Ringleader in failed bitcoin ransom plot sentenced to 20 years in jail

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The mastermind of a sophisticated plan to kidnap an international University of Toronto student for a $5-million ransom should have been deported in 2017 — but is now our long-term guest after a judge sentenced him to 20 years behind bars.

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Zeyu Zang, 37, was the “chief architect, investor, paymaster and directing mind” of the plot to kidnap Wenbo Jin, 24, from his Grenville St. condo in January 2020 and hold him bound and blindfolded for 13 days in a rented Richmond Hill home while his father in China was told to wire bitcoin to secure his release, said Superior Court Justice Sean Dunphy.

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“It is hard to comprehend the degree of harm inflicted upon the victim by this crime: He was awakened at home in the middle of the night and in his bed with what he believed was a gun pointed at him. He was made to stand at the foot of his bed for several hours, blindfolded and ordered to ingest unknown drugs that made him drowsy. He feared for his life at every moment,” the judge said.

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“He was then forced into a dark bag that was zipped up around him, leaving him with a feeling of suffocation He was threatened with dire consequences should he resist and was carried out to a vehicle. He was held in the dark, bound and blindfolded and in a constant state of terror for almost two weeks.”

Two of Zang’s accomplices — who carried out the actual kidnapping and drugging — pleaded guilty last fall. On Tuesday, Justice Maureen Forestell sentenced career criminal Kristopher Matthews, 32, — who was on probation and bail at the time — to 15 years in prison and first-time offender Jevaughn Myers, 25, to 10 years. Stephanie Wiseman, 32, who stayed in the same home as the kidnapped victim and shopped for essentials, was given a conditional sentence of 22 months.

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But this was Zang’s caper.

Court heard the Chinese ringleader, in Canada on an expired student visa and boasting a criminal record for identity theft and forgery, spent weeks and $20,000 on acquiring various teams, stash houses and supplies for every phase of his operation. He hired someone to inflitrate Jin’s social circle and copy his condo key from his coat pocket while he was at a party in Markham. A few days later, his extraction team of Matthews and Myers used it to enter his apartment with orders to drug their victim into submission — or use a taser — and then transport him in a hockey bag to the getaway van and on to Richmond Hill.

Jin’s prison was a locked second-floor bedroom with plywood on the windows, chains to keep him in place, a bucket to relieve himself and a surveillance camera to ensure he didn’t escape. He was fed minimally — he lost a pound a day — and forced to participate in two ransom calls to his family, Dunphy said, while his kidnappers partied and waited for a payday that never came.

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“He was held for 13 days in those conditions. Suspended in an agony of uncertainty between life and death until he was rescued by police on Feb. 2, 2020,” Dunphy said.

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Ignoring orders not to contact anyone, Jin’s father in Beijing reported his son’s kidnapping to police and flew to Toronto. After tracking the phones used in the ransom demands, Jin was freed and his captors were arrested — though Myers tried to escape by jumping out a second-floor window.

Convicted by a jury last October, the judge said Zang was under a 2017 deportation order, “which for reasons unknown” was never enforced. He’s also facing charges for a similar home invasion in Scarborough that took place two weeks before the Jin kidnapping.

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“Mr. Zang had no legal right to remain in Canada before this crime was ever conceived of or carried into execution,” Dunphy said. “Mr. Zang chose crime as a means to an end; he was not driven into it by anything more noble than greed, envy and desire.”

Back in China, Jin still struggles to put the terrifying ordeal behind him, still sleeping with the lights on, still victimized by local media accounts of what he endured.

“The damage to his physical and mental health has been severe,” the judge said. “It is quite likely that Mr. Jin will bear the scars of this nightmare with him for life.”

mmandel@postmedia.com

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