Parents of fatal kidnapping victim seek return of ransom funds

The parents of a young Chinese man killed during an extortion kidnapping in North Vancouver have launched a lawsuit claiming an upscale condo in Richmond was bought with ransom money they paid to their son’s killers.

Cang Sun and Hua Li are parents of kidnapping victim Peng Sun, who died in 2015 after being lured to a home in North Vancouver by Tian Yi Eddie Zhang. At his sentencing in 2017, court heard Zhang targeted Sun for kidnapping because he believed Sun’s family would be able to pay a significant ransom.

Peng arrived at a vacant house in North Vancouver, believing he was going to a party. But when he got there, he was confined by several men with zap straps and handcuffs while Zhang made ransom calls to Sun’s parents in China, demanding money.

In one call, Zhang put Sun on the phone to his parents while demanding the equivalent of $2.5 million Canadian be transferred into a Chinese bank account.

While the ransom calls were being made, Sun died of strangulation caused by a zap strap being fastened around his neck.

After Sun’s death, Zhang continued to make ransom calls to Sun’s parents.

Over three days in September 2015, the family transferred more than $350,000 into a Chinese bank account, according to the lawsuit. Of that, less than $50,000 was recovered by police, according to the parents.

Police were able to move in after Sun’s wife recognized Zhang’s voice from a recording of one of the ransom calls and they put Zhang under surveillance and obtained emergency wiretap authorization on his phone.

Zhang and others later removed Sun’s body from the house, loaded it into his own white Bentley and drove it to another address on Wellington Drive in North Vancouver. They were in the process of moving Sun’s body from the trunk of the Bentley to the trunk of another rental car when police swooped in and arrested four people.

Police later seized almost $50,000 in cash from Zhang’s home.

In 2017, Zhang was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter, extortion and unlawful confinement. He was granted full parole in November 2023, after a parole board deemed him a “low risk for reoffending.”

In August 2020, Sun’s parents got a civil judgment against Zhang for the ransom funds.

But according to their lawsuit, filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Zhang has never paid them any money.

In 2021, Zhang’s wife Ya Ran Li bought a condo at 501 – 5131 Brighouse Way in Richmond, according to court documents, for $3.2 million.

On Dec. 20, 2023, Zhang was arrested by Richmond RCMP after police moved in on a delivery to the condo of precursor chemicals used to create drugs, according to court documents. Zhang had the chemicals and both Li and Zhang were at the property at the time.

When police searched the property, they also found more than $53,000 in cash, as well as a cash-counting machine.

According to parole board documents, the police investigation into the case is continuing.

Meanwhile, in April, the Director of Civil Forfeiture filed a lawsuit, alleging both the cash and the condo are proceeds of crime, and seeking forfeiture of those to the Crown.

Both Zhang and his wife have filed responses denying that the condo and the cash are linked to illegal activities.

In their own lawsuit, Sun’s parents are claiming the $50,000 seized in the police raid on the condo are “the remnants of the ransom fund” they paid to Zhang and are seeking to have the money returned.

“Zhang spent several years in jail and would have had no legitimate means to purchase property or accumulate $53,650 except for having access to the ransom funds,” the parents wrote in their lawsuit.

They are also alleging the condo was bought with the ransom money and are seeking a declaration that the property be held in trust for them.

No responses have been filed yet in response to the lawsuit.