Chin Kok Soon was sentenced in the High Court at Wellington on 21 charges of receiving stolen property. Photo / Catherine Hutton
The property mogul-turned-kingpin of a ring that netted almost $3 million worth of stolen goods has been locked up. Catherine Hutton looks into the investigation that brought down Chin Kok Soon.
Detective Jason Gore isn’t easily surprised, but the seasoned cop had to admit he wasn’t expecting to find such a sizeable haul of stolen goods at Chin Kok Soon’s home in the Wellington suburb of Newlands in 2022.
On the day of their swoop, police seized 851 stolen items from the Tamworth Crescent address, including from a garage stacked floor to ceiling with goods, with still more crammed inside the house.
In a bedroom, there were designer handbags with a combined value of more than $5000, while a TV cabinet concealed bottles of wine pinched from a restaurant.
So many items were taken from the property that it took a team of up to 10 police officers three days to catalogue them all.
These proved to be just a fraction of the more than 6000 stolen items police discovered when they executed 20 search warrants in October and November 2022 as part of Operation Trump Card, aimed at shutting down the capital’s largest stolen goods ring.
Soon and his associates had stashed the property across 16 lockups, four homes, residential garages, vehicles, businesses, a shipping container and even a tiny house still under construction.
Police anticipated they could store the seized items in a shipping container. In fact, they filled a warehouse.
It wasn’t just the volume of stolen property that surprised police, but the variety. The goods ranged from designer handbags to power tools, taps, door handles, lights, heat pumps, bikes and even a 3D mapping device, and another for detecting underground pipes.
Many of the items were still boxed with price tags attached. The total replacement value was estimated at $2.9m.
Soon was equally surprised when police pulled him over as he left his home at 8am on October 5, 2022.
Unbeknown to the then 62-year-old, he’d been under surveillance for months.
While it was only Detective Gore’s first or second meeting with Soon, he had spent so long watching him that he believed he knew him pretty well.
Gore said Soon thought of himself as an astute businessman, and a pretty good crook who’d taken the necessary precautions to avoid police detection. Police also knew that while he presented himself to the public as an upstanding citizen, this wasn’t how he treated his associates and suppliers.
During questioning at the Wellington Central Police Station after his arrest, Soon denied all knowledge of the offending and refused police access to his mobile phone, Gore saying Soon “had been instructed to make it hard for the police”.
Gore said Soon had little to no understanding of the impact his actions had on his many victims.
The question of Soon’s remorse arose at today’s sentencing in the High Court at Wellington for 21 charges of receiving property and a charge of failing to assist a person exercising a search power when requested to do so.
Justice Paul Radich said he didn’t accept Soon’s claims that his remorse was genuine.
He referred to a letter Soon had written expressing remorse and promising not to do it again. However, he also referred to other parts of the letter that revealed a lack of insight and accountability.
“It was 2021 that’s when things started, a tenant couldn’t pay their rent for many reasons so they would exchange things to make up for the payment. The word soon got around to all the tenants, and it became a regular occurrence ... it wasn’t until I got arrested on October 5, 2022 that I realised the seriousness of the offences.”
Justice Radich also rejected a claim by defence lawyers Mike Lennard and Nikita Mitskevitch that Soon’s offending was a fall from grace and was out of character.
“It is certainly the case that you had not been convicted of offending in the past, but the offending in this case occurred on a carefully calculated basis over a nine-month period.
“You had built a significant criminal network and you were engaged in criminal activity, almost on a daily basis.”
The judge said the offending was the most serious of its type and adopted a starting point of six years and six months’ imprisonment. But he reduced that to three years and 10 months’ imprisonment, after taking into account Soon’s guilty plea, his previous good character and medical problems.
During 2021, police noticed a spike in the thefts of expensive bikes, particularly mountain and e-bikes, from Wellington apartment blocks and homes.
Gore’s boss Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Leitch said a small number of people were typically responsible for most of the thefts in the city and police generally knew who they were.
He stresses this group numbers in the tens, rather than the hundreds, but admits the actual number tends to ebb and flow depending on who’s in and out of jail.
But what piqued Gore’s interest was that those usual suspects, later found to be connected to Soon, weren’t stealing their usual items.
Aside from the ongoing bike thefts, there was the theft of high-end luxury handbags from shops. Then there were the thefts of tools and appliances from building sites and items stolen from retail shops.
The thieves were walking into hardware stores, clipping the security tags, grabbing the item off the shelf and walking out. The question at the time was why.
About the same time, a house in a quiet cul-de-sac in the leafy suburb of Karori was attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.
Once home to former Reserve Bank Governor Sir Spencer Russell, the Hatton St property features a duck pond, outhouse and large tennis court.
By 2021 the property, which Soon had an interest in, had become a major hotspot of police activity.
Frustrated neighbours were calling the police daily to complain about noise, disorderly behaviour and general disruption.
Uniformed police conducting bail checks at the house would be joined by their colleagues from the tactical crime group who were dealing with burglaries and stolen cars – which at that time were found in the surrounding streets.
Real estate photos from its subsequent sale in July this year show the derelict house with its windows boarded up and the tennis court overgrown. Police say it was being run as a boarding house, with Soon considered the landlord by the tenants.
Police are coy about how they eventually connected Soon’s properties to the stolen goods.
But it was clear to them he had interests in several properties across the city and was receiving large quantities of stolen goods.
Operation Trump Card was launched in February 2022 to target the large-scale receiving operation, focusing on the criminal activity of Soon and his associates.
With the investigation’s start delayed by the parliamentary protests, the team juggled it over the following months with their work on the city’s other burglaries, stolen cars and frauds.
Police initially sought an order allowing them to gather the phone and text information from over 76,000 texts and calls between Soon and his associates.
The most prolific communicator was Rami Youkhana, who contacted Soon 1600 times between February and October 2022 and was sentenced earlier this month.
Soon’s modus operandi was consistent. He’d leave his house mid-morning when the first offers were being made, continuing to make deals and arrangements until the late evening.
People would text or call him asking if he wanted to buy a particular item. He’d either agree to buy it on the spot or arrange a meeting to see it.
The prices he paid for these goods varied depending on the item, but generally he’d pay about 30% of the retail value for a new item and 20% for second-hand goods.
One associate messaged Soon twice regarding stolen generators.
“Chin I’m on my way to newland (sic) to drop you The Best generator”, the text said. Police later recovered a generator from Soon’s rental property valued at $17,000.
Other messages showed Soon was taking stolen goods in place of rent from his tenants.
In one text Soon asked, “Why you recently got no stuffs”.
“Trying to keep away from cops on my case but ill definitely be going shopping early in morning and ill have my rent money sorry abt the delay. ill be leaving mine at 7.30 to go shopping in morning (sic),” the associate replied.
Soon stored the stolen goods in 16 storage units scattered around Wellington, with a total storage area of 200sq m, about the size of a four-bedroom home.
Either he or his associates would drop off items at the units, which were frequently being repacked.
During the next six to eight months, as the operation grew more complex and far-reaching, police were building a detailed snapshot of Soon’s activities.
Police surveillance confirmed his connections stretched beyond Wellington and into the Hutt Valley and Porirua.
Rather than receiving goods from one particular group, Soon’s suppliers included his tenants, some of whom were unemployed; other suppliers were gang members; and many of those bringing him goods were vulnerable and easily tempted by the opportunity to make quick cash.
People in these areas supplied him with any stolen item he wanted – bicycles, power tools, building materials, whiteware, generators and scaffolding.
Initially, Soon was tasking people to burgle and shoplift to order, supplying lists of items he wanted to a fairly tight inner circle. As time went on, he began accepting offers of stolen property from strangers.
Soon had a reputation for making prompt payment for the goods. He had numerous accounts at all the major banks and would withdraw cash from an ATM or arrange a bank transfer on the day.
An analysis of the accounts over the last five years showed a significant increase in spending in 2022.
Police say between 2018 and 2021, Soon’s annual withdrawals ranged from $48,000 to $61,000.
Between January and early October 2022 they increased to $662,998 across 825 transactions, averaging 20 transactions a week.
However, these significant outgoings weren’t sustainable, with cash deposits only amounting to $128,030.
All the while, Soon thought he was taking the necessary precautions to avoid police detection, insisting his contacts delete his text messages and arranging meetings in isolated spots such as carparks or behind buildings.
If he felt he was put in a situation that exposed him, he would cease contact. Gore said at one point Soon texted a contact, “You’ve exposed me to the police, I not do business with you anymore”.
Leitch said that unlike seasoned criminals, Soon wasn’t careful with his communications.
For example, by mid-2022 police were sure Soon was stashing stolen items in storage units, but they weren’t sure where. Helpfully, Soon texted the address and gate code to a supplier who was dropping something off.
Phone records also showed the tenants at Hatton St were alerting him when the police had visited or were nearby. Some were happy to share their criminal expertise with a man who had no previous convictions.
Unbeknown to Soon, he also bought gib board from an undercover police officer in July 2022, when there was a national shortage.
Soon paid $500 for 30 sheets of gib and four bales of insulation, which would typically retail for $1860.
The following month the officer sold Soon more gib board and said he was keen on buying a bike he’d seen at the storage unit.
Soon indicated the bikes were stolen and he planned to ship them offshore, telling the undercover officer he was looking for a contact in Customs to help export the bikes to Europe.
He also said he’d already moved most of the bikes from Wellington. The officer paid $2000 for a bike, which was later identified as stolen.
Through their surveillance, police were able to gain an understanding of why a man who trained as a quantity surveyor and worked as a property manager fell into criminality in his 60s. It was simply greed, on all levels.
Soon intended the sale of the stolen goods to be used to fund his property empire, with plans to build multi-unit developments on properties and bare sections he had an interest in, which had an estimated value of $20m.
An architect had been engaged to draw up plans to develop the sites with homes, studio units and multi-storey homes.
But despite his own belief that he was an excellent businessman, there was a serious flaw in his plans.
While Soon was buying and storing thousands of stolen items, he hadn’t worked out how to on-sell them.
In April 2022, a text to Youkhana indicated he was aware of how much he was spending, and how little was coming in.
“Pay thousands single day x 365 days for a year. It will be breaking more than a million for one year. Therefore I will be bankrupt!!!”
At sentencing, Lennard, Soon’s lawyer, attributed his client’s offending to his decision to reduce his blood pressure medication in 2021, which he said led to cerebral injuries.
“But for his cerebral injuries he would not be in court today. He would be running his property empire with his wife. Being a frugal spender, going to church.”
Crown prosecutor Madeleine Story said it wasn’t clear when the change in his behaviour occurred or whether it was linked to his offending.
But Justice Radich referred to a psychiatric report that explained the cerebral damage Soon experienced.
“As your counsel said, in many ways you brought a tragedy on yourself by halving the medication that you were prescribed.
“You changed from being a frugal person to acting on the basis of impulses to spend and acting irrationally and recklessly. Your judgment was impaired.
“I accept that the damage helps to explain why someone of previously good character came to offend in the way that you did”.
Even with the arrests on October 5 – the termination day of Operation Trump Card – the work of the police involved was far from done. Now began the mammoth task of trying to track down the owners of the stolen property.
The 6265 seized items were catalogued, taking an exhibits officer a month to photograph.
Police worked to match names and serial numbers to stolen property reports. They made public appeals through the media and took photograph booklets of tools to tradie breakfasts and visited bike shops.
Of the 300 bikes, police found the owners of 141 – a success rate of 47%.
Police also seized over a thousand new and still boxed items shoplifted from big-box and department stores, of which 737 items were returned to Bunnings, 314 to Mitre 10 and 26 to Placemakers.
In the meantime, Gore and his team were building their case. While a handful faced receiving charges in the district court, six people were charged with being part of an organised criminal group and faced a jury trial in the High Court in October, which was expected to last six weeks.
But as the trial approached, the defendants pleaded guilty and were scheduled for sentencing in November and December.
Four others are yet to be sentenced, one of whom has name suppression.
Even when these sentencings are complete, there’s still the question of what to do with the remaining assets and property.
The Asset Recovery Unit seized 15 properties, including Hatton St, which sold in July this year. The money is being held in trust until the court decides what to do with it.
Leitch described the investigation as an eye-opener.
“I don’t think there’d be many investigations, certainly nothing in Wellington, but probably not in the country, where so many stolen property items have been recovered. There have been big stolen-property investigations around the country, but probably nothing on this scale,” he said.
Alongside his surprise at the haul’s size, Gore admits to feeling some vindication that his original hunch all the thefts were connected was correct.
He said closing down a huge driver of crime in the city was very satisfying.
Leitch said it was pleasing to have a case that was so complex, demanding and resource-intensive finally come to an end.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
He faces two charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.