Asia
Apr 13, 2010
China jails airline boss
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Lan was jailed for four years yesterday. He was once ranked among the richest people in China.
WUHAN - THE owner of East Star Airlines, a Chinese private carrier that went bankrupt last August, has been found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to four years' jail, Chinese media reported yesterday. The Wuhan Intermediate People's Court found Lan Shili, a China-born Singapore citizen, 50, guilty of ordering his staff to conceal more than 500 million yuan (S$102 million) of revenue to avoid paying 50 million yuan in taxes, the Shanghai Daily said.
In 2006, Lan was named by Forbes as the 97th richest person on the Chinese mainland with assets worth 2.4 billion yuan. In that same year, he was also ranked the richest person in central China's Hubei province, where he was born. Between May 2006 and February last year, the tax bureau in Wuhan's Huangpi district, where East Star is headquartered, had repeatedly ordered the airline to pay up, but the carrier rebuffed the bureau, citing a shortage of funds, according to court documents.
Set up in December 2005 with a registered capital of 80 million yuan, East Star Airlines was jointly owned by a real estate company, a travel agency and a tourism investment company - all subsidiaries of the East Star Group. Since Lan owned these companies, this meant he owned 100 per cent of East Star Airlines, the Global Times reported. East Star was China's fourth private carrier after Okay Airways, United Eagle Airlines and Spring Airlines. It flew more than 20 domestic routes linking key cities with a fleet of nine aircraft and held about 10 per cent of the market in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei province.
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.
Apr 13, 2010
China jails airline boss
<!-- by line --> <!-- end by line -->
Lan was jailed for four years yesterday. He was once ranked among the richest people in China.
WUHAN - THE owner of East Star Airlines, a Chinese private carrier that went bankrupt last August, has been found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to four years' jail, Chinese media reported yesterday. The Wuhan Intermediate People's Court found Lan Shili, a China-born Singapore citizen, 50, guilty of ordering his staff to conceal more than 500 million yuan (S$102 million) of revenue to avoid paying 50 million yuan in taxes, the Shanghai Daily said.
In 2006, Lan was named by Forbes as the 97th richest person on the Chinese mainland with assets worth 2.4 billion yuan. In that same year, he was also ranked the richest person in central China's Hubei province, where he was born. Between May 2006 and February last year, the tax bureau in Wuhan's Huangpi district, where East Star is headquartered, had repeatedly ordered the airline to pay up, but the carrier rebuffed the bureau, citing a shortage of funds, according to court documents.
Set up in December 2005 with a registered capital of 80 million yuan, East Star Airlines was jointly owned by a real estate company, a travel agency and a tourism investment company - all subsidiaries of the East Star Group. Since Lan owned these companies, this meant he owned 100 per cent of East Star Airlines, the Global Times reported. East Star was China's fourth private carrier after Okay Airways, United Eagle Airlines and Spring Airlines. It flew more than 20 domestic routes linking key cities with a fleet of nine aircraft and held about 10 per cent of the market in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei province.
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.
