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Suppose you were a truck driver. At a state-owned PetroChina gas station, the price was 5 RMBY per liter, but at Mr. Lai's private gas station, the price was only 2 RMBY per liter.

Mr. Lai Changxing (赖昌星) was an audacious businessman in Fujian Province who smuggled gasoline from abroad all the year around and sold it to China's truck drivers at very low price.

Of course, the government couldn't tolerate such a blatant provocation. In 2000, the government arrested dozens of corrupt officials and policemen, but Mr. Lai and his wife fled to Canada.

In 2011, after obtaining a guarantee of non-torture and non-execution, Canada extradited Mr. Lai back to China. To this day, many truck drivers still miss Mr. Lai's cheap gasoline.