{"id":319757,"date":"2024-05-13T16:29:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T21:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=319757"},"modified":"2024-05-14T09:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T14:28:52","slug":"accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"Accused in Vancouver Casino Money Launderer Slaying Sweats Verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian prosecutors have urged a British Columbia Supreme Court Judge to convict a man accused of firing the bullet that killed casino money launderer Jian Jun Zhu in September 2020.<\/p>\n

\"Jian
The victim, Jian Jun Zhu, left, and the possible intended victim, Paul \u201cKing\u201d Jin, right. It is not yet clear who hired accused killer, Richard Reed, or why. (Image: Casino.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zhu died in a hail of gunfire<\/a> as he dined with his associate Paul \u201cKing\u201d Jin at Manzo, a Japanese restaurant in Richmond, Greater Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Last week, the court heard the closing arguments in the trial of Richard Reed, who faces charges<\/a> of first-degree murder in Zhu\u2019s death, and the attempted murder of Jin, who was injured but survived the attack.<\/p>\n

Industrial-Scale Money Laundering<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 2017, Zhu was the subject of a case billed as Canada\u2019s all-time biggest money laundering prosecution. Zhu was accused of washing hundreds of millions of dollars through Vancouver-area casinos via his currency exchange company Silver International<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors in that case contended that Silver was a front for an underground bank with links to drug cartels and terrorist financing.<\/p>\n

\n

The case collapsed<\/a> when prosecutors accidentally revealed the name of a crucial government witness during a standard evidence disclosure. The presiding judge stayed the case, determining that to continue would place the witness at \u201chigh risk of death.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Perhaps because of that outcome, Reed\u2019s trial is a judge-only affair. Thanks to a 2003 statute, cases in Canada where there is deemed to be a substantial risk of jury intimidation or tampering\u00a0can dispense with a jury altogether.<\/p>\n

Wrong Man Killed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Reed admitted to the court that he was the individual captured on surveillance video outside the restaurant wearing a black and white Calvin Klein hoodie minutes before the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Reed spends roughly 20 minutes surveying the Manzo scene. He walked through the parking lot waiting for the sun to set so he could commit the offense under the cover of darkness,\u201d prosecutor Mark Wolf said in closing arguments, as reported by The Vancouver Sun. <\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Zhu immediately collapsed after being shot and later died in [the] hospital, and Mr. Jin was treated for his injuries and recovered,\u201d Wolf added. \u201cIt\u2019s the Crown submission that in committing this shooting Mr. Reed intended to kill the person shot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The judge in the case, Justice Jeanne Watchuk, has ruled inadmissible a purported confession by Reed, made to a friend, that he had targeted Jin but killed the wrong man<\/a>. Jin is an alleged illegal gambling operator who used Silver International to launder money, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Others Involved<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Police found the gun used in the shooting under Reed\u2019s bed when they searched his apartment, as well as a loaded magazine with Reed\u2019s fingerprint on it.<\/p>\n

Reed had frequent phone contact with three people who were either in the restaurant or in the vicinity at the time of the shooting, one of whom, Jin Cai, was also having dinner at Manzo and was the only one to leave early.<\/p>\n

Another, Gordon Ma, who had been seen on surveillance video with Reed before the shooting, had frequent phone contact with Jin Cai, before and after the act.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prosecutors haven’t revealed in court filings who hired Reed to allegedly carry out the killing or why Zhu \u2013 or indeed Jin \u2013 was targeted.<\/p>\n

Missing Man<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Defense lawyers argued that Ma, whereabouts unknown, could plausibly have pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n

\n

The actual shooter wasn’t picked up by the restaurant\u2019s security camera, so prosecutors couldn’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that Reed pulled the trigger, according to defense lawyer Kevin Westell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPossessing the firearm two months after the shooting tells us nothing about who the shooter was,\u201d Westell said.<\/p>\n

Judge Watchuk has reserved her decision, which is expected to be delivered in writing in due course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian prosecutors have urged a British Columbia Supreme Court Judge to convict a man accused of firing the bullet that killed casino money launderer Jian Jun Zhu in September 2020. Zhu died in a hail of gunfire as he dined with his associate Paul \u201cKing\u201d Jin at Manzo, a Japanese restaurant in Richmond, Greater Vancouver. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":316880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[90866,90480,90867,81894,90482,90865,82670],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAccused in Vancouver Casino Money Launderer Slaying Sweats Verdict<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Richard Rees is accuse of killing Silver International money launderer Jian Jun Zhu at a Manzo restaurant in Richmond, Vancouver.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Accused in Vancouver Casino Money Launderer Slaying Sweats Verdict\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Richard Rees is accuse of killing Silver International money launderer Jian Jun Zhu at a Manzo restaurant in Richmond, Vancouver.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-13T21:29:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-14T14:28:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Paul-Jin.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"666\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/\",\"name\":\"Accused in Vancouver Casino Money Launderer Slaying Sweats Verdict\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Paul-Jin.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-05-13T21:29:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-05-14T14:28:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Richard Rees is accuse of killing Silver International money launderer Jian Jun Zhu at a Manzo restaurant in Richmond, Vancouver.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/accused-in-vancouver-casino-money-launderer-slaying-sweats-verdict\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Paul-Jin.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Paul-Jin.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":666,\"caption\":\"The victim, Jian Jun Zhu, left, and the possible intended victim, Paul \u201cKing\u201d Jin, right. 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