Nick –
They do have alert programs for domain names. You can enter in the ones you have an interest in and as soon as there is some activity on the name, they are alerted. Don’t ask me what these programs are because I can’t remember – but seems to me I’ve seen something like this in the past. People can even subscribe to lists of domains that are ready to expire and are notified the moment its available so they can quickly snatch it up. I’ve read stories of people losing some big names over this kind of thing.
Who knows – since he is way over in China, maybe he somehow has it setup to purchase it with a click of a button if he sees someone is actually trying to buy it. Could be that his name, address and billing info is already stored with whoever he has this setup with, so a simple click is all it took.