A French court on Wednesday has ordered the confiscation of nine chateaux in Bordeaux owned by Chinese property tycoon Qu Naijie, following his conviction for laundering allegedly more than US$30 million funds from the Chinese government.
Qu, Founder of Chinese conglomerate Haichang Group, was also sentenced to a suspended three-year jail term and fined one million euros ($1.1 million), according to AFP.
According to local French reports, the confiscated chateaux and other assets totaling an estimated 35.5 million euros. This marks the third largest penalty in such case, following the convictions of Teodorin Obiang, the son of the Guinean president, and Rifaat el-Assad, the uncle of the Syrian president.
The 63-year-old tycoon became a target of French investigations after Chinese authorities at National Audit Office (NAO) named his company Haichang Group for embezzling RMB 268 million (US$37 million) of public funds to buy chateaux in 2014.
A recluse and fiercely private entrepreneur, Qu built his fortune from oil trading in his hometown and China’s port city Dalian. His business then quickly expanded into real estate, property development, theme park and shipping, but Qu always had a soft spot for wine.
He imported Bordeaux’s famous wine and dine festival to his hometown Dalian and planted hundreds of acres of Bordeaux vines in the port city.
His thirst for wine then led him into a buying spree in Bordeaux between 2010 and 2013. During these years, he bought over 20 Bordeaux estates at the height of massive Chinese investments in the region led by billionaire Jack Ma, Pan Shutong and movie star Zhao Wei. Known to many Bordelais as “Mr Dalian,” he has come to epitomize the outpouring of Chinese money in Bordeaux.
As the investigation later reveals that the wineries were bouthgt in the name of Qu’s wife in Hong Kong via a series of elaborately named shell companies in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.
The chateaux are Chateau L’Enclos, Chateau Baby, Chateau Chenu-Lafitte, Chateau Branda, Chateau Grand Branet, Chateau Laurette, Chateau Thebot, and Chateau Millaud Montlabert.
Qu is still listed on Haichang Group, and serves as Chairman, Executive Director and CEO of Haichang Ocean Park Holding, a publicly listed company in Hong Kong valued at over HK$925 million.
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