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Thread: China hunts fugitive commodities trader

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[quote=MARRIE,307731]But where Leeson was a highflying renegade, Liu Qibing, 36, a career Communist Party functionary, seems an unlikely maverick capitalist. Since graduating from Wuhan University in his native province of Hubei in 1990, he has worked at the National Control Centre, an institution that dates back to China's central planning days, according to a report in the China Securities Journal.

After a training stint in London, he returned to the agency in 1995. He later set up a computer network that allowed him to place trades on the London Metals Exchange from his office in Shanghai.

Liu soon amassed a reputation as a savvy navigator of the markets. According to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, he netted the state more than $300 million by betting on a sharp appreciation in the price of copper between 2002 and 2004, correctly assuming that the country's construction boom would translate into escalating demand.

But this year, he got it wrong, underscoring the difficulties of forecasting in an economy that is increasingly capitalist yet still subject to the often secret dictates of its Communist Party leaders.

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