Comancheros trial: Crown makes its closing argument

Pasilika Naufahu, Comanchero MC president, pictured during the first day of his trial. Photo / Brett Phibbs

An odd job, a joke about dirty money and police surveillance of an alleged conspiracy to supply drugs have all been put to the jury as the Crown closes its case in a four-week trial involving the New Zealand Comancheros president.

Gang head Pasilika Naufahu and others were arrested last year in a high-profile police raid after a covert investigation dubbed Operation Nova.

In closing, Crown prosecutor David Johnstone said the jury would be asked to consider a "very different case than the one we started with".

Naufahu started his trial standing alongside fellow gang member Connor Clausen as well as three other people.

The charges had "narrowed considerably" as two defendants were dropped from the trial yesterday, Johnstone said.

Johnstone said Naufahu had earlier pleaded guilty to money laundering in respect of the purchase of his Bucklands Beach home and a Range Rover.

Involved in those convictions was confirmation the cash used came from crime, he said.

Late-model Range Rovers were among the assets seized in Operation Nova. Photo / Supplied

He remains accused of, and denies, money laundering in relation to just over $21,000 for a Ford Ranger.

He might not be prepared to plead guilty to that only because that charge involves money going through his wife's bank account, Johnstone said before a long pause.

However, the prosecutor said he was not inviting the jury to sit in on judgment on her.

The gang leader faces a second money laundering charge in relation to a $102,075 Bentley.

Naufahu is also accused, alongside Clausen, of conspiring with Australian-Chinese national He Sha and an alleged drug smuggler to supply pseudoephedrine in September 2018.

Included in the evidence shown to the jury was some "pretty remarkable stuff", Johnstone said, suggesting it was not often police captured on video "a drug deal that came that close to being completed".

Clausen, who is seen in the video, "wasn't there by accident".

The Crown alleges Clausen was supposed to deliver the money, inspect the pseudoephedrine and take it to the Comancheros president.

Connor Clausen pictured during the first day of the Operation Nova trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A woman - who has name suppression - faces one representative charge of money laundering between July and August 2018.

The key money handler in the Crown case had allegedly enlisted the woman's help in depositing cash.

"I need a huge favour," he is heard saying to her on the phone before adding, "we go to the bank, bring your ID."

Later, she is being promised $1000 to deposit sums of cash across different banks, Johnstone said.

"She spent the whole day doing it," he said.

"The issue is, where did she think the money was coming from?"

The pair went so far as to joke the money could be coming from gangs like the Comancheros or the Head Hunters, he said.

"The point of the joke has to be that this could well be dirty money. What other point is there in that joke?

"It is an odd job isn't it? Being paid to deposit money."

As an individual they did not know a great deal about her circumstances, he said, but the scale of the cash deposits were the type of thing that would prompt concern.

"After all the joking."

The trial for the defendants began on September 7 in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / File