Luxury cars, like this Ferrari seized in Operation Cincinnati in October 2020, are among the $1 billion worth of criminal assets seized since 2009. Video / NZ Police
Auckland construction company owner Shuchen “Ace” Liu was sentenced to 14 years for leading a drug syndicate.
Liu’s wife, Xiuxiu Hao, received 10 months’ home detention for money laundering, considering their 3-year-old child.
Judge Kirsten Lummis said Liu used his legitimate business as a cover for his flashy lifestyle, which was actually funded my meth and MDMA.
An Auckland construction company owner who drove around in a $630,000 Ferrari and had multimillion-dollar homes in some of Auckland’s wealthiest suburbs is having to adjust to much less posh living conditions now that a judge has imposed a 14-year prison sentence.
Hao was allowed to serve a sentence of home detention for her less serious charge – involving the laundering of just over $200,000 – after defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, representing both defendants, noted they have a 3-year-old child who was in daycare during the hearing. All other relatives live overseas, so there were no plans in place for if both were to be imprisoned, Mansfield said.
“The Crown ultimately says that Mr Liu was the kingpin,” Crown prosecutor Ben Kirkpatrick said of the 36-year-old. “It seems like he was running a very successful business.”
Xiuxiu Hao (left) and husband Shuchen Liu consult with lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, ahead of their sentencing in Auckland District Court on drugs and money laundering charges. Photo / Craig Kapitan
While it might be hard for most people to imagine what a “drug kingpin” looks like, Liu undoubtedly fit the bill, Kirkpatrick said.
The couple owned a $365,000 Ferrari 488 GTB under Hao’s name before trading it in for the more expensive Ferrari 488 Pista. Social media photos showed more luxury cars, including a Porsche, and what appeared to be thousands of dollars spent on a single Lotto Powerball draw. The St Heliers house they lived in was bought for $1.8 million but the house in nearby Kohimarama where Liu kept some of their drug stash was bought for $3.45m.
Then there was the St Johns warehouse leased by Liu which served as a clandestine methamphetamine lab and MDMA pill factory. Two pill presses inside the factory helped supply an “unknown commercial quantity” of then-well-known “Pink Porsche” MDMA pills, but authorities noted the number at the very least exceeded 15,000.
“You established a network of associates and dealers,” Judge Kirsten Lummis said, noting that Liu had corrupted a NZ Post courier driver to receive meth shipments from overseas. “You generated large amounts of cash through your drug empire. You used your construction business as a cover.”
Auckland businesman Shuchen Liu's $630,000 Ferrari 488 Pista was purchased under wife Xiuxiu Hao's name using money from his significant "Pink Porsche" MDMA empire. Photo / Supplied
While the defence downplayed the term “kingpin” as “perhaps grandiose”, noting there would have been other major players involved overseas, the judge said Liu was the dominant figurehead of the New Zealand distribution network.
“You were the big thinker, taking every opportunity to expand,” she said.
The investigation included intercepted communications between Liu and underlings and a covert CCTV camera outside his warehouse.
Liu and others were seen carrying equipment and material consistent with methamphetamine manufacturing, such as acetone and caustic soda, as they walked into and out of the facility. The Pink Porsche tablets were created from MDMA he had sourced in powder and crystal form.
Meth and MDMA "kingpin" Shuchen Liu appears in Auckland District Court for sentencing. Photo / Craig Kapitan
“Once pressed Liu would package the pills into various commercial sized dealing amounts/weights with a minimum of 1000 pills at a time and arrange to supply them via encrypted... applications such as Wickr,” the agreed summary of facts for the case states.
Investigators flagged numerous conversations in the days leading up to Liu’s October 2020 arrest in which he appeared to be openly discussing large drug deals.
“Hi bro can I come pick up 1000 pinks,” one person asked Liu before amending his request to “1200″ on October 23.
Days later, Liu, who used the handle “popkakaka”, complimented his meth cook on the “beautiful shards” and instructed him to “also please see if anyone want to buy the E we got lol... I mean the bad one... that still 66k lol”.
Drug safety website knowyourstuff.nz catalogued Shuchen Liu's "Pink Porsche" ecstasy pills in 2019 and 2020.
In other messages, he discussed purchasing MDMA for prices ranging from $45,000 to $50,000 per kilo. He generally sold the methamphetamine, he later admitted, for about $5500 per ounce.
During a raid of Liu’s various properties at the termination of the months-long undercover investigation, police found a backpack at his St Heliers address containing nearly 1kg of meth, 30g of MDMA in powder form, a 9mm pistol and $208,000 in cash. They also found MDMA purity testing kits and a blender containing traces of pink dye.
At his Kohimarama home, police found 14,400 Pink Porsche pills, about 1kg of MDMA in powder form and 62kg of methyl alpha-acetylphenylacetate – a substance, more commonly known as MAPA, that can be converted into methamphetamine.
Liu pleaded guilty in April to representative charges of manufacturing methamphetamine, supplying methamphetamine, possessing methamphetamine for supply and importing methamphetamine – similar but separate crimes that each carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
He also pleaded guilty to possessing MDMA for supply, supplying MDMA and possessing ephedrine for supply, all of which are punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment, as well as charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, possession of a precursor substance and money laundering.
Businessman Shuchen Liu's $630,000 Ferrari 488 Pista was seized by police following a months-long investigation in October 2020. Photo / Supplied
“I saved too much cash. I have cash. But can’t use it,” Liu said in a WeChat message that was later uncovered by police.
It was a reference, authorities explained in court documents, to “the fact Liu was ‘cash rich’ but needed electronic funds to make his purchase appear legitimate”.
Not a drug lord’s wife
Liu’s wife initially faced serious drug offending charges as well, but they were withdrawn after Liu took responsibility.
That doesn’t mean she wasn’t aware of the criminal enterprise her husband had built, prosecutors alleged. The summary of facts that she agreed to before pleading guilty states she would knowingly assist him with various drug trade tasks.
“This extended to receiving cash payments from customers regularly,” the court document states.
Shuchen Liu (left) and wife Xiuxiu Hao were respected Auckland business owners. But a major drug importation and manufacturing operations underpinned the couple's wealth, authorities alleged. Photo / Supplied
A WeChat conversation between the couple that was uncovered by police gave further evidence she “had some knowledge of the specific aspects of Liu’s conduct”, authorities said.
Her lawyer, however, suggested her conduct was more the result of recklessness – having turned a blind eye to her husband’s activities as she devoted all her energy to her own business, a small takeaway eatery.
“This woman is an incredibly hard worker and she has always been,” Mansfield said, explaining she has now pivoted her entrepreneurial ability to a drainage business that employs 12 people. “She would have been perfectly happy with that lifestyle, except for the lifestyle her husband got involved in.”
He asked she be allowed to continue her efforts as a mother and hard-working, legitimate businesswoman.
Auckland businesman Shuchen Liu used profits from his illegal drug empire to purchase this $365,000 Ferrari 488 GTB before trading it in for a $630,000 Ferrari 488 Pista. Photo / Supplied
“She’s not the wife of a drug lord – I’ll put it that way,” Mansfield said, explaining that she comes from a law-abiding family in China who are “horrified by what happened”.
Judge Lummis ordered a sentence of 10 months’ home detention for the 35-year-old, noting it was important she care for the couple’s child and not lose her legitimate business income.
But she said: “You knew what was going on. The pill press was in your house for some time.”
As for Liu, prosecutors sought a starting point of 25 years for the combined charges, with reductions then factored for his guilty pleas, lack of prior convictions, the impact of incarceration on his child, rehabilitation efforts and acknowledgement that prison may be more difficult for him with English as a second language. They also sought a minimum non-parole period.
“His driving force was to make money,” Kirkpatrick said.
Mansfield argued the Crown starting point was too high. He described his client as almost having stumbled into the major role.
Police made multiple arrests and seized drugs and cash as part of Operation Cincinnati in late 2020. Photo / Supplied
“Everything really staggered up during Covid, when other sources of income effectively dissipated,” he said. “It just got more and more commercial that way.
“I just don’t accept that his role was the ultimate kingpin.”
Mansfield said his client was “unusually open” about what he had done when confronted by police, which the lawyer said shows “a lack of sophistication” one might not expect from someone considered a kingpin.
But Judge Lummis said the Covid excuse didn’t appear to hold water. The first MDMA pill press was imported in 2019, well before the pandemic began, she noted.
She chose a starting point of 24 years for all the charges combined before allowing 40% in credit for various factors including his guilty pleas, his background and his rehabilitation efforts.
She noted Liu moved to New Zealand in 2011 from a small town in China. He had experienced family violence as a child after his father’s business failed and the father turned to alcohol and gambling, according to a report provided to the court ahead of sentencing. Liu was later seen as a troublemaker in school after his parents separated and was “on the receiving end of some very unusual punishments” from his grandfather, the judge said without elaborating.
His mother later incurred significant debt sending him to New Zealand, but he worked hard, made friends quickly and by 2017 launched his construction business, the judge noted.
“You have described an ability to make friends everywhere you go, and it was through your friends that you realised you had a skill for logistics, locating goods that others wanted without considering the criminality of your actions,” the judge said, citing the report. “Your drug use and drinking started to increase.”
A judge says Suchen Liu's main motivation for his crimes was profit. Photo / Craig Kapitan
She noted there appeared to have been “a lifelong lack of positive and trusted role models” for the defendant, adding there’s no doubt his background of trauma played some role in his offending. But it was also clear, she said, that the main motivation for his crimes was profit. And his greed has affected others who worked below him – many of which, the judge noted, she had personally sentenced in recent years.
“Having dealt with a large number of men in that syndicate, it is fair to say they’ve had their lives turned upside down as a result of their involvement with these pills,” she said, explaining many started out as recreational party pill users before becoming addicts then going to work as dealers. “Your offending has touched people from all walks of life.”
Despite all that, Judge Lummis said she wouldn’t impose a minimum term of imprisonment.
“While you do sit at the top of this drug syndicate ... you are still a first offender with a young child and have every reason to be motivated to do what you can to recover from this significant fall from grace,” she said. “All of the information before me suggests we will not see you before this court again.”
Liu was also ordered as part of his sentence to pay $230,000 in restitution to the Wellesley College Trust, which owned the warehouse he leased for the drug factory, and $100,000 to the trust’s insurance company. The warehouse suffered significant methamphetamine contamination. The trust paid $135,000 for decontamination, $134,000 for restoration of the property including new furniture and lost $62,000 in rent during the process, the court was told.
Judge Lummis said she expected the money to come from the “considerable amount of property” that was restrained by authorities in the wake of Liu’s arrest.
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.
