Suitcase victim's last hours tracked

Wan Biao

Wan Biao attended English language classes on Wednesday and helped a friend enrol at his English academy in Queen St, central Auckland.

By Friday, the 19-year-old student was dead, his body folded inside a black suitcase found floating in the Waitemata Harbour.

After a mole on his body helped police to identify him, and the teenager's family in China were told of the death, detectives have shifted their focus to finding the killer.

They have named the case Operation Bestland, after the label on the suitcase Mr Wan had been stuffed into.

The student had had no dealings with police since he arrived in New Zealand last August from Yiwu, a town with a population of one million about 160km south of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, which sits along the shore of the East Sea.

His friends and acquaintances were other international students. He lived with flatmates in an apartment in Cook St, just a few blocks from his school, Oxford International Academy, the second one he had enrolled at. He had previously studied at ACG.

The managing director of the Oxford academy, Michael Li, found out yesterday that one of his students was the victim when shown his photograph by the Herald.

He did not know Mr Wan well enough to comment on his personality, but said: "We are shocked to learn this news."

A colleague said she last saw Mr Wan on Wednesday, when he introduced another student who wanted to enrol at the academy.

Mr Li urged anyone with information about Mr Wan's death to go to the police.

"In the minds of most Asian students the police can frighten people. I want all Asian students to realise the police is an organisation you can fully trust."

Mr Li also wanted to reassure academy students that it was safe for them to continue their studies and he hoped to see them all in class tomorrow when school reopened.

Detective Inspector Bernie Hollewand said police were still trying to establish Mr Wan's final movements. He was seen out in the city on Tuesday night but Mr Hollewand would not elaborate on where he was.

A possible motive for the murder has been suggested to police but Mr Hollewand said it was still speculative.

Fourteen officers are working on the inquiry with Interpol, the Asian people's liaison officer and the Chinese consulate-general in Auckland.

Yesterday police were at Mr Wan's apartment talking to his flatmates. Items from his car were taken away but the vehicle is not believed to have been used in the homicide.

Mr Wan's body was found by a couple who were sailing on Good Friday morning when they saw the black suitcase floating in the water near the harbour bridge.

They tried to open the zip but when they saw flesh and a towel with blood on it they zipped it back up and called the police.

A yellow buoy marking the spot remains in the harbour.

Mr Wan died from multiple injuries but police will not say what caused them. He is believed to have been in the water for between 12 and 24 hours.

Yesterday, discussion forums on the Chinese language website Skykiwi were inundated with speculation about the death.

The case is likely to cause deep concern within the export education industry, which is already seeing a decline in Chinese international students. Providers the Herald contacted yesterday would not comment.

Chinese students peaked at 53,000 in 2003, compared with 30,000 last year. Education experts attribute the decline to a high New Zealand dollar, quality issues with some providers and highly publicised cases of kidnappings and murders involving Chinese students.

In April 2004, Jun Jie Ying was sentenced to a minimum 20 years' jail for murdering his former girlfriend and her new man. His girlfriend was found strangled to death in his car boot. Her boyfriend had 35 stab wounds, inflicted as he slept in their Hamilton flat.

Later that year, Wen Hui Cui was sentenced to a minimum 19 years' jail for murdering his 21-year-old girlfriend in their rented home in Unsworth Heights, North Shore, before stabbing her two male friends waiting for her outside. One died.