Vancouver Police Allegedly Recovered $890,000 in Stolen Goods From an East Side House and Locker. BC Seeks the Home as Instrument of Alleged Fencing Operation

Prolific shoplifting and fencing operation allegedly stole power tools, home improvement products, designer goods and baby food to sell online.

VANCOUVER — When Vancouver police executed search warrants at a house on East 28th Avenue in May, what they catalogued read like the stockroom of a small department store.

More than 80 acoustic and electric guitars, hundreds of home improvement items, power tools and battery packs, over 100 containers of baby formula, designer sunglasses with price tags attached, new toiletries still in their packaging, racks of clothing from Lululemon, Aritzia and Arc’teryx with price and anti-theft tags intact, boxed electronics — and over $5,000 in cash.

At a storage locker across town, they found 200 more containers of baby formula, more tagged clothing, packaging materials, and a homemade tool built to bypass retail security tags.

The estimated value of the stolen property recovered from the two sites, according to British Columbia’s director of civil forfeiture? Over $890,000.

Now the director is suing to take the house — in a claim that casts the East Vancouver property as both the instrument of a sophisticated retail-theft fencing enterprise and the proceeds of it, held by three members of one family through an ownership structure that shifted, at one point, for consideration of one dollar.

The notice of civil claim, filed May 1 in B.C. Supreme Court’s Victoria registry, names Mrs. Zheng, her son Mr. Zhang, and Ms. Li—identified in the filing as Mr. Zhang’s current or former spouse—as owners of a property in the 3400 block of East 28th Avenue.

Situated between a pair of dated, stucco-trimmed, box-like homes known locally as “Vancouver Specials” — the 2,000-square-foot residence targeted by the director was bought by the family in 2015 and assessed at $1,762,000 in 2023, property and legal records indicate.

None of the allegations have been proven. The director’s claim is a civil pleading to be tested on the balance of probabilities; the defendants have admitted only basic ownership, mortgage and registration facts, denied the substance, and no criminal charges are referenced in the forfeiture pleadings.

The claim describes a detailed police surveillance operation.

On October 2, 2024, the Vancouver Police Department’s Identity Theft and Anti-Fencing Unit opened a file on what the pleading calls a “prolific shoplifter” targeting retailers throughout the Lower Mainland.