Irish executive barred from leaving China over jet-leasing row
SENIOR Irish aviation leasing executive Richard O’Halloran has been barred from leaving China by Shanghai police for almost a year, the Sunday Independent has learnt.
Sources said the Foxrock businessman had been caught up in a complicated situation involving the Chinese owner of the Dublin-based leasing firm that he works for “through absolutely no fault of his own”.
The Sunday Independent understands that senior members of the Government and consular officials have been working closely with Mr O’Halloran’s family in trying to secure his return to Ireland.
Mr O’Halloran, the son of a well-known Dublin architect and a relation of former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, is not allowed to leave the country but is allowed to leave the Shanghai hotel in which he is staying.
A spokesman for Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said: “The Tanaiste is aware of the case but we cannot comment on consular matters.”
Mr O’Halloran, a director of Dublin-registered China International Aviation Leasing Service Ltd (CALS), had travelled to China 11 months ago, about six months after Chinese businessman Min Jiedong, the chairman and owner of CALS, was detained by authorities in Shanghai.
Min’s detention was reported to have been connected to a number of interrelated financial companies that he operated and part of an ongoing crackdown by Chinese authorities into so-called peer-to-peer lending, whereby money is raised from the public online to fund the purchase of assets with the promise of an investment return.
The Chinese embassy in Ireland issued a statement to the Sunday Independent that named Min Jiedong as the owner of CALS and claimed that he “is suspected to have illegally collected money from Chinese public, and bought an airplane abroad. The airplane is leased to a European aviation company.”
The statement from the embassy claimed that CALS had “once promised to transfer the assets and leasing revenues” to its parent company in China “but up to now… failed to do so.”
“The Shanghai police restricts Mr O’Halloran’s departure from China by law,” the embassy said. “The personal freedom of Mr O’Halloran within China is fully guaranteed.”
At the time of Min Jiedong’s detention, CALS had been in the process of buying a Boeing 737 leased to Lion Air by a Dubai company. It had paid a $2m (€1.8m) deposit loaned to it by a company connected to the Chinese businessman, financial accounts state.
The deal was abandoned after Min was detained by authorities in Shanghai and the latest accounts for the company said “the board are currently in discussion in relation to the refund of the deposit”.
Companies related to Min had also loaned money to pay the $2m deposit for an earlier deal to buy an Airbus NEO leased to Finnair that CALS intended to buy from a Cayman company, according to CAL’s accounts posted in the Companies Registration Office in Dublin.
‘The personal freedom of Mr O’Halloran within China is guaranteed’