Police laid 23 charges Monday against a man they allege was the mastermind behind a string of arson attacks on law enforcement officials including a deliberately set fire in West Vancouver.
Police have arrested and charged Vincent Eric Gia-Hwa Cheung, a 40-year- old Langley resident with numerous charges including 11 counts of arson for violent incidents across the Lower Mainland between April 2011 and January 2012.
But they said they are still looking for the man who actually carried out the arson on the home of a former West Vancouver police chief in January 2013.
Security footage from the incident, first released three years ago, shows an unidentified suspect pouring liquid from a jerry can on the house in the 1000-block of Lawson Avenue in the early hours of Jan. 13, 2012, and lighting it. The resulting fire caused extensive damage to the home and sent one person to hospital.
Until about two weeks before the fire, the home belonged to former West Vancouver Chief Const. Scott Armstrong, who headed the detachment from February to December 2006.
“We are still looking for information to try to identify the person in that video,” said Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of the RCMP’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. “We believe there are people out there who know who that is.”
Investigators concluded the arson was linked to a string of violent Lower Mainland incidents that targeted 15 people with a connection to the Justice Institute of B.C., which trains police and other emergency personnel. Police said a threatening email was received by the Justice Institute in July 2011 that named nine people. All but one had their homes or vehicles targeted in an attack.
Police believe a woman who worked at ICBC used the insurance company’s database to obtain personal information about 65 people who worked or studied at the institute, including the 14 victims. The woman was fired from her job in 2011 for inappropriately accessing customer information, said ICBC spokesman Adam Grossman. To date, no charges have been laid against her.
The West Vancouver arson at the former police chief’s home was the last in the string of violent incidents. But police said between Dec. 31, 2014, and Jan. 13, 2015, a number of victims of the attacks received suspicious letters in the mail. One of those contained a warning that attacks would resume this year.
Houghton said police believe they know the motive for the attacks, but would not discuss it, saying that will be part of the court case.
Houghton described Cheung as having been “associated with people involved in gangs and organized crime,” specifically the United Nations gang. A second man, Thurman Ronley Taffe, a 54-year-old Burnaby resident, has also been arrested and charged with arson in connection with one of the incidents.
Both men appeared in B.C. Supreme Court Monday morning and have been remanded in custody until their next court appearance Oct. 1.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of very interested people going to that court appearance,” said Houghton.
