Lai Changxing [File photo]

VANCOUVER - Chinese fugitive Lai Changxing, the prime suspect in China's largest smuggling case in recent history, left Vancouver Friday for his home country under Canadian police escort.

A source who declined to be named told Xinhua that police had escorted Lai onto a civilian flight before the plane departed from Vancouver International Airport for China in the afternoon.

The repatriation, executed a day after a Canadian federal court upheld Lai's deportation order, ended Lai's fugitive life in Canada 12 years after he fled to the North American country.

Lai, 53, was the alleged mastermind of a notorious smuggling gang believed to have smuggled billions of dollars' worth of various products in the 1990s. The case is listed as the largest of its kind in China since 1949.

Since Lai's runaway, Chinese authorities had repeatedly demanded his extradition.