Citizen Yan’s charmed LIFE

Jared Savage unravels the tangled saga of millionaire William Yan, sentenced to home detention yesterday for money laundering

Tony Lentino drove to dinner in a Toyota Hilux. He left in a Rolls Royce. The internet entrepreneur was in business with Kim Dotcom and wanted out.

Lentino helped kick-start Mega, Dotcom’s online encryption service, but wanted to sell his shares after falling out with the German.

“Bill”, as Lentino knew him, wanted to invest so invited him for dinner at his penthouse apartment on the 35th floor of the Metropolis tower in central Auckland.

“He pulls out the Penfolds Grange,” Lentino would later tell police, referring to the celebrated red wine.

“I’ve always wanted a drop of that, I wasn’t going to say no, $800 bottle of wine.”

Dinner conversation eventually turned to business and a deal where Bill — Bill Liu, officially William Yan on his passport — would buy Lentino’s stake in Mega.

At the end of the discussion, Lentino says Yan asked him: “You want one of my cars to take home?”

They went to the basement and Yan offered Lentino to take his pick — a Porsche, a Bentley or the Rolls Royce.

Lentino already had a Porsche and his mother liked Rolls Royces.

“Yeah, I’ll take the Rolls Royce, that will be good,” Lentino told police he replied. “I got home at 2am and showed my wife, she couldn’t believe it . . . and that’s how it started.”

The Rolls Royce was valued at $400,000, as part of the $4.2 million for Lentino’s 6 per cent stake.

But when it came time to sign the deal, the shares were to be split into two parcels: one in the name of Zhao Wu Shen, a close friend of Yan, and a trust company.

It was the third transaction where Yan had been quietly buying into Mega — nothing was in his name, but he now controlled 18.8 per cent.

Yan was a “tough bugger” to negotiate with, says Lentino, who was uncomfortable with how the deal was structured until his accountant explained it was unusual, but not illegal.

“He’s a smart businessman and hides things here and there, or whatever,” Lentino told police, describing Yan as the “invisible CEO” of the company.

“It’s the nature of Bill, you know he’s obviously doing a deal and . . . doing it for a reason. He’s doing it for gain.”

The man of many names

Lentino, who has since died of cancer, was talking to detectives from the Asset Recovery Unit, based in Hamilton, who believed Yan was disguising his assets for another reason.

They had raided his Metropolis home in August 2014 and seized around $40m of assets, on the grounds he was an “economic fugitive” wanted for fraud in China.

With his partner Vienna You, police alleged Yan had slipped millions of dollars of stolen money into New Zealand through “large-scale money laundering transactions”.

“Police believe that Yan and You have accumulated a substantial asset base in New Zealand and are concealing the true ownership of those assets by registering or purchasing the assets in the names of associates, using the assistance of professionals and other persons mentioned in this affidavit,” said Detective Inspector Bruce Good.

The allegations of fraud in China have dogged Yan for years; the 45-year-old always vigorously denied them.

Yan says he made his fortune legitimately and the two identities he came to New Zealand with, Yong Ming Yan and Yang Liu, are valid because he was fostered out by his birth parents in China for a short time.

Both sets of parents registered him as part of their household with different names and dates of birth, says Yan, and the Chinese Government considers him an