A Chinese mine manager convicted earlier this month by the Lae District court over a shooting in Lae at Eriku’s residential area was sentenced to three-years imprisonment.
Senior Magistrate, Nasaling Bingtau said Li Dezhang, the General Manager of Guancai Mining Limited, will serve three years at the Buimo Prison. Dezhang will then be deported to China after serving his term.
Li Dezhang moved to the Papua New Guinea shortly after serving a prison sentence in China for a series of violent extortions, according to Chinese legal records.
Li Dezhang, 56, was found guilty by Lae’s District Court in Morobe Province on May 1st for unlicensed possession of a firearm, unlawful discharge, and assault over a mid-April incident in which he fired a Chinese-made pistol at another Chinese citizen who had confronted him about unpaid bills.
Li had worked as a manager of Guangcai Mining Limited, which operated three unlicensed gold mines in Bulolo, Morobe Province, which had been the subject of complaints of environmental destruction from the local communities.
Earlier this month, immigration authorities and police detained 19 workers at one of the company’s mines and deported most of them after finding that they didn’t have the proper work permits, according to Lae’s police commander, Chief Superintendent Chris Kunyanban.
Li was responsible for bringing the illegally employed workers into the country, Kunyanban said.
Before his arrival in PNG, Li already had a criminal history in China for a series of offenses he had committed in West Africa, according to Chinese court documents.
Li was arrested in Ghana and repatriated to China in early 2020 for using violent threats to extort a casino investor in the country out of 100,000 cedi (about $7,400), as well as the kidnapping and assault of another man who owed him a debt, according to announcements from a court in Li’s home province of Guangxi.
He served just over three years in prison and was released in early 2023, court records show.
Records in a separate civil case also show that Li was successfully sued for fraud in China for failing to deliver paid-for mining equipment to clients in Ghana.
Environmental destruction from mining has long been a public concern in resource-rich PNG.
PNG Immigration Minister, John Rosso told Inside PNG and OCCRP that the raid on Gunagcai’s mine earlier this month had to be done with officers that were “handpicked to avoid compromise.”
“We cannot practice double standards,” Rosso said.
“Once they are processed, anyone breaching immigration laws will be deported immediately.”
