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Police will apply before the end of the month for forfeiture of 15 buildings and bank accounts, reportedly containing about $10 million, associated with jailed Singaporean drug trafficker Thomas Cheng.
Cheng was living in Gisborne when he was arrested in 2016 on suspicion of methamphetamine importation and supply.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in February 2018 to 10 years, nine months in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of four years, three months.
Remarks Cheng made to an undercover police officer ahead of his arrest sparked an investigation into alleged tax evasion and money laundering by him, his father William Cheng and stepmother Nyioh Chew Hong, who live in Singapore.
The Police Commissioner subsequently obtained restraining orders over six commercial properties owned by Cheng companies in Gisborne, and three bank accounts.
Thomas Cheng. Photo / Supplied / Gisborne Herald
In 2017, five more bank accounts and another nine buildings were restrained - five of the buildings are in Whanganui, with others in Te Puke, Pahiatua, Timaru and Gisborne.
The first group of assets has been restrained for nearly four years, the other for about three and a half years.
The bank accounts have previously been reported as containing about $10m.
The commissioner was granted extensions of the restraining orders on a number of occasions, to preserve the property while gathering evidence to support a forfeiture application.
The latest extension, granted in July by Justice Christine Grice, runs until the end of October, and police have signalled they will be ready to file for forfeiture by then.
The Chengs have opposed extensions, citing unfairness in the time the investigation was taking and an inability to easily deal with the properties while they were restrained.
While acknowledging the risk of prejudicial effects in repeatedly extending restraining orders, Justice Grice said the commissioner's explanations for delays were reasonable in the circumstances.
She noted one of the grounds for the latest application was the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on police progress and a lack of cooperation by some witnesses.
Police still had work to do, including analysis of 2500 pages of Inland Revenue documentation in order to produce an affidavit in support of the forfeiture application.
The case involved a complex web of commercial ownership structures involving companies here and overseas, along with indebtedness secured to companies apparently controlled by the Chengs and Nyioh.
The cumbersome process of unravelling it all took time and a reliance on a mutual assistance process had slowed things down.
The Chengs, though not obliged to do so, could have sped things up by assisting, the judge said.
Properties connected with convicted drug trafficker Thomas Cheng and his family, including the Masonic Hotel in Gisborne, have been under a restraining order. Photo / Gisborne Herald
Nevertheless, the right of people not to be deprived of their property without proper process was an important one, she said.
The properties needed to be dealt with and, in that regard, the Masonic Hotel in Gisborne was in the process of being sold.
The commissioner had negotiated terms for the discharge of the restraining orders to enable sales to proceed and it appeared that was now happening.
Therefore, there was no prejudice due to the property not being sold. However, a process was required in order to obtain consent to sell.
Counsel for the Chengs submitted this extension should be a final order. But Justice Grice said that was problematic as once the forfeiture application was filed the restraining orders would need to be kept in place.
It was, however, appropriate to put in place monitoring to ensure the application for forfeiture was progressed properly.
Further delays are expected even after the forfeiture application is filed.
The respondents, of which there are eight (Thomas Cheng is one), and the interested parties (Cheng snr and his wife) will need time to prepare their cases in opposition.
A forfeiture hearing has been estimated to take about two weeks and a convenient time will need to be found for the court and all parties.
