Lai missing home, may come back

Lai Changxing, China's most-wanted fugitive, might get a lenient sentence if he returns voluntarily after spending almost a decade hiding in Canada, Chinese legal experts said yesterday.

The 51-year-old Lai reportedly expressed his desire to return to "his motherland" during an interview with the Chinese Business View (CBV) in Vancouver, Canada, CBV reported yesterday.

"I've been under a lot of pressure in the past 10 years, both financially and mentally," said Lai, who allegedly masterminded a smuggling scheme involving $10 billion that touched off a high-profile corruption scandal in East China's Fujian province in the 1990s.