After he established a base for his Yuanhua group of companies in Hong Kong in 1994, according to a source in Xiamen's business community, Lai routinely handed out thousands of dollars to visiting mainland officials to ensure their loyalty. That way if one official retired or was sacked, Lai would still have ties to the subordinate who replaced him. On another occasion, when a customs officer rebuffed Lai, he arranged to have the man entertained by a prostitute at a Xiamen karaoke bar. Then he had police raid the place. But if Lai was audacious, he wasn't unique.
Smuggling is rampant up and down the Chinese coast.
As a result, many in Xiamen don't understand why Lai was singled out for investigation. It's not like smuggling drugs. Only when traders balked at paying kickbacks were they branded pirates, and imperial troops sent to punish them. Lai, too, may have thought himself too powerful to be touched. At one point his oil accounted for a sizable chunk of the Fujian market and cost half the official rate.