The Chinese former chairman of one of England's big soccer clubs spent six months in a shadowy network of detention centers prior to his formal arrest last month on suspicion of harming the interests of a Shenzhen-listed manufacturing company, Caixin has learned.
Xia Jiantong, the erstwhile chairman of Birmingham-based Aston Villa F.C. also known as Tony Xia, was subject to "residential surveillance at a designated location," a form of extralegal detention used by Chinese authorities, from July 17 last year to his arrest on Jan. 15, according to two family members with direct knowledge of his situation.
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