Desert Rd trial: Meth syndicate henchman Michael Gu sentenced for murder of Ricky Wang

A loyal henchman who tied a rival meth cook to a chair and stabbed him to death - following orders from syndicate crime boss “Uncle Six” amid a power struggle for dominance over Auckland’s lucrative illegal ephedrine market - has been ordered to spend at least the next 13 years behind bars.

Jurors found Zhicheng “Michael” Gu, 31, guilty of murder in June following a monthlong trial that provided a rare glimpse into the operation of Auckland’s underground meth labs. While Gu chose not to testify, many of his former co-defendants did - describing in detail the illegal industry, as well as the planning of Ricky Wang’s August 2017 murder and the elaborate disposal of his body.

Justice Simon Moore ordered the former Otago Boys’ High School student today to serve a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment of 13 years and eight months. Upon his eventual release on parole, the longtime New Zealand resident is almost certain to be deported to China, the judge noted.

Gu was described during his trial as the longest-serving and most loyal henchman of Jian Qi Zhao, a diminutive overstayer from China who rapidly ascended New Zealand’s criminal underworld due to his US-based source of ephedrine - a vital ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Better known as Uncle Six, Brother Six or Captain, Zhao was described by prosecutors as the “head of the snake”.

The syndicate started selling raw ephedrine before establishing clandestine meth labs in various locations in Auckland, selling the finished product in bulk to gangs for a much larger profit. The syndicate was at one point raking in millions of dollars, evidence suggests.

Gu’s former co-defendants all testified that Wang, a meth cook who often worked with the syndicate in a contractor-like role, was lured to a Massey home doubling as a clan lab one night six years ago under the guise of looking at meth-manufacturing glassware. The real purpose, they all said, was to confront him about rumours he was going to team up with a rogue “Westerner” gang member to kidnap Uncle Six, get him to reveal the location of his secret Blockhouse Bay ephedrine warehouse, then kill him and use the stash to take over the syndicate’s operations.

Zhicheng 'Michael' Gu appears in the Auckland District Court in 2019 for sentencing on drug charges. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Fellow henchman Gordon “Fatty” Yu and Uncle Six were both initially supposed to join Gu in the dock at trial but they instead each pleaded guilty and agreed to testify. Zhao was sentenced in November to life with a minimum term of imprisonment of 12 years and three months. Yu pleaded guilty at the last minute and was sentenced on the eve of the trial to 15 years with a minimum term of imprisonment of eight years.

Uncle Six acknowledged while in the witness box that he hadn’t been satisfied with the captive meth cook’s denials that night, so the syndicate boss said he ordered Gu to stab Wang to death while Fatty was to hold a towel over Wang’s head to muffle the screams.

Uncle Six said he and Yong Qin - another trusted henchman nicknamed Edison or Kang Kang - waited outside as the dirty work took place. Qin, also a native of China, returned to his home country before police began to unravel the case and has not returned. Although he hasn’t been charged with a crime, police made a request through the Chinese government for mutual assistance seeking to interview him for the case. Qin did not wish to participate, Chinese officials replied.

Police did not realise Wang had gone missing for over two years. But in 2019 massage parlour owner and syndicate associate Tony Piao helped police crack the case when he informed them from prison that Wang had been murdered and dumped in a remote location near Desert Rd south of Taupō. It would take months more of investigation after the revelation before authorities would find Wang’s remains encased in concrete in a shallow grave in March 2020.

Gu immigrated to New Zealand in 2010, at the age of 17, to attend school in Otago and later sought but never completed a degree in civil engineering from MIT in Auckland. It’s in stark contrast to Uncle Six, who came to New Zealand in 2014 with the sole purpose of selling methamphetamine, defence lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade KC argued today.

Crime boss Jian Qi Zhao, also known as Brother Six among other nicknames, appears via audio-visual link during an earlier hearing in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / NZME

Kincade suggested that her client was one of several men lured into a life of crime by Uncle Six, who should bear the most responsibility.

“I certainly see Mr Zhao as something of an outlier, the boss in this whole business, and that is a distinction I am prepared to make,” Justice Morre responded.

Kincade also sought a discount for Gu’s status as a foreign national, suggesting it will make his incarceration “disproportionately severe”. Having used a translator throughout the trial, he does not speak fluent English and has no other family in New Zealand, she noted.

Justice Moore agreed to a modest six-month discount but said more substantial discounts should be reserved for cases involving drug couriers intercepted in New Zealand who have no roots at all here.

“New Zealand is not a foreign place for you,” he told the defendant.

The judge also noted “heart-wrenching” letters submitted to the court from Gu’s father and sister, who described the defendant as having been the “backbone” of their family.

The judge declined discounts for remorse, noting that Gu told a pre-sentencing report writer that the jury got the verdict wrong. His minimum term of imprisonmemt was reduced, however, due to the substantial amount of time he had already spent in prison - including a four-year term he was sentenced to in August 2019 for drugs and firearms offending with the syndicate.

He has been imprisoned ever since his arrest on those charges, having been charged with murder in May 2020 before his previous sentence could be completed.

Crown prosecutors Matthew Nathan and Joanne Lee had said the calculated, lengthy planning of the murder should be an aggravating factor in the sentencing, as well as the cruelty, depravity and callousness of the way in which Wang died.

The body of Bao Chang 'Ricky' Wang was found in 2020, three years after he vanished. Photo / Supplied

The judge agreed the pre-meditation should be taken into account but declined to consider the brutality of the killing. He surmised that, while there were “certainly elements” of brutality, it just barely missed the legal threshold when compared to other cases.

Despite the judge’s agreement that Uncle Six was more culpable for the crime, Gu ended up with a slightly longer end sentence - the result, in part, of not getting a discount for pleading guilty or for remorse.

Gu, wearing a black jumper and pants, looked straight ahead with little visible emotion for much of today’s hearing. He exhaled loudly, though, as the life sentence was announced.

He remained stone faced as a victim impact statement from Wang’s ex-wife was read aloud by prosecutors. In it, she noted that their two children were 2 and 6 years old when their father vanished.

“They have asked me many times how their dad died,” she wrote. “I cry every time.

“I don’t have the courage to reveal to them how their dad has died.”

The woman said she is now forced to be a single-parent, struggling to make ends meet and often seeing her son cry when he watches other children play with their fathers.

“Our life has been ripped apart forever,” she said. “I will never forgive these people for what they did to my family.”

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.