Since Rick barker is in the news again it is timely to re-visit the Bill Liu case.
For those not familiar with interesting story Bill Liu is also known as Yong Ming Yan, Yang Liu and William Yan. He duped numerous MPs into supporting his application for NZ Citizenship including Dover Samuels, Rick Barker, Shane Jones, Chris Carter and Pansy Wong.
He was arrested in June 2009 and is currently facing 12 charges relating to false declarations on his immigration papers, having false passports and using deception to gain citizenship.
Via the Whaleoil tipline some more interesting information has come to light. But first a little reminder of how all those Labour MPs are linked to Bill Liu.
He was granted citizenship in a VIP ceremony in Wellington last year after lobbying from former Labour MP Dover Samuels, who regards him as a close friend.
Rick Barker, the then Internal Affairs Minister charged with approving citizenship applications, was also on the list of politicians who knew Yan. Because of this, he passed the file to another minister, Shane Jones.
Mr Jones overruled Internal Affairs advice that Liu – now Yan – did not meet character requirements and granted him citizenship.
These guys aren’t talking and the reason why they aren’t talking is that contrary to the sanitised official and labour Party that Bill Liu donated $5000 to Labour the real sums involved are far greater than that. Along with further information obtained the via the tipline may have revealed the real reason behind the pathological pursuit of a New Zealand passport.
Bill Liu was essentially trapped in New Zealand after Chinese officials canceled his travel documents, but like most Chinese businessmen based out of Hong Kong they have an official wife and a mainland mistress. the mainland mistress though can’t travel so there is trade in obtaining passports for themselves, but more importantly for their Mainland Chinese mistresses so they can travel with them.
As Investigate magazine at the time showed, Bill Liu was a man without an home and so he set about trying and ultimately succeeding in buying a New Zealand passport. The problem lies though with the sums involved and the heavy involvement of many Labour MPs and Shane Te Pou, a Labour party activist.
From TGIF we learn that Shane Te Pou, another person who also uses another name, Shane Phillips;
Tonight, TGIF Edition can also reveal that one of Yongming’s former associates in this country – Shane Phillips – was a Labour Party campaign manager, and his brother Daniel Phillips works in the office of Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones – the man who gave ‘Bill Liu’ citizenship against the recommendations of officials who’d investigated his background.
All the information to date suggests that Shane Te Pou was the facilitator of Bill Liu’s approach to obtaining a New Zealand passport. He was also the bagman collecting the money for the Labour Party. Now this is where it gets real interesting and starts causing real problems for Dover Samuels, Chris Carter and in particular for Rick Barker and definitely for Shane Jones.
My informant tells me that the sums involved are far greater than a couple of donations of $5000 to various MP’s and in fact total around around $500,000 spread out over several years and laundered to the Labour Party via Shane Te Pou.
My informant also very specific about several locations and meeting including a birthday party where Mr Liu got very agitated about how much money he had paid over and why hadn’t his applications been approved yet. All of these agitated meetings and demands were performed in front of numerous witnesses.
Rick Barker was one of the first to sniff a rat but not before he had stayed several times in Bill Liu’s luxury Metropolis apartment. Barker at the time was the Minister of Internal Affairs and he was sticking with his officials and the Immigration Minister’s offical decisions that Bill Liu was a significant risk. Helen Clark changed the game first though with a ministerial shuffle.
Shane Jones was now the key player being the Associate Immigration Minister and it was him that approved Bill Liu’s passport and NZ Citizenship.
There is supposed to be an inquiry into all this through immigration but we are yet to hear th results of that. But a second informant has told me that $500,000 is quite cheap for the trade in passports and though Bill Liu thought he had paid quite enough for his passport the greedy little piggies at the Labour party were playing him. That is when the argument in front of many witnesses occured with Liu demanding his passport pronto.
My second informant tells me for example that St Kitts in the Caribbean sells passports for much more, especially for rich Hong Kong Chinese trying to also get one for the mainland mistress.
St Kitts offers what they call economic citizenship, essentially dual citizenship but at a price far higher than the cheapskates at the Labour Party were trying to sell passports to wanted international money laundering criminals.
The Economic Citizenship Programme for St. Kitts and Nevis was established in 1984 and provides the following benefits :-
• Citizenship for life, for applicant and all eligible family members.
• Dual Citizenship is permitted, without the requirement to notify the applicants home country, and without any need for the applicant to reside in St. Kitts/Nevis.
• Passports will be issued to the applicant an all eligible family members, and may be easily renewed.
• Visa-Free Travel to approximately 80 countries including :- Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and most British commonwealth countries. When a visa is required, they are also relatively easy to obtain.
• Full Residency Status and the right to work in St. Kitts/Nevis
• Tax Free Status on foreign income, capital gains, gift, wealth and inheritance tax
Requirements
An application requires a non-refundable cash payment of US$35,000 for a single applicant plus US$15,000 for each dependent, plus a US$2,000 fee for a background check on any person included in the application, who is over 18 years of age.
In addition to the above fees are the associated legal fees which will vary depending on the number of persons included in the application, but are usually in the region of US$15,000.
Additionally, the applicant must invest a minimum of US$350,000 in government designated real estate, among which there are some excellent real estate developments. Please note that the investment required was increased by the government from the old level of US$250,000 in late 2006. The total financial cost of economic citizenship for a single person in St. Kitts is therefore approx US$400,000.
So as you can see the $500,000 that Bill Liu had coughed to Labour was far cheaper than the other favoured passport of the rich and famous Chinese looking for a passport for their mainland mistresses.
This all makes the case of Bill Liu very, very interesting. Chasing a Kiwi passports so he can travel and probably also trying to get one for his mainland mistress, on the run from the Chinese government for money laundering a at the same time over 4 years coughing via Shane Te Pou around $500,000 to the Labour Party.
There are many, many questions that remain unanswered after all this time and now with Rick Barker in trouble again I think it is time that He and Shane Jones and Chris Carter start telling the truth for just once in their miserable corrupt little lives.
