Citing human rights concerns, a Montenegro court has temporarily suspended the extradition of Wang Shuiming to his native China, where he faces illegal gambling charges.
Montenegro’s Constitutional Court has temporarily suspended a ruling to extradite Wang Shuiming, a man who was previously convicted in Singapore’s largest ever money laundering case and is currently wanted on separate charges in China.
In a published statement, the court said it decided to suspend the extradition of the 44-year-old to his native China on the basis of a “legitimate question” whether he could face torture or inhumane treatment at the hands of Chinese authorities.
“By suspending his extradition, the Constitutional Court did not take a final position on the merits of his allegations, but merely suspended his extradition as a temporary measure, because in the event that he is extradited and his constitutional appeal is later accepted, there would be harmful irreversible consequences and the protection of his human rights would not be effective,” the statement said.
Wanted for allegedly running illegal gambling operations in China, Wang Shuiming had previously lost an appeal to extradition at the Podgorica High Court in February.
In his appeal to the Montenegro’s Constitutional Court, he claimed he would face “inhumane” conditions in Chinese prisons, and that Montenegro’s courts had failed to conduct a serious assessment whether his extradition could lead to torture or inhumane treatment, the statement said.
Asked for further details of the case, Constitutional Court spokesperson Danilo Ajković told OCCRP’s member center, MANS, that it has requested Wang Shuiming’s case files, as well as the statements of the Appellate Court of Montenegro and the High Court in Podgorica.
He added that the case has “a priority status, which means that a judgement on the merits will be made as soon as the legal requirements are met.”
Wang Shuiming’s lawyer did not respond to MANS’ request for comment.
Wang Shuiming arrived in the Montenegrin city of Tivat on January 28, on a private jet chartered from the Maldives. Montenegrin authorities said he entered the country on a Vanuatu passport, and that he was arrested on an international warrant issued by China.
In addition to Chinese and Vanuatu citizenship, Wang Shuiming holds passports from Turkey and Cambodia.
OCCRP has not established his reasons for traveling to Montenegro, but corporate records show that he registered a real estate company in the country called Bright Sky Limited in December 2024.
That company does not appear to own any property in Montenegro. Corporate records show that Wang Shuiming has a firm in Hong Kong that owns an apartment there, which is worth more than $11 million.
He had previously been arrested in Singapore in August 2023 for his role in a money laundering syndicate that cleaned at least $2.3 billion of illicit funds from illegal gambling and online fraud in the city state. He was convicted there in May 2024, and deported from Singapore to Japan the following month.
Singaporean authorities confiscated about $147 million from him, as proceeds of crime laundered by the syndicate.
