B.C. government trying to seize Richmond mansion claiming it was used for violent crime and money laundering
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The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is attempting to seize a $5 million, 13,000 square-foot mansion in rural Richmond that was allegedly used for illegal gambling, money laundering, kidnapping and blood-soaked assaults.
The sprawling eight bedroom and 11-bathroom property — built on two-acres of Richmond agricultural land reserve — is also at the centre of an anti-gang investigation.
“This is a large and complex investigation,” Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Friday. “We anticipate charges and arrests.”
A civil forfeiture action filed June 29 in B.C. Supreme Court alleges that defendant Wen Feng, a woman whose listed address is an expensive property in Aurora, a suburb north of Toronto, bought the Richmond property at 8880 Sidaway Road in October 2015. According to B.C. Assessment Authority records the sale price was $4.4 million.
But she wasn’t the real owner, and “acted as a nominee or ‘owner of convenience,'” the claim states. The other named defendant, , is Wen Feng’s brother and “the beneficial or ‘true’ owner of the property,” the claim alleges.
The claim also alleges the property “is an instrument and proceeds of unlawful activity,” and “has been used to engage in crimes,” including “laundering the proceeds of unlawful activity.”
In a response filed Aug. 10, Wen Feng says she bought the “recently built, luxurious mansion of over 13,000 square feet” as an investment, and “sourced the down payment” using a line of credit secured against her personal home, the sale proceeds of a Toronto condo, a loan from a friend, and a mortgage from the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Feng’s response says that she leased the property to a group called the Vancouver International Chinese Association, with the understanding this was a group formed by Chinese business people “to facilitate networking and international business” and they would use the property “to hold functions and meetings.”
After May 1, 2016, Feng terminated the lease. The property is now listed for sale at just under $6 million ($1 million over its assessed value).
Feng’s response denies that she is related to Lap San Peter Pang. Feng says she never authorized him to take possession of her property, and she had no reason to believe illegal activity was occurring at the property.
Feng’s Vancouver lawyer did not respond to Postmedia’s request for comment on the case, and no response has been filed by Lap San Peter Pang.
It was in December 2015 that the B.C. Lottery Corporation was informed the mansion was operating as an illegal casino, the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office claim alleges.
In April 2016, Richmond RCMP entered the mansion in response to an anonymous call, the claim states, “that someone was being held hostage at gunpoint inside the residence.”
Police found gaming tables and 15 people involved in gambling, a large amount of casino chips, playing cards, a money counter, and “an elaborate video surveillance system,” mounted above the gambling tables, the claim alleges.
Next, in May 2017, police responded to reports of a person admitted to Richmond General Hospital who had been stabbed at the property, the claim alleges. Inside the mansion police found “25 individuals, dancing and drinking” and “blood soaked paper towels in a kitchen garbage can.”
The claim states that the defendant Pang told police he was the resident and caretaker of the mansion, which contained hundreds of liquor bottles but no personal items that one would expect to find in a home. Pang was living in only one room equipped with a small hotplate, according to police.
Next, on June 13, 2017, a person was admitted to Richmond hospital “with a broken arm, broken nose, and other injuries after being kidnapped, forcibly confined and assaulted with a metal bar or pipe,” at the property on the previous day “by Mr. Pang and others,” the claim states.
According to B.C. registry records, the Vancouver International Chinese Association was incorporated January 6, 2016, and has a delivery address at 8880 Sidaway Road. There has been no annual report filed and no annual general meeting held, records say. There are three listed directors, who could not be reached for comment.
One director lists a delivery address at a Stolberg Street condo in Richmond; one lists an address at a $2.3 million single-family home on French Street in Vancouver’s Marpole neighbourhood and the other lists an address in an apartment off Kingsway Avenue in Burnaby’s South Slope neighbourhood.
In mortgage documents, Wen Feng’s occupation is listed as “manager.” The civil forfeiture claim says the Bank of Nova Scotia did not participate in or have reason to know of unlawful activity at the mortgaged property.
The B.C. Lottery Corporation is not permitted to comment on the case, a spokesman said.
B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office cases must prove that assets are tied to criminal activity. If successful, the seizure of the $5 million Richmond property would be proportionately significant for the office, which has made more than 2,600 seizures since 2006, totalling $65.8 million.
Anyone who is subject to a civil forfeiture claim has the right to examine the director’s evidence and provide their own evidence before a Justice of the Supreme Court of B.C.
City of Richmond spokeswoman Kim Decker said there are no reported bylaw infractions at 8880 Sidaway, and the city sees the case as a Richmond RCMP and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit matter.
As Postmedia reported earlier this year, Richmond is facing increasing concerns over speculative or illicit property uses on agricultural land reserved parcels. Because of controversial zoning rules, buyers can build much larger mansions on farmland than they can on residential lots, and also avoid B.C.’s new foreign buyer residential tax.
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