A wealthy
property developer who murdered his pregnant wife is suspected of
recruiting one of Britain’s most notorious crime syndicates to dispose
of her body.
Multi-millionaire Robert Ekaireb, 39, was convicted yesterday of killing Li Hua Cao, 27, in a jealous rage.
No trace of the Chinese lapdancer, known as Lisa, has been found since she vanished ‘into thin air’ more than seven years ago.
Detectives suspect Li Hua was buried on the Olympic Park site as the ground was prepared for the huge project.
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| Detectives suspect Li Hua was buried on the Olympic Park site as the ground was prepared for the huge projec |
But the Mail can reveal he is closely linked to the Adams crime family, who are said to be responsible for up to 25 murders.
Detectives discovered a complex web of links between Ekaireb and the Clerkenwell-based crime syndicate.
In some cases
their victims have never been found and one former member has confessed
to dismembering and dumping at least four bodies.
Police found
Ekaireb enjoyed the trappings of huge wealth from his portfolio of 85
properties worth tens of millions of pounds across Hampstead,
Knightsbridge and Hendon.
He lived in a flat with a gold-plated toilet, a £45,000 carpet and owned a fleet of prestige cars, including a Bentley.
The killer
spent the trial on bail after paying a £1million surety and was backed
at earlier hearings by his brother Jason, a £3million-a-year Goldman
Sachs banker.
Property tycoon
Robert Ekaireb was yesterday found guilty of killing his pregnant wife
Li Hua, 27, although her body has never been found
Ekaireb stared at his sobbing girlfriend in the public gallery as he was convicted of murder yesterday.
Justice Spencer QC told him he will be jailed for life.
The trial heard
Li Hua had a whirlwind romance with Ekaireb after he paid her £270 for
private dances at a lapdancing club in March 2006.
Her family said
she travelled from the coastal city of Dalian to the West to find a
wealthy husband and at first he showered her with affection, cash and
gifts.
The couple married in China within weeks and had a simple ceremony at Barnet Register Office to formalise the arrangement.
But 6ft 2in
Ekaireb was obsessive, jealous and unstable, telling a psychologist he
was scared of his anger and had visions of stabbing his 4ft 11in wife to
death.
Li Hua tried to leave him six times, but on every occasion he persuaded her to return.
At the time of
her disappearance she was 22 weeks pregnant, and her husband wanted her
to take a lie detector test to prove the baby was his.
Despite his jealousy, he continued to see a previous Slovakian lover and had an affair with a neighbour.
Police believe
Ekaireb killed her in a fit of rage fuelled by his suspicion that she
was sneaking off to charge up to £600 a time for sex.
Her last known
actions were calls to her family on the night of October 23, 2006, when
she said she was desperately unhappy and wanted to leave. Detectives
traced how she called the businessman on his mobile before he returned
home late that evening.
A short time later he called the manager’s office of a West End club operated by a senior member of the Adams family.
Police suspect
he held a ‘council of war’ at the club to plan the disposal of her body.
It was not until February 2007 that Li Hua’s family reported her
disappearance.
A missing
person inquiry began which later became a full murder inquiry in 2010.
By then police could find no trace of the young woman with her bank
accounts left untouched, her mobile unused and no record of the baby
being born.
A second flat
which Ekaireb shared with his previous girlfriend on the same private
gated estate was left like a ‘time capsule’.
When police searched it in 2010 they found it had been left untouched since October 2006, with cake half-eaten on a table.
After the killing Ekaireb went back to the Slovakian girlfriend and the couple had a baby girl. She is now pregnant again.
Investigators
were stunned by Ekaireb’s gaudy possessions and brash sense of fashion.
He owned a laptop studded with ‘diamonds’ reading, Robert ‘the one and
only’ Ekaireb.
The ‘time
capsule’ flat had a gold-plated toilet as well as an expensive gold-leaf
carpet with the Versace logo embroidered in it.
Detectives
found Ekaireb and his father Rex, a chartered accountant, amassed their
property empire from 2006 onwards and owned scores of homes worth up to
£3million each.
Officers repeatedly tried to speak to members of the Adams family, but were blocked by lawyers who accused them of harassment.
Ekaireb will be sentenced in January.culled
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