50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 587 Pursuing stolen goods
Once the corruption network of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was fully understood, the amount of money they embezzled became clear.

At the top level are six committee members, each of whom receives no less than $500 million in illegal income annually.

Upon learning the amount, Sun Zhiwei was quite surprised, not because it was too much, but because it was too little.

They are members of the Management Committee, which is equivalent to being one of the top leaders.

They have so many businesses under their control. Even if each one contributes an average of $1 a month, it would still amount to more than that in a year.

But the six of them combined only earned $3000 million a year. What's the point of continuing? They might as well quit and start their own business.

After repeated confirmation, he was certain that the number was accurate and that the recorder had not made a mistake.

That only proves that those committee members of the management bureau are completely incompetent at making money, and the lion's share has been taken by their subordinates. They are incredibly stupid.

While Sun Zhiwei was purging corrupt officials, he was also conducting asset inventory for his subordinate units.

This is of utmost importance, because once a unit is identified in the inventory, that unit can enter the privatization process.

Instead of handing over the corrupt officials who have been detained to the court for prosecution, he has relaxed their communications controls.

Soon, the detainees were able to contact their respective families.

As a result, more calls began to be made to Sun Zhiwei's temporary command post.

These calls included pleas for leniency, threats, and inducements; each call was an attempt to rescue one or more people from him.

Sun Zhiwei rejected all of these calls and declared that he would send all the corrupt officials to Rikers Island prison.

Eventually, even some of Cuomo's staff were persuaded to come to him demanding the man back. A week later, even Cuomo himself was forced into a corner and made several phone calls to him.

At that point, he knew the time was right, and then he called Cuomo, reluctantly agreeing to give these people a chance to change their ways.

However, to avoid prosecution, they must return the embezzled funds and pay double the fine.

According to his current tally of all embezzled funds, the total amount exceeds 500 million yuan, of which 200 million yuan has already been recovered.

If he can recover all the debts and receive double the fine, he will have a total of $15 billion before he even begins to divest his subsidiaries.

He will then take a portion of this money and hand it over to the state government in order to continue to receive its support.

Cuomo is short of money right now, and once this money arrives, everyone will shut up.

The day after Sun Zhiwei had Cuomo release the information, the family members of corrupt officials came with money to ransom their prisoners.

The first wave included those six committee members. They weren't the ones who embezzled the most money, but they were also the unluckiest. Fortunately, they each had some savings, so dealing with the fines wasn't too difficult.

After confirming over the phone that the finance department had received the full amount of the fine, Sun Zhiwei handed each of them a letter of understanding personally signed by him, and then they all slunk away from the Twin Towers.

As more and more people accepted their punishments and left, the others gradually became restless and started making phone calls.

It wasn't until a month later that the last corrupt official managed to raise enough money to redeem himself.

Thus, Sun Zhiwei's first battle in taking over the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was a resounding success. He not only secured a substantial sum of money but also purged a large number of powerful figures within the Authority, clearing the way for the Authority's next step of asset divestiture.

That same day, Sun Zhiwei transferred the first tranche of $5 million from the administration's account to the state government.

This is the embezzled money that was uncovered by those corrupt officials. He is certain that there is still a lot that has not been uncovered, but that is no longer important.

He's not here specifically to investigate a case; he'll just go through the motions. If he pushes too hard, he's afraid someone might do something desperate.

These past few days, he has been living and eating in the Twin Towers, surrounded by National Guard soldiers, with the space open 24 hours a day, striving to ensure that he is always invincible.

After more than a month of calculations, the first batch of 40 assets to be divested has been prepared.

A significant portion of these assets had already been reserved by the staff using their priority rights, and Sun Zhiwei was also allocated a priority purchase right among these assets.

The so-called priority purchase is not just about setting targets in advance, but also about discounts on the purchase amount.

For example, the LaGuardia Airport, which Sun Zhiwei had long coveted, had its purchase price reduced from $8000 million to $5000 million after Sun Zhiwei recalculated the costs.

If you factor in the 6% discount for priority rights, the actual amount he would have to pay is only $3000 million.

The first wave of harvest is about to arrive, and all his hard work will not have been in vain.

Soon, news of the auction of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority's assets spread from the state government.

In fact, more than 20 of the 40 projects have already been pre-booked with the purchase price confirmed, and the remaining projects have also found interested buyers.

When Sun Zhiwei sent out invitations, he did so in a targeted manner; not just anyone could receive an invitation to the auction.

Having money isn't enough; you also need connections in the state government to get an invitation to this lavish feast of spoils.

On the day of the auction, out of more than 100 people present, there were only about 50 genuine buyers. Everyone had their own target and did not bid randomly in order to offend others.

Of course, since it was an auction, it couldn't be too ugly, so Sun Zhiwei sent a lot of shills to bid from below to create a lively atmosphere.

Even the LaGuardia Airport that Sun Zhiwei booked would go through an auction process, with Tong Jiajia acting as his representative, responsible for bidding from the sidelines.

But he can guarantee that everyone will eventually get the items they need at the predetermined price.

Although this auction was just a formality, Sun Zhiwei wanted to ensure procedural fairness. No matter what transactions took place privately, everything that was brought to the table had to be presented in a glamorous manner.

Because he organized this auction, which would become part of his resume, he would not allow it to leave a stain on his political record.

The morning passed quickly, and the auction officially ended at noon. All 40 lots sold successfully, and the total auction amount reached US$1.44 billion, a resounding success.

The money will be transferred to the state government's account after the auction to support the state's economic improvement plan.

As a result of this operation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey successfully reduced its size by 30% and its monthly fixed expenses by 60%.

(End of this chapter)