A former crime syndicate henchman has been found guilty of the cold case murder of a meth cook who was tied to a chair, interrogated and stabbed to death amid an alleged power struggle for dominance over Auckland’s lucrative illegal ephedrine market.

Michael Gu today became the first person to have been found guilty by a jury of having participated in the killing of Ricky Wang in August 2017. But two others - fellow henchman Gordon “Fatty” Yu and crime boss Jian Qi Zhao, otherwise known as Uncle Six - have pleaded guilty to the murder, while two others who helped dump the body have already served their sentences for accessory to murder.

Jurors in the High Court at Auckland deliberated for roughly 10 hours over two days before returning the verdict for Gu, who sat stone-faced throughout the trial as his former friends and associates testified against him. But the 31-year-old looked visibly nervous as he returned to the courtroom for the verdict, wringing his hands as he stood next to his interpreter and a guard in the dock.

He appeared to weep as the decision was read, resting his hands on his knees as if needing to catch his breath

Justice Simon Moore set a sentencing date for August.

During the four-week trial, prosecutors described Gu as the longest-serving and most loyal henchman of Uncle Six, an overstayer from China who rapidly ascended New Zealand’s criminal underworld due to his US-based source of ephedrine - a vital ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

The syndicate started selling raw ephedrine before establishing clandestine meth labs in various locations in Auckland, selling the finished product in bulk to gangs for a much larger profit. The syndicate was at one point raking in millions of dollars, evidence suggests.

Gu’s former co-defendants turned witnesses all testified that Wang, a meth cook who often worked with the syndicate in a contractor-like role, was lured to a Massey home doubling as a clan lab in August 2017 under the guise of looking at meth manufacturing glassware. The real purpose, they all said, was to confront him about rumours he was going to team up with a rogue “Westerner” gang member to kidnap Uncle Six, get him to reveal the location of his secret Blockhouse Bay ephedrine warehouse, then kill him and use the stash to take over the syndicate’s operations.

During closing addresses this week, Crown prosecutors Matthew Nathan and Joanne Lee said the “overwhelming conclusion, the inescapable inference” had to be that the defendant was in on the plan to confront Wang and to kill him if Brother Six felt it necessary.

Zhicheng "Michael" Gu (left) and Jian Qi Zhao, otherwise known as Uncle Six, appear in court via audio-visual link in 2020 after being charged with the murder of Baochang "Ricky" Wang. Photos / Sam Hurley

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Uncle Six acknowledged while in the witness box that he hadn’t been satisfied with the captive meth cook’s denials that night, so the syndicate boss said he ordered Gu to stab Wang to death while Fatty was to hold a towel over Wang’s head to muffle the screams.

Uncle Six said he and Yong Qin - another trusted henchman nicknamed Edison or Kang Kang - waited outside as the dirty work took place. Qin, also a native of China, returned to his home country before police began to unravel the case and has not returned. Although he hasn’t been charged with a crime, police made a request through the Chinese government for mutual assistance - seeking to interview him for the case. Qin did not wish to participate, Chinese officials replied.

Having so many participants in any crime, much less murder, give direct evidence in a trial is unusual, prosecutors acknowledged.

“There’s a lot about this case that is unusual,” Nathan told jurors.

Gu declined to testify on his own behalf or to call witnesses.

But defence lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade, KC, urged jurors during her closing address to be extremely wary of the vast majority of testimony they heard. The Crown’s case relies entirely on “unreliable, selfish” witnesses, all of whom are immersed in the meth trade and two of whom are “self-confessed killers”, she added.

“Every one of them has either lied, covered up, sought to minimise their role...” Kincade said, arguing that they not only betrayed Gu but betrayed the truth. “All they care about is themselves.”

The defence team, which also included lawyers Scott Brickell and Aieyah Shendi, acknowledged throughout the trial that Gu had been a syndicate henchman but insisted he was far away on his honeymoon when the killing occurred. The newlywed was only called away from that holiday after Wang had already been killed and Uncle Six needed help disposing of the body, they contended.

Kincade argued that Wang’s violent death was not remotely similar to how it had been repeatedly described in the witness box - not a carefully planned abduction and murder in a Massey meth lab but likely an impromptu crime of passion involving only Uncle Six and Fatty that occurred inside Wang’s own central Auckland apartment.

Meth syndicate henchman Gaoxiang "Gordon" Yu, who was known by the nicknames Pangzi or Fatty, sits on a motorbike belonging to a gang member he sold large quantities of drugs to. He pleaded guilty to the murder of Ricky Wang and agreed to testify against former co-defendant Michael Gu. Photo / Supplied

It makes sense that Fatty - a large-framed man like Wang who had the most gang connections and was considered the “syndicate enforcer” - would have accompanied Uncle Six as he went to Wang’s apartment to confront him about the rumours, she said. As the confrontation went south, an unplanned murder occurred, she suggested.

“It may have been a fight, they may have lost their tempers - we can only speculate,” she said.

But it was clear, she argued, that “nothing about this was well-planned, least of all well-executed”. Had the murder been anticipated, there wouldn’t have been a frantic scramble to figure out what to do with the body, she said, pointing to the testimony earlier in the trial of Clive Zhang. He was someone with no prior involvement in the syndicate who was recruited solely to help dump the body - a person so hapless as a criminal that police uncovered Google searches in which he typed “New Zealand help dispose of a body”.

It also makes no sense that Uncle Six would have devoted so many resources to renovating Wang’s apartment if it hadn’t been the site of a murder, she said.

After Uncle Six and Fatty killed Wang at his apartment, they stuffed Wang’s body into the boot of the meth cook’s own Audi and took it to the Massey clan lab to buy time while they decided what to do next, Kincade theorised. She pointed to traces of blood police would later find in the boot of Wang’s car.

Massage parlour operator Tony Piao told jurors in the murder trial of Michael Gu that he secretly took this photo of drug boss Uncle Six in the same house where meth cook Ricky Wang was fatally stabbed one day after Wang's death. Photo / Supplied

Although further tests to determine if it was human blood came up negative, that test can be made inaccurate by sustained heat and the boot wasn’t tested until two years later, she said. Crime lab technicians only tested one of the four areas of blood stains in the boot, offering to test the other areas but having their offer declined by police, Kincade said.

She theorised that was because at that point police we being led astray by someone who would eventually turn out to be one of the trial’s star witnesses: massage parlour owner and syndicate associate Tony Piao.

Kincade saved most of her ire for Piao, who helped police crack the case when he informed them from prison several years after the killing that Wang had been murdered and dumped near Desert Rd. Before that point, police didn’t realise Wang was missing. It would take months more of investigation after the revelation before authorities would find Wang’s remains encased in concrete in a shallow grave.

Police at the remote scene in the central North Island where human remains were located in March 2020. Photo / Supplied

The defence lawyer pointed to the many lies Piao told, both in statements to police that were later recanted and, she alleged, in the witness box. They included his denial that he was involved in the drug trade prior to Wang’s death and, she said, the minimising of his eagerness to participate in the mutilation and disposal of Wang’s body.

“The audacious, arrogant man - lies, lies, lies,” she said, suggesting that some of Piao’s lies were motivated by his hatred of the defendant, who had often called Piao by the disparaging nickname “Brothel Boss”.

“He lies about everything,” Kincade said. “When Tony Piao’s lips are moving, he’s lying.”

Yanlong "Tony" Piao at his sentencing in 2020 for accessory after the fact to murder. Photo / Sam Hurley

But because he was the first person to speak to police, he got to control the narrative, she said, arguing that it would later motivate Uncle Six and Fatty to match his version of events as much as possible when they pleaded guilty regardless of whether it was true. By getting in line with Piao’s version of events - which at that point had also been adopted by police - they might seem more co-operative, she argued.

“That is something that must make you extremely wary of what they have said,” Kincade said, suggesting that the duo have not only had their sentences shortened but have managed to stay out of a maximum security prison as a result of their co-operation. “They are incentivised to be of as much assistance as they can be.”

Prosecutors acknowledged Piao is not a “paragon of virtue” but Wang’s body would still be undiscovered if he hadn’t come forward, they noted.

“Nobody does something for nothing - especially in organised criminal syndicates,” Nathan said, arguing that the witness’ information checked out in the end - enough so that two of the three murder defendants pleaded guilty without the need for trial.

Zhicheng "Michael" Gu appears in Auckland District Court for sentencing on methamphetamine charges in August 2019. He was still serving that sentence the following year when police found the body of Ricky Wang and charged Gu with murder. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The defence theory that the murder took place in Wang’s central Auckland apartment not only contradicts all of the witness statements but doesn’t make sense for someone as “meticulous, methodical, careful” as Uncle Six, he added.

The victim’s apartment was on the fifth floor of a building filled with other tenants, required swipe card access, had CCTV cameras and the carpark where Wang’s body would have been taken in that scenario was clearly visible from the windows of other apartments. The riskiness of the location doesn’t match the profile of someone who made his minions switch phones every few months, whose carefulness “is something that’s almost in his DNA”, the prosecutor said.

It also doesn’t make sense that the diminutive crime boss would have confronted Wang, who was taller and heavier, by himself or even with Fatty, who was recovering from hand surgery at the time, Nathan said. It’s hard to imagine, he argued, an “underweight drug dealer and effectively a one-armed man overpowering Ricky Wang” then trying to carry his 100kg corpse through an apartment complex to the boot of his car.

The body of Bao Chang "Ricky" Wang was found in 2020, three years after he vanished. Photo / Supplied

Nathan asked jurors to put themselves in the shoes of Uncle Six, also known as Brother Six or Captain, as he would have planned a mafia-like killing.

“When Brother Six was making a decision about what he should do ... naturally that is a decision that not only impacts him but his syndicate,” Nathan said, arguing that it makes sense the boss would have discussed options with his “inner circle” because of the “devastating impact” on all of their incomes that a bloody coup by Wang might cause.

“Brother Six is the head of the snake,” he explained. “You cut off the head, the snake dies.”

Uncle Six said himself that Gu had been one of the first people he met upon arrival in New Zealand in 2014, unable to speak English or drive. They started as roommates in the same homestay and trust between the two grew as Gu became Uncle Six’s first employee.

As one of the crime boss’ trusted confidants, Gu was clearly in on the discussions about whether Wang needed to be killed, Brother Six testified. Despite the murder convict witness’ many flaws, jurors should recognise the ring of truth to that statement, Nathan argued.

“To put Michael Gu at any other level other than the inner circle is nonsensical,” he said.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.