The Maseratis and the missing millions
Homicide victim heavily in debt and locked in a $10m High Court battle after falling out with business associates. George Block and Lucy Xia investigate.
Auckland businesswoman Elizabeth ( Ying) Zhong and her beleaguered companies were locked in a legal stoush with creditors before she was killed and crammed into her boot.
The High Court battle saw allegations of the misappropriation of more than $4 million involving one of Zhong’s heavily indebted enterprises.
The 55-year-old was last seen alive at her home in suburban East Auckland about 4.30pm on Friday, November 27.
Sometime in the ensuing 20 hours she was brutally stabbed to death at her home and hidden in the boot of her black Land Rover.
The vehicle was then driven around the corner and abandoned in Roadley Ave, a dead-end street two minutes from her home in Suzetta Pl, Sunnyhills.
Police found the four-wheeldrive shortly after 11am but did not thoroughly search the vehicle until early evening, when they found her in the boot, below various items from her house.
Yesterday, one week on from the killing, police were yet to make an arrest or lay charges.
Detective Inspector Shaun Vickers has given little away on the progress of the investigation or any potential suspects. He would not comment on the delay between police finding the car and finding her body.
Vickers would also not be drawn on whether any blocks had been placed on anyone’s passport to stop them fleeing the country following the killing, but said police would be getting in touch with authorities in China.
Zhong, who came to New Zealand from China in 1997, had sprawling business interests ranging from film-making to viticulture.
She was millions in the red to creditors ranging from the Bank of New Zealand to a Chinese film and TV company about which little is known.
Companies Office records show that as of November 2020 she was the sole director and shareholder of wine-making companies Kennedy Point Group Ltd and Carrick Wines Ltd, both of which are in receivership, as is another of her businesses, Sunbow Ltd.
A year-old High Court judgment, delivered following a hearing on December 4, 2019 before Justice Christian Whata, showed certain creditors of Zhong had obtained orders preventing Zhong engaging in any significant transaction affecting Sunbow.
The hearing concerned what would be an unsuccessful bid by Zhong to disbar the solicitors acting for the plaintiffs because of her claim they had earlier effectively acted for her and would need to give evidence.
However, background provided in the judgment sheds new light on the disintegrating business relationships and everworsening debts that characterised the lead-up to her death.
The plaintiffs in the case were Fang Sun, Jingqui Tang, Sunbow Group Ltd and Sunbow Investment Ltd, against defendants Sunbow Ltd, Zhong, and four of her wine-making and film effects companies, including Carrick Wines in Central Otago and Digipost.
Tang has declined to comment. The Sunday Star-Times has been unable to reach Sun for comment.
The plaintiffs launched proceedings in August 2019 fol
lowing complex disputes over restructuring arrangements years earlier. They claimed Zhong owed $10m to Sunbow Group Ltd.
After obtaining an order allowing access to Sunbow’s accounting records, the plaintiffs identified what they considered to be ‘‘major misappropriations’’ in the order of $4.5m of Sunbow monies, according to the judgment. Zhong denied any wrongdoing.
The judgment notes she was adamant Duthie Whyte solicitors could not act for the plaintiffs, having acted for her and Sunbow on transactions forming the background to the initial claim.
Justice Whata declined to stop Duthie Whyte from acting at the time of the hearing but acknowledged the issue was not clear-cut.
Duthie Whyte did not respond to a request for comment.
Details in the judgment regarding Zhong’s debts support information the Star-Times has gleaned after her death from people close to her and former business partners.
A man who owns a property in Kumeu next to one owned by Zhong, and who said he was good friends with her, described receiving a phone call from a ‘‘Mr Sun’’ he knew as a business partner of Zhong’s, towards the end of 2019.
He said the emotional-sounding man told him Zhong owed him $10m.
In the year that followed, the man witnessed several meetings involving groups of young, affluent men driving Maseratis and Rolls-Royces at the Pomana Rd home, he said.
Several of Zhong’s businesses had close links to mainland China or Hong Kong.
Digipost was purchased in 2017 with a large sum from an overseas financier unknown to the accountant who managed the sale, Matthew Bellingham.
Among the creditors listed for Zhong on the Personal Property Securities Register is the Quzhou 3D Film and Television Culture Industry Fund Management Centre (Limited Partnership). Quzhou is a city of 2.5 million people in eastern China.
Information on the Chinese company registration site Aiqicha shows Quzhou 3D is legally represented by another business, Beijing 3D Film and Television Culture Industry Fund Management Ltd, which has Fang Sun listed as chief executive. Sun was the fourth plaintiff in the 2019 High Court judgment.
Beijing 3D’s investment capital is listed on the same site as 48 million RMB ($10.4m).
A friend saw meetings involving young men driving Maseratis and RollsRoyces.