Liu Han was born in 1965 in Guanghan, Sichuan province,[3] the middle child in a family with three sons and two daughters.

His father, Liu Zhangke (刘章科), was a veteran of the Korean War, who worked as a secondary school physics teacher after leaving the army.

[7] Hanlong also bid $1.3 billion for Sundance Resources, another Australian mining company,[8] but the deal collapsed after Liu Han was arrested in March 2013 on multiple charges.

[7] Liu Han owned more than 70 subsidiary companies with business in energy, mining, real estate, finance, and securities.

[9] Liu Wei allegedly ordered the attack, which killed three men including the rival gang boss Chen Fuwei, who had been recently released from prison.

[10] Liu Han was arrested in March 2013, only months after Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, China's paramount leader.

[11] Liu Han was found guilty on thirteen charges, including murder, running casinos and a mafia-like gang, and selling firearms.

He gained fame in China in the aftermath of the Great Sichuan earthquake of 2008, in which thousands of children died when several schools built by the state collapsed.

In contrast, the school Liu Han built withstood the quake and all of its students survived the disaster unharmed.