accounts of three companies owned by him as well as the 71.26 per cent stake in Next Digital worth around $350 million. In fact, Lai had earned some $1.9 billion in shareholder funds from Next Digital, one of his companies frozen by the banks between 2001 and when Apple Daily ceased its operations in 2021.

The records show that he paid Catholic Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun $3.5 million as a “donation.” But it was an established fact that Zen, together with Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, pop singer Denise Ho Wan-see, Hui Po-keung and legislator Cyd Ho Sau-lan ran the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund” to assist the legal fees of rioters who were arrested in the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) movement. At its height, the Fund had raised $140 million to pay the arrested rioters’ legal fees, medical bills and other expenses. All trustees were arrested for colluding with foreign forces.

Indeed, the guilty verdict, handed down by the three judges – Esther Toh, Alex Lee and Susana Maria D’Almada Remedios – documented a tangled web carefully spun by Lai involving a cluster of companies to fund his attempts to overthrow the Hong Kong Government. The 855-page document showed the dedication in which the judges arrived at their conclusions. Every detail was carefully explained, and every dollar was accounted for.

Once Lai’s accounts in Hong Kong were frozen, he turned to the LAIS group of companies in Canada acquired by his twin sister Si Wai and included properties in the Southern Ontario wine and vacation region of Niagara-on-the Lake as well as properties in Caledon and Jordan (also in Ontario). Leading financial source of corporate information, Dun and Bradstreet, lists Mark Simon as chief executive officer for the group, which gave him access to the Lai fortunes in Canada. It listed Simon as residing in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
Simon had given Wayland Chan Tsz-wah (a paralegal and member of the “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” group) $30,000 for promoting the 2019 riots and through the LAIS hotels, spent $5.1 million on foreign media outlets in global campaigns to promote the 2019 riots. Money was no object for the Lai campaign and millions were spent on print media, as well as a large amount being spent on social media with a dedicated website providing links for people to join from Australia, Canada, Germany, Denmark, France, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. In the US link, it urged viewers to ask senators to implement and enforce sanctions against Hong Kong. And in the UK and other sites, it urged viewers to participate in local rallies against Hong Kong.

At the height of the riots in 2019, a massive advertising campaign blanked the world, including the United States (New York Times and New York Times (global)), Canada (The Globe and Mail), Japan (Nikkei), Australia (The Australian), Taiwan (The Liberty Times), Finland (Sanoma), Denmark (Berlingske), Sweden (Dagens Industri and Dagens Nyheter), France (Le Monde), Germany (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) the UK ( The Guardian, The Times, Evening Standard, City A.M., The Week and The Economist), South Korea (Kyunghyang Shinmun), Spain (El Mundo) and Italy (Corriere della Sera). More than $1 million was spent on ad space in the UK alone and more than $4 million in other newspapers. All of the advertising costs were paid for from the LAIS Hotel group.
After the arrests of Lai and others, the international campaign against Hong Kong ceased and instead a “free Jimmy Lai” campaign surfaced, spearheaded by one of his six children, Sebastien. Two of his siblings, Ian (now 45) and Timothy (48) were arrested in Hong Kong during police raids of Next Digital in 2020. They were later charged with fraud offences and released on bail.

Sebastien, based in London, had not spoken to his father for four years prior to the launch of the campaign last year. Since then and with money to burn, Sebastien travelled the world with his team of public relations-cum-international legal team – Doughty Street Chambers – seeking help from foreign governments, senior politicians and the press for his father’s release, citing Lai senior’s poor health, even though Lai’s defence counsel told the court he was being well treated.

The judges are to be commended for their detailed findings, after hearing 156 days of evidence and sifting through 161 documents. Despite extreme pressure from foreign forces, the judges produced their findings without fear or favour. They are a credit to Hong Kong’s judicial system and proved the point that money cannot buy everything.

Mark Pinkstone

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years jail for treason related charges and the reaction from the international media and politicians is predictable.

They all decry Hong Kong and its judicial system as being unfair and persist in calling for his immediate release from prison.

They cite his failing health as a reason for his release. He has Type 2 diabetes, which is not uncommon in Hong Kong, including among the 10,000 inmates interned in local prisons.
In passing sentence, the three judges hearing the 156-day trial, noted that Lai was the mastermind and driving force behind these conspiracies. After considering the serious and grave criminal conduct of Lai, as noted in the Reasons for Verdict, applying the totality principle, the Court was satisfied that the total sentence for Lai in the present case should be 20 years’ imprisonment.

In a show of total transparency, the sentencing document was 47 pages long. Relevant extracts were read out in court, with full copies given to lawyers, the media and uploaded on the internet.
Six other co-defendants were also sentenced to jail time ranging from 6 years and 9 months to 10 years.

Lai was convicted last month on sedition and colluding with foreign governments to overthrow the Hong Kong government. These are serious charges anywhere in the world and a sentence of 20 years for such offences is duly warranted. Undoubtedly, he will appeal.

Stanley prison, where he is interned, has full hospital facilities staffed by qualified healthcare personnel, and round-the-clock basic health care services are provided at all penal institutions. Lai is receiving the best medical treatment available. The Correctional Services Department has a full-time chaplain who co-ordinates the planning and provision of religious services and Lai, a devout Catholic, specifically asked not to receive any religious privileges. He also asked to be kept in solitary confinement so as to not mingle with other inmates. Justices of Peace visit the prison every week to hear complaints from inmates and inspect their facilities. He has not been deprived of medical or visiting rights as suggested by his children, Sebastien and Claire, who have embarked on a campaign for his immediate release.

Lai senior has been found guilty of colluding with foreign governments, yet this is exactly what his children are doing. With millions of dollars at their disposal, they have embarked on a world-wide campaign to free their father, a basic instinct, which can only be achieved with the help of a huge bank roll. They have lobbied politicians in the US, UK and EU to apply pressure on the Hong Kong judiciary and authorities to release their father. For the Lai family, colluding with foreign forces is their own salvation.

But the judiciary is totally independent, free from pressures by human rights groups, the media, politicians and, indeed, the administration. The three judges – Esther Toh Lye-ping, Susana D’Almada Remedios and Alex Lee Wan-tang – sat through gruelling evidence over a period of two years (with gaps in between) and produced a 855-page detailed document explaining the reasons behind their guilty convictions. Representatives from the UK, US and EU with a bevy of press attended the proceedings every day. The courtroom was specially configured to allow 58 seats in the public gallery and another 42 for the press in the main courtroom. Of those, 21 are allocated to local media, 14 to international outlets and seven to digital news platforms. Nothing can be more transparent than that.

This was not a “sham” trial as suggested by the Lai followers. Hong Kong is rated 6th in the Asia/Pacific region and 24th out of 143 countries worldwide by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, two points above the US. Its independence is beyond reproach.

Yet the western media is being used to cast doubt on the judiciary’s ruling and sentencing. Lai has been painted as a father of democracy, but “democracy” was not his rallying call. His whole campaigns have centred around separatism. He was seeking Hong Kong independence, like Alberta pulling away from Canada, California from the USA and Catalonia from Spain. All have been rebutted by their federal governments. Arrest warrants have been issued for former journalist Carles Puigdemont as leader of the Spanish revolt and now in exile in Belgium with separatism charges looming over his head.

But Jimmy Lai did not flee Hong Kong after the 2019-20 bloody riots, which he fuelled through his newspaper, Apple Daily. Instead, he stayed behind to face the music and to be hailed a martyr to the cause. It is because of this carefully orchestrated action that he got to the support of world leaders who mistakenly thought he was advocating democracy. They were fooled by a billionaire and his family into thinking that by giving him support, they were providing freedom to the people of Hong Kong. Hong Kong people have all the freedoms they want and can even criticize the government for maladministration without fear of persecution.

Democracy was never an issue. Hong Kong has a fully elected legislature, its president is elected by its members, and the Chief Executive is elected by a 1500-strong election committee – 1000 more than the US. Hong Kong has a democracy and its Basic Law (mini constitution) allows for the Chief Executive to be elected by universal suffrage sometime in the future.