Six jailed as Hawke's Bay drugs ring collapses

Six people have been jailed for roles in a drugs ring that distributed at least $800,000 of methamphetamine in Hawke's Bay, amid claims a corrupt prison officer helped supply an inmate.

The claims were made by one of two women among the six, in communications intercepted by police in November 2010, but the Corrections Department last night pointed out that had never been proven. No officer was identified.

The biggest sentence imposed by Justice Ronald Young in the High Court at Napier yesterday was for 41-year-old Auckland gang member Kishor Chandra Singh, who stood with his co-defendants for two hours before he was jailed for eight years and 11 months.

The Crown said he delivered methamphetamine and cannabis on his motorcycle, making 17 drops as police eavesdropped on the cartel for five months in 2010.

The others were all from Hawke's Bay, headed by brother and sister William Gordon Paul, 42, and Manu Hine Ngaronoa, 49.

A summary of facts said Paul and Michael George Barber, 31, separately or together collected drugs from Singh at various places between Auckland and Napier, handing over cash sometimes in bundles of more than $40,000. Ngaronoa sold drugs from her home in Onekawa, where she lived with five of her 11 children.

Singh, Paul, Ngaronoa, Barber and Ngaronoa's boyfriend, Robert Mason Rewita, 41, had pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply methamphetamine, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Paul also admitted supplying methhamphetamine and selling cannabis, as Singh had done, and he was jailed for eight year four months, while Barber was jailed for five years seven months.

Besides conspiracy, Ngaronoa admitting selling methamphetamine and was sentenced to seven years two months, while Rewita also admitting supplying methamphetamine and unlawful possession of a firearm, and was jailed for five years.

The Crown withdrew conspiracy allegations against Tracey Margaret Benson, 43, who admitted supplying methamphetamine and cannabis oil in Wellington in 2010. Recalled from parole on a sentence of five years six months for methamphetamine dealing, she was sentenced to an extra two years one month in jail.

The charges arose from Operation Prince which police ran from July to December 2010. Officers had accessed suspects' cellphone communications and in the last four weeks had bugged Ngaronoa's home.

During the operation Singh delivered at least 493g of methamphetamine and at least 4.5kg of cannabis, said a summary based on communications recorded by the police. At one stage Paul was heard to say the operation had turned over $800,000 in a year, $40,900 of which was seized by police in a search in Auckland as the operation came to an end.

The Crown said Ngaronoa effectively ran the sales in Hawke's Bay, and she directed Rewita.

Respective defence counsel yesterday sought consideration for their clients' guilty pleas, but generally accepted substantial prison terms were ahead, most having been in custody for much of the time since their arrests on December 9, 2010. They referred to clients having become addicts, and acquiring nothing from the venture apart from servicing their own needs.

Justice Young said that whatever their roles they'd all helped ruin people's lives, supplying established users or "dragging others into your world".