From the International Herald Tribune:
They may have been small- time bankers from a provincial Chinese city, but they traveled like high rollers.
On Oct. 2, 2001, three junior Bank of China managers from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong boarded a private jet in Vancouver for a flight to Las Vegas. One of the bankers, Xu Chaofan, was in a generous mood. He tipped the flight operator more than $1,200, according to evidence that Bank of China later presented in a Hong Kong court. The bank testified that Xu then lost $2,368,400 on the tables at the Caesar’s Palace and Paris casinos.
For a man on a modest salary, this should have been a heavy financial blow. At the time, Xu and his colleagues, Yu Zhendong and Xu Guojun, were earning about $925 a month. [Full text]
See background on the case against the BoC employees from Xinhua.
