Episode 33: A Corrupt Cop’s Road To Redemption with Samuel Lai

Show Notes

Intro Music: Ventura Tyler Bates

Featured Music: 40  U2

Hi Pilgrim,

In the 1970’s Samuel was a young man on the streets of Hong Kong with a drug addiction. The drug of choice was mostly heroin but as he says in the interview some opium and LSD was part of his diet as well. Samuel made an unusual choice though to try to stop his addiction…

…He became a police officer.

But instead of helping break his addiction becoming a member of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force only fueled it. Access to drugs and money from triad gangs paid under the table was just to much temptation for the young man.

But Samuel was not alone. The police force in 1970s Hong Kong was awash with corruption which all came to a head in 1974 when Chief Superintendent of the police force Peter Godber was himself

Samuel Lai

arrested on corruption charges. Fearing an investigation into his illicit dealing he used his police credentials to bypass Hong Kong immigration and escaped the then British colony back to London. The outcry in HK was so loud over the brazen flouting of the law that Godber was extradited back to Hong Kong where he stood trial and ultimately sentenced to 4 years in prison. The Godber case also resulted in the creation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption which, over the next decade, resulted in corruption being all but stamped out in the police force as well as the rest of Hong Kong.

The net the ICAC sprung though caught many police officers including Samuel Lai. Samuel spent a number of years in and out of jail and drug rehab but it was his encounter with reknowned Hong Kong missionary Jackie Pullinger that changed his life forever. Jackie introduced Samuel to Jesus Christ which gave him the power and hope to break his drug addiction and start him on a new path

And that new path took him to a place no one who knew him as a heroin addicted police officer could have imagined. You see Samuel Lai is no longer just Samuel Lai…He’s Pastor Samuel Lai. And he shepherds a church in Yau Ma Tei Hong Kong in the same location he used to walk the beat as a corrupt police officer all those years ago.

Pastor Samuel’s story is a story of redemption and well, I’m a sucker for redemption stories…and I know you will find his story of redemption inspiring as well

Peace & Buen Camino,

Steve

Show Index

6:52 – A Criminal Life

7:32 – Joining the Police Force

11:20 – A Criminal Cop

23:03 – Arrested

27:35 – Meeting Jackie Pullinger

32:15 – A New Life