NYC businessman, accomplice get life sentences in murder-for-hire shooting of rival
A Manhattan businessman who masterminded a paid hit on his former protege will spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
Qing Ming “Allen” Yu, 56, and accomplice Zhe Zhang, 36, were sentenced Wednesday to mandatory life terms after a Brooklyn Federal Court jury found them guilty last October for the Queens murder-for-hire of Xin “Chris” Gu in 2019.
Yu ran Amaco, a multimillion-dollar Manhattan property development company that renovated apartments across New York City.
Gu, 31, worked as his project manager and trusted subordinate but started his own company, poaching several workers and clients including a $1 million, 83-apartment renovation project.
Stung by betrayal, Yu turned to his nephew to put together a kill squad, asking his relative to involve his street-savvy weed supplier, Zhang.
Zhang, in turn, recruited another drug dealer, Antony Abreu, to pull the trigger.
They planned the murder for Feb. 12, 2019, the night Gu threw a Lunar New Year’s shindig for his new company. Abreu executed him as he waited for an Uber at the Grand Slam KTV karaoke bar in Flushing, where the after-party took place. Zhang served as the getaway driver.
Video surveillance captured the shooting — the killer walks past Gu then quickly turns around, pulls out a gun and rushes him from behind, then lifts the gun and points it at the back of Gu’s head.
“Allen Yu set out to kill Xin Gu because he started a rival business, and Zhang agreed to carry out the execution-style murder without hesitation,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Wednesday. “Driven by greed and revenge, they hired a hitman to commit a brutal murder of a young man, traumatizing the victim’s family as well as the Flushing community.”
Peace added, “The defendants will spend the rest of their lives behind prison walls for this premediated murder. I hope today’s sentences bring some measure of closure to Xin Gu’s family.”
Yu’s nephew, You You, testified against his uncle at the trial, and at a separate trial for Abreu in April.
Yu and Zhang’s defense lawyers tried to pin the entire plot on the nephew, arguing that he hated the victim for surpassing him in his uncle’s business, to no avail.
The nephew got $150,000 for planning the murder, while Zhang, who was initially promised Yu’s property development business, got $30,000, according to the feds.
You spent $100,000 of his cut to pay off a debt to another weed supplier, and bought a fancy BMW and an exotic pet — a $5,000 finger monkey.
Abreu’s payment for the hit was a high-priced Richard Mille wristwatch worth more than $100,000, prosecutors said.
He was also found guilty of murder-for-hire. Abreu, who’s already serving a 24-year prison sentence, also faces a mandatory life term when he’s sentenced Sept. 24.
