Robert Wan, also known as Wan Fui Yin (born 1934) is a

French Polynesia French Polynesia ( ; ; ) is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole #Governance, overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than in the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. The t ...

n pearl trader. Due to his importance to French Polynesia's pearl industry, he is known as the "emperor of pearls". He particularly invested in the Gambier Islands, to produce black pearls that garnered international attention. Over the years, he expanded his holdings, acquiring farms on islands such as Marutea Sud and Nengonengo. Wan was born in

Papeete Papeete (Tahitian language, Tahitian: ''Papeʻetē'', pronounced ; old name: ''Vaiʻetē''Personal communication with Michael Koch in ) is the capital city of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of the France, French Republic in the Pacific ...

. His father was a

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

from

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

who emigrated to

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

. In July 1973 he purchased the Tahiti Pearls company with his brothers. Their first harvest was purchased by Mikimoto in 1977. In 1982 he purchased Anuanuraro, then Marutea Sud in 1984, Aukena in 1988, and Nengonengo in 1990. He became the richest man in French Polynesia, until a collapse in the pearl market in 1998. In 2002 he sold Anuanuraro to the French Polynesian government. The sale sparked a criminal probe for misuse of public funds, and Wan and a number of leading politicians, including former president

Gaston Flosse Gaston Flosse (born 24 June 1931) is a French Polynesian politician who has been President of French Polynesia on five separate occasions. He is currently a member of the Senate of France and has been a French junior minister under Jacques Chirac ...

, were charged with corruption. Wan and Flosse were finally acquitted in July 2017.

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