RICHMOND — 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 in Aurora, a suburb north of Toronto, bought the Richmond property 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, Lap San Peter Pang, 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 said 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 said 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.
Feng’s response denies that she is related to Lap San Peter Pang. Feng said 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 a 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 Corp. 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.”
On June 13 this year, 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, the claim states.
