Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Once ranked by Forbes magazine as China’s 70th richest man, Lan Shili (now a Singaporean citizen) has been jailed for using a passport that wasn’t his.
The 56-year-old — who also goes by the name of Mick Davies — had entered Singapore on July 12 using a Hong Kong Passport that bore the name of Fu Ching. According to The Straits Times, he got the passport by paying $11,336 to a Vietnamese woman, who also arranged a plane ticket for him to return back home.
His troubles began when he left Singapore for Guangzhou, China, back in February on a business trip. A purported complaint of fraud lodged by a former business partner landed him in trouble with the police. After getting released on bail, he got his passport impounded.
For three months, he stayed in China — but decided to return to Singapore when he could no longer endure threats by his business partners. On July 9, he entered Vietnam illegally by boat. In Hanoi, he tried getting a replacement travel document from the Singapore Embassy, but he was told that it would take some time to process his documents.
Wanting to get back home as fast as he could, he paid off a Vietnamese woman who arranged for his Hong Kong passport and a flight home. It was only on July 27 that Lan was arrested at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority building.
He has since been sentenced to five months in jail for making use of a foreign travel document that was not issued to him. The businessman is appealing against the sentence.
The man isn’t a stranger to getting into trouble with the law — he was sentenced to four years in jail in China for tax evasion.
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