Auckland Airport meth import case: How a $1.2m money drop led police to discover King Cobra gang had infiltrated Air New Zealand baggage crews

This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including exploring the NCEA and UE results of every college around NZ, the collapse of the Du Val property empire, revealing claims a former funeral director at Tipene Funerals was swindling grieving clients and charting the 10-year police probe that brought down Wayne Doyle and the Head Hunters.

The following article was one of the best-read Premium articles in 2024. The story originally ran in July.

A silver Hyundai SUV pulled into the car park of the Countdown supermarket in Onehunga and parked right beside a blue Nissan Skyline.

The driver of the Hyundai grabbed a bag from his car, and placed it in the front passenger seat of the Skyline, before both vehicles left abruptly.

The encounter was brief, less than a minute, but a detective watching the odd interaction suspected he knew what had happened.

The Skyline driver was working for a money laundering syndicate under investigation by the police, codenamed Operation Worthington, and the car park meeting in late March 2021 was a suspected “money drop”.

Inside the bag, police later discovered, was nearly $1.2m.

“Follow the money” is a law enforcement cliche but one that can often break open cases, so identifying the Hyundai driver became a priority for the detectives.

His name was Aisake Feleti, a once promising league player, who was arrested just a few months later at the conclusion of Operation Worthington in June 2021.

The covert inquiry had already gathered more than enough evidence to lay 200 charges of money laundering and drug dealing, with police also seizing more than $10 million of assets.

But analysts who managed to digitally break into Feleti’s cell phone also discovered fresh evidence of large-scale drug smuggling, which prompted an entirely separate investigation.

The treasure trove of information gave Operation Selena, as the new inquiry was called, an insight into how different criminal groups were circumventing border security with corrupt “insiders” in the United States, Tonga and Malaysia.

With the final High Court trial now finished, the Weekend Herald can reveal the full story of how criminal gangs used networks of Auckland Airport baggage handlers to import hundreds of kilograms of meth into the country.

Detectives scrolling through the messages on Aisake Feleti’s phone could not believe their luck.

The Operation Worthington team had cracked into the device and reading everything he sent and received on Threema, an encrypted app popular with organised crime figures because police cannot intercept the communications live.

However, Feleti had forgotten to delete the Threema messages which stretched back for months, which outlined his involvement in the drug world in excruciating detail.

Because the messages were encrypted, Feleti did not bother to use a code when discussing the sale and purchase of methamphetamine (he was happy to make $30,000 to $40,000 profit for each kilogram sold) with his United States-based supplier “Wiseman”.

There were thousands of messages, accompanied by photographs and videos of packaged drugs and cash.

That’s how the police learned there was $1,198,600 in the bag that Feleti gave to the money launderer in the car park.

The Threema messages also revealed how Feleti was smuggling drugs into New Zealand without being caught.

He had an “insider” at Auckland International Airport who could manipulate the transfer of luggage from international flights so that bags were never screened by Customs.

The simple, but ingenious, plan worked like this.

The US supplier would arrange for methamphetamine, packed inside luggage, to be stashed in the bulk hold of the plane in Los Angeles.

Once the flight landed in Auckland, baggage handlers would find the correct bag and remove it from the airport without going through security.

The “rip on, rip off” tactic is common throughout the world, and relies on organised crime syndicates having trusted insiders working at the border.

In the criminal underworld, this is known as having a “door” into the country.

The person pulling all the strings at Auckland International Airport on behalf of Feleti, according to the Threema messages, was a name already familiar to the investigators.

Sese Vimahi was a senior Air NZ baggage handler who had been arrested a year earlier for running an identical modus operandi.

He was uncovered only because of an error made by the drug mule on the failed import attempt in May 2020.

Romney Fukofuka, also known as the musician Konecs, was caught with 20kg of methamphetamine inside Auckland airport during the 2020 Covid lockdown. Photo / Jared Savage

Romney Fukofuka, an aspiring musician with the stage name Konecs, was able to travel to Los Angeles during New Zealand’s strictest Covid-19 lockdown because he had a US passport.

But on the return trip to Auckland, he took his suitcase - laden with meth - on to the plane instead of getting it placed in the bulkhead.

“Toko [Bro] man I made a mistake,” Fukofuka wrote in an encrypted message to Vimahi.

“Toko I carry the kato [bag] with me on board instead of putting at bulk.”

Vimahi replied: “Toko f*** man”.

Plan B was hastily made. Once he disembarked the NZ1 flight at Auckland International Airport and cleared the immigration line, Fukofuka was supposed to put the suitcase back on to the luggage carousel.

Once the bag went back through to the loading zone, Vimahi’s crew of Air New Zealand baggage handlers could safely remove it from the airport as in the original plan.

After clearing the immigration queue, Fukofuka went into the toilets and sent messages to his partner.

6.09am: I’m f***ed

6.09am: I’m in toilet

6.09am: Heaps of cops

As he exited the toilets to put the suitcase on to the luggage conveyor belt, an officer from Customs asked Fukofuka to please come with him to the search area.

The suitcase was opened. Nothing was inside except two plastic bags weighing a total of 19.4kg, which testing later confirmed as methamphetamine with a purity of 80 per cent.

“I tried to say ‘I thought it was shoes’,” Fukofuka previously told the Herald, “but I knew I was f***ed.”

Fukofuka was arrested and the subsequent investigation, Operation Santana, led to five Air NZ baggage handlers, including Sese Vimahi, being charged with various drug-importing offences.

Vimahi was released on bail but carried on smuggling drugs for Aisake Feleti using an identical modus operandi for Los Angeles flights, according to the Threema messages now in the hands of Operation Selena.

Despite losing his job when he was arrested, Vimahi still had close ties to three Air New Zealand baggage handlers who still worked at the airport.

The trio were directed by Vimahi, who was referred to as “Tongan Pablo”, to pick up several meth imports, of at least 10kg each, in baggage stowed on LAX flights in February and March 2021.

They split $200,000 for each successful job, but the cost of having a “door” into New Zealand was more than worth it for Feleti: each kilogram of meth sold for $175,000 to $180,000.

And while he was easily able to import drugs by air, Operation Selena discovered Feleti was also able to get drugs by sea.

This photo of 10kg of methamphetamine and the backpack it would be hidden in was sent to Sese Vimahi so the illicit luggage could be identified by corrupt baggage handlers. Photo / Supplied

His Threema chats showed he was in regular contact with a businessman, who has interim name suppression, importing frozen food from Tonga.

Looking back at the encrypted messages, it was clear to the police that the businessman had arranged for 7kg of methamphetamine to be concealed in a shipping container which departed Tonga in late March 2021.

When the shipping container was offloaded in the Ports of Auckland in April, the businessman told Feleti that the meth was ready to be picked up, and to bring plastic zip lock bags for packaging.

A few weeks later, Feleti messaged the businessman to explain that the Tribesmen motorcycle gang had complained about the quality of the drugs, which was making it hard to sell.

The emergence of another source of methamphetamine, by sea, was a lead that could not be ignored.

So while maintaining the surveillance of Sese Vimahi and the Air NZ crew, a separate phase of the inquiry, Operation Schrute, was established to focus on the businessman.

Any freight consignments by his importing company were flagged with Customs, which paid off immediately on the next shipment which landed in Auckland in late July 2021.

Among the 477 bags of frozen cassava, taro and kava powder was a white vinyl sack which raised the suspicions of Customs officials.

Inside the sack were two black duffel bags, both padlocked, filled with plastic ziplock bags of meth. The total weight was nearly 30kg.

While the businessman’s fingerprints were metaphorically all over the methamphetamine, more evidence was needed to prove his involvement.

Operation Schrute made a strategic decision to do a “controlled delivery” of the shipment, where the drugs were carefully repacked with rock salt (a placebo replacement) and delivered to its destination as if nothing had been found.

Watching patiently could lead to the businessman being caught red-handed, not to mention anyone else he was working with.

The container was transported to a freight-forwarding company in Wiri, EIF International, where a staff member took the white vinyl sack to his home in Mangere.

About two hours later, undercover surveillance staff watched as a silver Volkswagen Golf arrived at the property. The driver was Ralph Vuletic, who had previously made headlines as a Ferrari-driving property developer convicted of Serious Fraud Office charges nearly a decade earlier.

Vuletic took the duffel bags to a storage lockup in West Auckland for safekeeping, then returned the next day to retrieve the bags and take them to the businessman’s house in Mt Wellington.

A few hours later, police raided the property. Officers found disposable gloves, electronic scales and a large amount of ziplock bags in the garage, along with the 30kg of drug placebo.

The businessman was arrested but two other men managed to escape by jumping over the back fence.

The pair were eventually tracked down and identified as the Iuvale twins, Nigel and Tony, who were patched members of the King Cobras gang.

Before they had been interrupted, the brothers had been busy with the businessman breaking down the methamphetamine into smaller amounts for resale.

Back at Vuletic’s storage unit, police found 5kg of meth in Chinese gold tea packets - a signature of Sam Gor, an organised crime syndicate in Asia which dominates the global drug trade.

Another kilogram of meth was found in Vuletic’s home, along with a pistol.

Vuletic and the businessman were caught dead to rights, but the surprise appearance of the Iuvale twins was intriguing.

They would soon be the focus of a third phase of the investigation, as Operation Selena stumbled across a completely different crew of corrupt Air NZ baggage handlers.

While building their case against Sese Vimahi’s network at Auckland International Airport, police intercepted a series of phone calls about a flight from Los Angeles landing on August 2, 2021.

A backpack holding 5kg of meth was onboard, so a group of his baggage handlers made plans to get the illicit luggage out of the airport, just like they had done so many times before.

However, unbeknown to the trio - and police - was that another Air NZ baggage handler nearly beat them to the punch.

Although he wasn’t rostered to work that day, Martin Pritchard tried to uplift the backpack from the plane on the pretext the luggage needed to be transferred to a domestic flight.

Recognising that Pritchard was not authorised to be there, another Air NZ staff member asked him to leave and reported their suspicions to management.

He was immediately suspended but the unexpected appearance of another dodgy baggage handler, who was not on the radar of Operation Selena, required further investigation.

A third phase of the inquiry was opened, which uncovered a rival crew of Air NZ baggage handlers smuggling drugs into the country completely independently of Vimahi’s network.

Analysis of Pritchard’s phone records identified the ringleader of the baggage handlers, whose name is suppressed, who was passing on instructions to their group.

Detectives were then able to work backwards to pinpoint previous successful importations.

One of these, on the July 31, 2021, was 118kg of methamphetamine stowed in the bulkhead of a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur.

Security cameras at the airport captured Pritchard driving an Air NZ van from the domestic side of the airport, where he worked, over to the international tarmac.

He parked underneath the rear wing of the plane, then picked up three boxes which had been unloaded by another baggage handler, Tungane Manuel.

Pritchard put the boxes in the van, then drove to where his late-model Audi was parked, and transferred the boxes of methamphetamine into the back of his car.

Security camera footage of Martin Pritchard, an Air New Zealand baggage handler, unloading a secret stash of methamphetamine from an arriving Malaysian Airlines flight. Photo / Supplied

The ongoing surveillance on the baggage handler ringleader, who cannot be identified yet, eventually led police full circle, right back to Nigel Iuvale.

The King Cobra had been arrested on the Operation Schrute charges, but in September was released on bail monitored by an ankle bracelet.

Iuvale was, however, allowed to leave the address to buy groceries.

It was on one of those approved shopping trips on October 10, 2021, at the Gilmours supermarket in Mt Roskill, that the King Cobra was seen with the senior Air NZ baggage handler.

They spent 45 minutes together, loading up their trolleys in the aisles and talking.

No one could hear their conversation, but the significance of the meeting soon became clear.

Three minutes after the friends went their separate ways, the ringleader of the baggage handlers called Tungane Manuel to discuss his work roster.

He asked Manuel if he wanted to come “pick it up”, meaning a $26,000 payment, before providing his home address.

The ringleader also contacted two other baggage handlers, Kimela Piukana and Tokofa Paulo-Toroma, to discuss an impending shipment from Malaysia.

A week later, the ringleader called Manuel to confirm “Saturday is a green light” for the Malaysian Airways flight to arrive.

On the morning of landing, on October 23, 2021, the four baggage handlers started their shifts at Auckland airport and at 6.42am, Manuel messaged the ringleader to say: “Kuz. 82. Across from gate 2″.

This was the location of where Flight MH145 was scheduled to park upon arrival.

Four hours later, the ringleader messaged Manuel to urgently cancel the plan. In a subsequent phone call, he told Manuel that “it didn’t make it on”.

What the baggage handlers didn’t know yet was that Malaysian police had examined MH145 and located a “commercial quantity” of methamphetamine (200kg according to Malaysian media) concealed within bags of Chinese gold and green tea.

Of note to Operation Selena, the Malaysian meth was packaged identically as the 5kg discovered in Ralph Vuletic’s storage locker two months earlier.

The following month, police raided 20 addresses in Auckland, arrested 24 people and seized more than $500,000 in cash.

In a statement released to media at the time, police and Customs said the investigation had exposed how organised crime recruits “insiders” in the supply chain, in order to circumvent security and border processes.

“Businesses know what their normal looks like - by reporting suspect shipments, situations or interactions to Customs they can help to build further intelligence and stop cross-border crimes,” said Bruce Berry, Customs’ intelligence manager.

“We continue to work closely with industry, including across airports and ports who have been very cooperative with such investigations.”

Air New Zealand had “zero tolerance” for such offending, said Captain David Morgan, who was the airline’s chief operational integrity and safety officer at the time.

“Organised crime impacts many parts of the community and we don’t want it in our workplace. We will continue to work closely with Police, Customs and other relevant agencies to help stamp it out.”

More than $500,000 cash was discovered when Operation Selena arrested 24 people for smuggling drugs through Auckland International Airport, including gang members and Air NZ baggage handlers.

More than two years later, as their trials grew closer, nearly all of the defendants started to plead guilty to the various criminal charges they faced.

The Iuvale twins, Nigel and Tony, did not.

The King Cobras went to trial earlier this year for Operation Schrute, where they were acquitted of importing 30kg of meth.

The brothers were, however, found guilty of possession of those same drugs for supply and remanded in custody.

The fact of that conviction was given as evidence against Nigel Iuvale in a second trial in the High Court at Auckland, which ended on Monday.

Iuvale had pleaded not guilty to possession of methamphetamine for supply, as well as conspiring to import the Class-A drug from Malaysia with Tungane Manuel.

The baggage handler also denied smuggling two other massive shipments of meth, weighing 113kg and 118kg each.

The case against Iuvale was a circumstantial one, with defence lawyer Marie Taylor-Cyphers arguing there was no direct evidence of her client’s involvement.

“The Crown case is one big inference - one big guessing game. A great story, to be sure, but not one supported by evidence.”

In closing the Crown case, prosecutor Matthew Nathan said the jury could be sure of Iuvale’s guilt by weaving all the strands of evidence together.

He pointed to encrypted messages lifted from another defendant’s phone, in which someone using the handle “L1nk3d” on the Threema app gave instructions on where to deliver drugs.

L1nk3d told his nephew to take the drugs to a street in Mangere, “opposite the olds” referring to his parents’ home, and wait for a silver Volkswagen Golf.

“Who is that guy uncle? Looks like a pig [negative slang for a police officer],” his younger relative asked.

“That’s my right hand,” L1nk3d replied. “He’s been with me from day one.”

Nigel Iuvale in the High Court at Auckland at the start of the Operation Selena trial. He was found guilty of possession of methamphetamine for supply, and conspiring to import a commercial quantity of the drug from Malaysia. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The driver in the silver Volkswagen was Ralph Vuletic, and the Crown alleged L1nk3d was Nigel Iuvale. The name was very similar to another handle, “L1nkag3″, on a different encrypted app called Wickr.

The L1nkag3 user gave instructions for a dummy run in 2021, and the police could attribute the anonymous handle to Iuvale because the account had photos of him and his family.

While the King Cobra was cautious and surveillance savvy, relying on encrypted apps and face-to-face meetings, Nathan said Iuvale was let down by the people working for him.

“It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys,” said Nathan.

Nigel Iuvale and Tungane Manuel were convicted on all charges, and now await sentencing along with Sese Vimahi and the other major targets in the investigation.

And what of Aisake Feleti, the man whose $1.2m money drop in the Countdown car park kickstarted everything?

On Tuesday, he appeared in the Auckland District Court after admitting numerous drug and money laundering offences. Feleti was once a talented rugby league player who was once invited to trial for a representative team. He didn’t turn up, and went down a different path which led to a sentence of 14 years and 9 months in prison.

- additional reporting Craig Kapitan

Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.