CHINA'S Most Beautiful Internet Babe, Liu Yuqi, was detained at Beijing Capital International Airport for failing to repay her former agency RMB 4mil (S$813,600).
During the morning incident last week, the 22-year-old model was denied boarding a flight to Japan and was taken to the Daxing district court instead.
She then contacted her mother in Xuzhou, about 650km away, for help.
At about 11pm the same night, her mother arrived in Beijing to hand over RMB197,000 (S$99,000) to the court for Liu's release.
The remaining sum is to be paid by instalments.
According to the Supreme People's Court of the PRC website, Liu had signed a contract with a media entertainment company in 2006. The company was responsible to arrange jobs for her.
It was stated in the agreement that Liu could not accept any job offers on her own, failing which, she would have to pay a penalty of RMB5mil (RM2.5mil).
Liu had breached the contract after modelling for a magazine without informing the company.
The company then filed a RMB4mil lawsuit against her.
In August 2008, the court had ruled that Liu would have to pay the compensations within 10 days but she did not.
After failing to track her down, the court had issued a summon in September to prevent Liu from leaving the country.
Liu won the Most Photogenic Award at the Miss International 2006 beauty pageant contest. She was also voted "China No. 1 Beautiful Internet Girl".
Her current agent, however, said Liu was detained for her expired passport.
He said the dispute between Liu and her former agency had been settled.
--The Daily Chilli
