The queen of the Australia-China social scene has been charged in New York with funnelling almost $1 million in bribes to the president of the United Nations General Assembly. 
Sheri Yan - who had deep connections in the Australian foreign policy establishment and shuttled regularly between luxurious apartments in Canberra, Beijing and New York - remains in a US prison before a bail hearing on Friday.
She and her husband, Roger Uren, a media executive and former Australian intelligence analyst, have long been a fixture at Australian embassy events in Beijing. They recently moved their family base from Beijing to Kingston in Canberra.
Underlining her deep ties to Australia, Ms Yan was once also paid to act as a lobbyist by the ABC in her native China when the public broadcaster made an ultimately futile effort to secure local broadcasting rights for its overseas television channel Australia Network.
She used her high-level connections in Australia and China to act as a go-between.
"You can trust her," reads a glowing endorsement from Greg Rudd, brother of the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, posted on Ms Yan's LinkedIn page.
Ms Yan, also known as Shiwei Yan, was arrested last week and accused by US prosecutors of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs to John Ashe, then a diplomat from the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
The money is said to be part of a conspiracy to curry favour for unnamed Chinese "security" and "media" companies, working across Macau, the Caribbean and Kenya.
Ms Yan is accused of making several large transfers to Mr Ashe, with US investigators citing private emails from Google and Yahoo accounts, obtained under warrant. In one email from 2012, Ms Yan is alleged to have written to Mr Ashe: "Dear John, a quick note to let you know that I will send first $300,000 to the account this week". Mr Ashe later responded that would "start the conversation", it is claimed.
Mr Ashe was elected to a one-year term as president of the General Assembly beginning in 2013, about the same time Ms Yan is accused of making monthly payments of $20,000 to him under the guise of a non-governmental organisation she headed, known as the "Global Sustainability Foundation".
Her arrest promises to shed light on the hidden connections between the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and Australian politicians, diplomats and business people seeking access to China.
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