Triad execution ruled out in Chinese student murders

Aug 20 2008 by Paul James, The Journal

DETECTIVES investigating the brutal murder of a Chinese couple last night said it was unlikely to be a Triad contract killing.

Police said they were now trying to establish where Xi Zhou and boyfriend Zhen Xing Yang where the graduates stood in any chain of command controlling the betting scams in which they were apparently playing a part.

But Det Supt Steve Wade yesterday said their modest lifestyles did not point to a high ranking within any organised crime network.

And 10 days on from the discovery of their bodies, he said his current understanding of the 25-year-old couple’s “minor fraudulent activity” gave no reason for them to have been killed in such a violent manner.

Yesterday Det Supt Wade released a new picture of the couple taken recently at Alnwick Castle and a video of Miss Zhou singing karaoke, both of which were found on computers taken from their flat at 8 Croydon Road, Fenham.

Last week a Journal investigation revealed threats against the couple made by people they had signed up to report live on football matches for contacts in China – where the time delay on results means they would have an advantage for betting.

They have also been accused of making fake university certificates, driving licences and visas.

But yesterday Det Supt Wade said: “Triads tend to be involved in international, organised criminality.

“Might they want to murder two Chinese ex-students living in Croydon Road because they might have bumped off somebody in an internet betting scam or there’s been a couple of hooky university certificates?

“Are you going to send a couple of Triad killers to do that? Let’s be sensible about it. It is not pointing to organised crime.

“If these people are big-time organised criminals, why is it they’re living in a small flat – an ordinary, Tyneside, two-bed ground-floor flat? They haven’t got a big, flash car – they haven’t even got a car. She worked as a waitress in a noodle bar.

“The question I can’t answer is why has somebody gone to the level of violence that has been used here, against these two people, for what we know about them?

“We may never know, but somebody out there does.

“We’re making inquiries as to where they sit in terms of this betting scam. They clearly didn’t sit anywhere near the top of whatever the scam was, otherwise they would have had much more money. The hierarchical structure of that is part of the investigation”

Police have set up a special email address – northumbriapolice@ymail.com – which has been posted on the same Chinese internet chat rooms where angry people who were not paid for the football reporting have posted what Det Supt Wade described as “idle threats”.

He said: “Wrongly, some people may have assumed the victims have brought this upon themselves. That may be stopping people coming forward and reporting things.

“They are living in small, rented accommodation in the West End of Newcastle. They haven’t got a yacht or a jet-set lifestyle or thousands of pounds in the bank.

“We haven’t got printing presses and passport racketeering. It’s low-level stuff. I’m not condoning it but it certainly doesn’t point to finding out why these murders happened.

“But it would not have been difficult for anyone looking at the website to see here was a young couple living in Newcastle who may have been worth a few pounds.”