Chinese man extradited from Singapore pleads guilty to New Zealand burglary

AUCKLAND: A Chinese man who was extradited from Singapore to New Zealand nearly a year ago has pleaded guilty to crimes he committed in 2024.

Forty-one-year-old Xuesong Zhang, who worked as a construction worker in Auckland, admitted to having entered the home of a 27-year-old woman. He then tied her up and proceeded to physically and sexually assault her several times.

Zhang fled to China a few days after the incident occurred. After he was identified, authorities in New Zealand worked with their counterparts in China to bring him to justice, but the two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

However, he then flew to Singapore, where he was working when the authorities apprehended him. As the city-state has such a treaty with New Zealand, Zhang was extradited in September 2025 to face the charges against him, and appeared in the High Court at Auckland in March.

On Monday (Aug 31), Zhang pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary, threatening to kill, strangulation, detaining, sexual violation, indecent assault, rape and assault with a weapon, and, according to reporting from the New Zealand news site Stuff, will be sentenced later this year.

The backstory

On the evening of the incident, the Chinese national was seen driving around the development where the victim lived twice before entering the backyard of one of her neighbours. After drinking three bottles of beer, he jumped over the fence into the victim’s property.

The woman was unknown to Zhang.

He put on a black ski mask and gloves and took tape and a knife into the home of his victim, where she lived with a female roommate.

Zhang waited in the victim’s bedroom, and when she entered it, he tied her hands and placed tape over her mouth before sexually assaulting her for more than an hour.

Her roommate, who heard the victim’s screams, knocked on the door and sent her messages to determine if she was all right. Zhang, however, threatened to kill the roommate if the victim did not keep quiet.

Later that night, she was able to dislodge the tape from over her mouth and screamed again. After the roommate heard her, she alerted a colleague living nearby, and the two of them together tried to open the victim’s door. They also called the police.

Zhang untied the woman and removed the tape from her mouth, and left her bedroom.

In March, he originally pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. /TISG

Read also: Singapore extradites Chinese man over Auckland break-in and sexual assault