Operation Tarpon discovered the drug syndicate tried to find a corrupt worker on the Sulphur Point side of the Port of Tauranga. Photo / File
Operation Tarpon discovered the drug syndicate tried to find a corrupt worker on the Sulphur Point side of the Port of Tauranga. Photo / File
An “inside man” at Tauranga’s port was to be paid $250,000 in a plot to smuggle 200kg of cocaine from a Mexican cartel into New Zealand.
But the massive haul of drugs never arrived and the experienced stevedore now faces two years and nine months in prison after a covert police investigation run by the National Organised Crime Group.
Maurice Oliver Swinton, 44, was among eight people arrested in Operation Tarpon in April 2021 and he eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to import Class-A drugs.
He was sentenced in the Rotorua High Court on Friday by Justice Graham Lang who, in an earlier judgment, said Swinton’s role in the smuggling plot was “extremely important” despite the fact he had no part in planning the illicit importation.
This was because Swinton had access to the Port of Tauranga, and could have removed the cocaine concealed in a shipping container before any inspections by Customs officials.
For his invaluable assistance, he was to be paid $250,000 - and a kilogram of cocaine - according to what Swinton told a friend in a conversation bugged by police.
“You said your role was ‘just pick up, go to smoko, and go home’,” said the judge.
Swinton’s sentence was reduced to two years and nine months due to his guilty plea and factors identified in a cultural report about his upbringing, which despite his sporting prowess, led him into a life of crime.
Although New Zealand has a reputation as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, the conviction of the port worker is the latest in a series of incidents that show the threat of organised crime is significant.
Sitting above Swinton in the drug plot hierarchy were Tangaroa Demant and Tama Waitai. Both men have also pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge, as well as other serious drug offences.
Demant, 60, was the original target in Operation Tarpon when the covert inquiry began in September 2020.
The investigation started after Demant was seen meeting with an organised crime figure from Australia, who happened to be under police surveillance at the time.
After learning Demant’s identity - and his occupation as a commercial fisherman from Te Kaha with extensive sailing experience - the investigation, led by Detective Sergeant Steve Matheson, discovered something curious.
Demant had created a cover story to convince his friends and family that he was sailing overseas, when in actual fact he was living on his boat, ‘Good Times’, in Whangaroa Harbour in the Far North.
He used that time in self-imposed exile to make contact with overseas-based drug suppliers and hatch plans about a number of different drug smuggling schemes.
In particular, Demant held ongoing communications with a member of a Mexican cartel.
He went so far as to make travel plans to Mexico to meet in person, and even booked a slot in MIQ facilities for his return trip.
No one knows for sure how someone like Demant, with a limited criminal history, came to know anyone from a Mexican drug cartel.
But Operation Tarpon came to suspect that a close relative of Demant, a senior Head Hunter currently serving prison time on serious methamphetamine convictions, made the introduction.
Certainly, the investigation took a turn when another associate of the Head Hunter was released from prison in 2020.
In 2015, Tama Waitai was sentenced to 10 years and nine months in prison for a brutal home invasion in which the victim lost an eye.
Despite his “appalling record”, the Filthy Few gang member was released by the Parole Board in November 2020 to live at a Te Kaha address with a number of strict conditions.
None of the restrictions stopped Waitai from almost immediately linking up with Demant and joining in the conversations with the Mexican cartel.
Two patched members of the Rotorua chapter of the Filthy Few motorcycle club were arrested in Operation Tarpon. Photo / NZ Police
Those communications took place via encrypted devices which the police are unable to intercept, although the criminal tradecraft of Demant and Waitai slipped when they talked to each other by cellphone.
During those calls in early 2021, which the police were able to intercept, Demant and Waitai recounted their separate conversations with the Mexican group.
Details began to emerge of a plan to import a large quantity of cocaine into New Zealand - 200 “keys” or kilograms - concealed inside a shipping container.
That’s where Maurice Swinton came in. He had also spent time with Waitai in prison but was now working as a stevedore at the Port of Tauranga. But there was a problem.
Swinton explained that he only had access to the eastern side of the port docks, in Mt Maunganui, but some vessels would dock on the other side of the harbour at Sulphur Point.
To cover both bases, they would have to recruit someone else into the smuggling conspiracy.
Waitai enlisted the help of Ryan Walsh, a commercial diver who was in a relationship with Waitai’s sister.
Walsh had indicated he knew people who worked at the port, and in three conversations with Demant and Waitai - which the police intercepted - agreed to approach them.
Walsh: “I was talking to my workmate… He’s got a bro on the port. He’s got a couple”.
Demant: “Oh yeah”.
Walsh: “On the container side, and he reckons one of them will definitely be keen… so he’s sussing him out”.
Walsh: “He said that things go wrong all the time there, and containers that get put in the wrong place”.
In early March 2021, Demant called Swinton and said the shipment would arrive at the end of the month.
It never did. Swinton was told to “stand down” and Demant explained he hadn’t spoken to the Mexican side for several days, as he was having problems with his “other phone”, as he referred to his encrypted device.
Shortly after, the police in the National Organised Crime Group made a pragmatic decision to end Operation Tarpon.
While it was tempting to keep the investigation running in case the 200kg shipment eventually turned up (which would have been the biggest shipment of cocaine in New Zealand history at the time), the detectives decided to make a pre-emptive strike.
The investigation had gathered more than enough evidence to prove a drug conspiracy charge against Demant and the others, as well as distributing other drugs imported into New Zealand by the Mexican cartel through courier mail.
Angel Gabriel Gavito Alvarado was living in Tauranga as the New Zealand-based representative of the Mexican drug suppliers and co-ordinated their activity ‘on the ground’, including sending money overseas and arranging the delivery of methamphetamine to Tangaroa Demant.
On 12 February 2021, Demant called Tama Waitai and said Gavito Alvarado had something for them in Auckland.
“They got me some liquid on. They got a couple of kilos of liquid for me,” said Demant, “but meth eh, bro, meth”.
Waitai quickly agreed to the deal: “It’s selling like f***en hotcakes”.
Two days later, Demant parked in SkyCity carpark and walked to a bus stop on Victoria St West where he sat down.
About 20 minutes later, a Mexican citizen turned up at another bus stop across the road carrying a white bucket. He sat down and placed the bucket between his feet.
Police surveillance teams watched as Demant crossed the road and sat down beside him. Within a few seconds, the Mexican national walked away - and left the bucket behind.
Demant took the bucket - filled with liquid methamphetamine - and drove to Rotorua, where he met Tama Waitai.
In turn, Waitai took the meth solution to Jeffrey Gear, the president of the Rotorua chapter of the Filthy Few gang.
Together, the pair tried to extract the methamphetamine from the liquid and recrystallize the drug through a chemical process. They clearly had some trouble.
In a series of phone calls intercepted by police, Waitai and Gear described to Demant the process they had used and the difficulties they had been faced with.
Eventually they gave up. On a later date, Demant called Waitai and asked if Gear needed ephedrine - which is the key precursor needed to cook meth.
Demant was in the middle of a deal to obtain 20kg of ephedrine. The trio discussed whether they had enough of the other chemicals necessary to manufacture the drug, to which Gear responded they just needed “water”.
The term “water” is slang in the criminal fraternity for hypophosphorous acid, which is another crucial ingredient to manufacture methamphetamine.
In the intercepted call, Gear said he had enough “water” to use one-quarter of the 20kg of ephedrine that Demant was negotiating to buy.
They all agreed to go ahead with the deal. At the end of April 2021, the police announced that eight men had been arrested in Operation Tarpon and all but one admitted the various charges laid against them.
Only Ryan Walsh, who was facing a single charge of conspiracy to import cocaine, pleaded not guilty and gave evidence in his own defence during a trial in the Rotorua High Court this week.
While the 28-year-old admitted that his voice could be heard in the three intercepted phone calls with Demant and Waitai, Walsh said that he “had no clue” the plan was to smuggle drugs into the country.
He lied about having contacts at the port, Walsh said, in order to impress his girlfriend’s brother, Tama Waitai. Then he kept lying, Walsh said, because he felt intimidated.
