Investigators in Shanghai have arrested a suspect linked to the fatal poisoning of 39-year-old billionaire tycoon Lin Qi, who died on Christmas Day. The alleged perpetrator is a 39-year-old employee of Lin’s company, who has been identified by local media as Xu Yao. He is suspected of poisoning his boss with a cup of pu’er (or fermented tea) on December 17, when he became ill and never recovered.
Lin’s net worth was estimated at about $ 1.3 billion.
Lin is the founder of Yoozoo Games, which developed the popular Chinese video game based on Game of Thrones enterprise called Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming.
Before he died, Lin was working on a Netflix project with Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss based on the popular Chinese science fiction trilogy The memory of the Earth Passt by Liu Cixin. The title was listed as the favorite book by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg.
Lin’s company had bought the rights to the trilogy book The problem of the body in three parts, which he tried to develop and produce, but the project was eventually abandoned due to fighting, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Lin was listed as the executive producer of the project to be written by Alexander Woo. Xu is described as a senior executive for Yoozoo’s film and television division.