Liu Han
{{Short description|Chinese mining tycoon, executed in February 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2015}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Liu_Han_of_Hanlong_Group.jpg
| image_size =
| name = Liu Han
| native_name = 刘汉
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1965|10|25|df=y}}
| birth_place = Guanghan, Sichuan, China
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|2|9|1965|10|25|df=y}}
| death_place = Xianning, Hubei, China
| death_cause = Execution by lethal injection{{cn|date=February 2025}}
| alma mater =
| occupation = Chairman, Hanlong Group
| known for =
| partner = Yang Xueshan (杨雪善 former wife)
| relatives = Liu Wei (brother; executed 2015)
Liu Canglong (刘沧龙 cousin)
}}
{{family name hatnote|Liu|lang=Chinese}}
Liu Han ({{zh|s=刘汉|p=Liú Hàn}}; 25 October 1965{{cite news |url=http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/sdbd/20140308/025218444442.shtml |script-title=zh:刘汉被曝窝藏珠峰系走私犯陈岷 曾勾结赖昌星 |newspaper=Sina |date=8 March 2014 |language=zh}} – 9 February 2015) was a Chinese billionaire businessman, the former chairman of the conglomerate Hanlong Group, with interests in power generation and mining. His assets were officially valued at 40 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion). He was convicted of murder, running a mafia-style gang, and many other charges, and executed in February 2015.
Early life
Liu Han was born in 1965 in Guanghan, Sichuan province,{{cite news|last1=Guo|first1=Aibing|title=Hanlong Ex-Chairman Liu Gets Death Penalty for Mafia-Like Crimes|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-23/hanlong-ex-chief-given-death-penalty-by-china-court-xinhua-says|access-date=12 February 2015|work=Bloomberg}} the middle child in a family with three sons and two daughters. His father, Liu Zhangke (刘章科), was a veteran of the Korean War, who worked as a secondary school physics teacher after leaving the army. He died in 1990. His mother, Li Wanzhen (李万珍), worked as a street vendor.{{cite news|url=http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-02-21/023929523746.shtml|script-title=zh:知情人:刘汉曾花25万让女艺人与朋友过夜|newspaper=Sina|date=21 February 2014|language=zh}}
Early career and assassination attempt
In the mid-1980s, Liu Han began buying and reselling timber, construction material, and petroleum. In the early 1990s, he started to operate gambling dens in Guanghan with his brother Liu Wei. He entered the commodity market in the mid-1990s, trading soy beans and steel between 1994 and 1997, which earned him hundreds of millions of yuan.
Liu's commodity trading resulted in a dispute with the Liaoning billionaire Yuan Baojing. Yuan lost nearly 100 million yuan and believed that it was caused by Liu's manipulation of a broker. He offered a former policeman, Wang Xing, 160,000 yuan for Liu's life. Wang in turn hired the contract killer Li Haiyang. In February 1997, Li shot at Liu twice in a Sichuan hotel but missed him. Li was captured and later sentenced to life in prison. Wang Xing then repeatedly blackmailed Yuan Baojing, who eventually hired his cousins to murder Wang in 2003. Yuan was convicted of murder and executed on 17 March 2006.{{cite news |date=18 March 2006 |title=Billionaire executed for contract murder |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-03/18/content_4315137.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015013054/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-03/18/content_4315137.htm |archive-date=15 October 2015 |access-date=12 February 2015 |newspaper=Xinhua |df=dmy-all}}
Hanlong Group
Liu Han founded Hanlong Group in 1997.{{cite news |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-08/08/content_18271439.htm |title=Liu death sentences upheld |newspaper=China Daily |date=8 August 2014 |author=Zhang Yan}} In 2000, he moved the conglomerate's headquarters from Mianyang to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Around 2002, he became associated with Zhou Bin, a son of Zhou Yongkang, then Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary and top leader of Sichuan. He built two hydroelectric stations in Ngawa in 2001. He sold the stations in 2005 for 500 million yuan to a British Virgin Islands company, which then resold them to a subsidiary of Datang Power for 2.7 billion yuan only two months later.
In 2009, Hanlong Group bought a controlling stake in Moly Mines, a Perth-based Australian mining company.{{cite news |last1=Forsythe|first1=Michael |title=China Executes Billionaire Who Ran 'Mafia-Style' Criminal Gang |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/world/asia/china-executes-billionaire-who-ran-mafia-style-criminal-gang.html |access-date=12 February 2015 |newspaper=New York Times |date=9 February 2015}} Hanlong also bid $1.3 billion for Sundance Resources, another Australian mining company,{{cite news |url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/hanlong-chief-liu-han-gets-death-sentence/story-e6frg8zx-1226929254455 |author=Scott Murdoch |title=Hanlong chief Liu Han gets death sentence |date=24 May 2014 |newspaper=The Australian |access-date=16 February 2015}} but the deal collapsed after Liu Han was arrested in March 2013 on multiple charges.
Liu Han owned more than 70 subsidiary companies with business in energy, mining, real estate, finance, and securities. His assets were officially valued at 40 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion).
Prosecution and execution
Liu Han and his brother Liu Wei attracted the attention of the central government after a January 2009 shooting at a Guanghan teahouse.{{cite news |last=Hunt |first=Katie |date=February 9, 2015 |title=China executes mining tycoon Liu Han |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/09/asia/china-tycoon-execution |work=CNN}} Liu Wei allegedly ordered the attack, which killed three men including the rival gang boss Chen Fuwei, who had been recently released from prison.{{cite news|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2014-02/20/c_133131218.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140303202648/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2014-02/20/c_133131218.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=3 March 2014|title=Details of suspected crimes by gangster-turned billionaire|date=20 February 2014|work=Xinhua}} The brothers had allegedly ordered the killing of others, including a villager who led a protest against one of their real estate projects in Mianyang, a rival gang boss in Mianyang, and an old neighbour in Guanghan.
Liu Han was arrested in March 2013, only months after Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, China's paramount leader. Xi launched an anti-corruption campaign which in its early days targeted Zhou Yongkang's associates in Sichuan. The Liu brothers were tried at the Xianning Intermediate People's Court in Hubei province, and sentenced to death in May 2014. Han was also deprived of his political rights for life, and ordered to forfeit all of his assets.{{Cite news |last=Areddy |first=James T. |date=2014-05-23 |title=Former Chinese Mining Tycoon Gets Death Sentence |language=en-US |work=Wall Street Journal |url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303749904579578851583728772.html |access-date=2022-03-26 |issn=0099-9660}} Liu Han was found guilty on thirteen charges, including murder, running casinos and a mafia-like gang, and selling firearms.{{cite news|title=China executes mining tycoon Liu Han, who had links to ex-security tsar Zhou Yongkang|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1708082/chinese-mining-tycoon-liu-han-linked-zhou-yongkang-executed?page=all|access-date=12 February 2015|work=SCMP|date=10 February 2015}} They appealed to the High People's Court of Hubei, which upheld the original sentences in August 2014. Liu Han and Liu Wei were executed on 9 February 2015, along with three associates.
Philanthropy
Until Liu Han's arrest and trial, he was best known as a philanthropist. He gained fame in China in the aftermath of the Great Sichuan earthquake of 2008, in which thousands of children died when several schools built by the state collapsed. In contrast, the school Liu Han built withstood the quake and all of its students survived the disaster unharmed. He also made major donations in the subsequent relief efforts.{{cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-corruption-liu-idUSBREA4M00820140523|title=Philanthropist, big spender, warlord: Chinese tycoon's Australian faces|date=23 May 2014|agency=Reuters|first1=Charlie|last1=Zhu|first2=David|last2=Lague}}
Personal
Liu Han had a passion for cars, and boasted that he owned 80 luxury cars. He was an avid gambler who sometimes gambled all night long. During his trial, he said he lost $128 million gambling in Macau, $15 million in the United States, and millions more in Singapore and Australia.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/special/liuhan/ Phoenix News special report on Liu Han] {{in lang|zh}}
- [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-execution-of-chinese-mining-millionaire-liu-han-2015-2 Profile], businessinsider.com; accessed 16 February 2015.
{{CPCCorruption2013}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Han}}
Category:Businesspeople from Sichuan
Category:Billionaires from Sichuan
Category:21st-century Chinese criminals
Category:Chinese male criminals
Category:Chinese people convicted of murder
Category:Executed people from Sichuan
Category:21st-century executions by China
Category:Chinese white-collar criminals
Category:Executed People's Republic of China people