A Canoe Before the Wind: Vitale Lafaele’s extraordinary journey

In Samoan culture, there is a saying when asked, how do you navigate the challenges of life? Ua se va'a tu matagi. Like a canoe before the wind.

Vitale Lafaele arrived in Auckland from Samoa during the 1970s Dawn Raids era and his childhood was characterised by poverty, discrimination and violent bullying. He would grow up to became an elite soldier and led the Special Tactics Group. This extract from his book A Canoe Before the Wind recalls the kidnapping (and rescue) of 5-year-old Cina Ma on the North Shore.

The third operation took place in July 2008 and it struck a lot closer to home. Back then, Albany, on Auckland’s North Shore, was a rapidly growing suburb. Once famous for its orchards, the area was now full of subdivisions of large homes, many of which belonged to the city’s growing Asian population. However, the events of July 14 were to change Albany’s reputation as a quiet, safe place for young families in the minds of many New Zealanders.

That day, a 5-year-old girl – Cina Ma, also known as Xin Xin – had been outside her family home in the new Harrowglen subdivision with her 6-year-old cousin, riding her scooter. Sitting nearby, unnoticed by the two children, was a silver station wagon. Suddenly, a balaclava-clad man jumped out of the car, grabbed Cina, then threw her into the boot of the vehicle and drove away. Before long, her frantic family received a ransom demand for $500,000.

As soon as the police were called, the local CIB took charge of the case, with Detective Inspector Mike Bush running the inquiry. Because it was a kidnapping where a ransom had been demanded, a strong tactical response was required, so Mike called in the Special Tactics Group. As the STG commander, I ran the tactical operation. Given the serious nature of the case and the workload that it required, the decision was made to call in STG teams from each of the other two regions. A full deployment of the STG is highly unusual, but in this case it was necessary because we really didn’t know what we were dealing with.

A huge investigation swung into action; any and every possible lead was chased up as quickly as possible. As part of that, Cina’s family went on television and made an appeal for any information that might help us find her. We also had police teams go door-to-door around the Mas’ neighbourhood, canvassing local people for any information they might have.

As each day passed, everyone working on the case became a little more concerned for her safety and, by day five, my fear that the worst had happened to her was starting to grow. For a missing child, five days is a really long time.

We had one strong lead – a young North Shore real estate agent who was in quite a bit of financial difficulty and lived not far from the Ma family home, so he knew the area. He’d also been seen going to another house that was only a couple of hundred metres away from where Cina had been abducted. But we had no idea whether he had Cina or not.

Both homes were put under surveillance but, in order to search them, we needed to make sure the suspect wasn’t at either of the houses and was unlikely to arrive home before we’d completed our investigation of the properties.

Early in the afternoon of July 18, the man left his home and headed into the city, followed by our surveillance teams. As soon as we knew that he was out of the picture, and with no one at home in either house, teams went in to both addresses.

Each house was thoroughly searched. Nothing was found at the man’s home. Then I got a call from the STG team at the other house. It was the Christchurch team leader and I’ll never forget his words. “We’ve got her and she’s safe.”

Cina was alive.

For a moment, the whole team went silent. None of us could talk.

Then one of the guys, Greg, said, “Boss, she’s alive!”

Everyone felt so much relief that it almost seemed as if the air had been sucked out of the room. There was no fist-pumping or celebrating for quite some time while we processed what had happened. We all just sat there for five or six minutes, feeling exhausted and elated.

For five days, we hadn’t known where this little girl was and we thought there was a strong possibility that she was dead. We had no idea what we were going to find when we went into that house. We didn’t know if she was going to be in there, and we’d had to face the possibility that we would find a body. To find out she was alive and safe felt like Christmas 10 times over.

The guys had found her locked in a small walk-in wardrobe, off a room that had blacked-out windows. Her hands were tied together and there was tape around her mouth so she couldn’t make any noise. Next to her, a bucket had been left for her to use as a toilet.

They wrapped her in a blanket and got her out of there as quickly as they could.

A little while after Cina was found, I got a call from Mike Bush. He knew we were searching the houses. When he hadn’t heard anything, he rang me to find out what was happening.

I told him that we’d found Cina and she was fine.

“VJ, are you telling me she’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you ring me immediately?”

“I was too emotional. I couldn’t talk. I had to just gather myself first. The whole team are just so relieved.”

People often forget that police are also husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and friends too. We’re real people doing real things for our communities. Cases like this hit us hard and we really care. I stood there while this little 5-year-old girl was brought outside, thinking, “That could have been my child.” While Cina was taken back to the station – where she was reunited with her family, given a thorough medical check and plenty of other support – we waited for her kidnapper to come back.

A Canoe Before the Wind, by Vitale Lafaele

Some of our guys had followed him to Karangahape Rd in the city, and they let us know when he was on his way back to Albany.

When the guy put the key in the door to his house, our team opened it from inside. “Gotcha!” Arresting him knowing Cina was safe was a very good result for us.

The investigation into the kidnapping found that the man, Deqjong “Aaron” Deng, had planned the whole thing very carefully. He’d rented the car, using a friend’s driver’s licence, then he’d stolen the number plates off a similar vehicle. He’d also got his girlfriend to buy a new mobile phone for him shortly before he’d abducted Cina. That was the phone he’d used to make his ransom demands to the girl’s family.

When he appeared in court, Deng pleaded guilty to kidnapping. Sentencing him to nine years in prison, Justice Judith Potter said the kidnapping was cowardly and cruel, and that it had left the victim with post-traumatic stress disorder. Following their ordeal, Cina and her family left New Zealand.

Mike Bush went on to become Commissioner of Police in 2014. When he retired from the role in 2020, he spoke about the moment Cina was rescued as one of the events in his career that really stuck in his mind. He said, “It took us five days of some of the best police work that I’ve ever seen to find her and bring her to safety. Freeing her is an image that will always stay with me. The work we did, I believe, saved her life.”

A Canoe Before the Wind, by Vitale Fafaele (HarperCollinsNZ, $39.99)