KEY POINTS:
Asian criminals have been warned not to expect their crimes to go unsolved in the belief that corrupt police can be paid off.
They were told yesterday police would do whatever it took to track them down and put them in jail.
The warning followed the jailing of an Asian hitman who murdered another Asian criminal in what police called a cold-blooded assassination.
In the High Court at Auckland yesterday Wan Yee Chow, 55, was jailed for life with a 17-year non-parole period after he walked up to triad enforcer Tam Yam Ah and murdered him with a single bullet to the chest in July 2005.
Tam was returning to his karaoke bar at the top of Symonds St in inner-city Auckland. Chow fled back to Wellington.
Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Benefield said the murder was premeditated, like an execution.
The inquiry had been difficult and needed hard work to track down Chow and have him convicted. Many people in the Asian community would not go to the police because they believed there was corruption there.
"That is the message I would like to get across to the Asian community - that police will investigate crime to its fullest degree," Mr Benefield said.
"We don't take a backward step."
The language barrier and the triad connection had made it hard work.
"It is hard to get them to trust us and tell us what they know," Mr Benefield said.
A Hutt Valley man, whose name was suppressed, received immunity from prosecution and gave evidence against Chow. He told the court he saw him loading a gun before he shot Tam in the chest.
The witness drove Chow back to Wellington and buried the gun and ammunition.
Tam was well known to police. He served at least two prison terms since arriving in New Zealand in the late 1980s. He was known to beat his wife. She was acquitted of attempted murder after hitting him several times with a meat cleaver when she pleaded not guilty because of battered woman's syndrome.
Mr Benefield said the message to the Asian community was "don't be intimidated. Come to the police."
- NZPA
