A video shows a baggage handler removing a secret meth stash from an international flight. Video / Auckland Airport
Jurors began deliberating today but have yet to reach a verdict in the trial of a previously convicted drug trafficker accused of a new scheme exploiting a border security loophole at Auckland Airport and a baggage handler charged with helping him carry it out.
Authorities said alleged kingpin Nigel Iuvale’s syndicate was at first spectacularly successful, with estimates that he arranged and oversaw the importation of hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine in 2021 and had plans afoot to import hundreds of kilos more.
Such amounts would have had a street value in the tens of millions of dollars.
Numerous airport employees have pleaded guilty to the scheme, which involved diverting bags from incoming flights from Los Angeles and Malaysia before baggage went through Customs screening areas.
Given all the guilty pleas, jurors in the High Court at Auckland were told over the course of the three-week trial that they could consider the importation scheme to be a proven fact. The main question they are tasked with answering is whether Iuvale and co-defendant Tungane Manuel were involved in the scheme.
Both have adamantly insisted through lawyers that they were not.
Defence lawyer Marie Taylor-Cyphers suggested repeatedly during her closing address today that it was a case of mistaken identity on the part of investigators, who might have thought they were tracking her client when they were actually observing his twin brother.
She also cast suspicion on an airport worker with name suppression who has pleaded guilty to organising the baggage handlers. He is the more likely kingpin, she argued. Prosecutors said the worker acted as a trusted middle-man for Iuvale, who had the necessary overseas drug connections but did not work at the airport.
“Not a single witness has told you Mr Nigel Iuvale made an agreement with anyone to import methamphetamine,” Taylor-Cyphers said, describing Operation Selena - the undercover investigation that led to her client’s arrest - as a culmination of flawed assumptions by police.
“There is no direct evidence he was involved. There’s no photos of him with drugs or money. There are no text messages ... saying, ‘Hey, it’s Nigel, drop the stuff off here.’
“ ... The Crown case is one big inference - one big guessing game. [It’s] a great story, to be sure, but not one supported by evidence.”
Prosecutor Matthew Nathan acknowledged the Crown case against Iuvale was based on circumstantial evidence. But when the many threads of circumstantial evidence are put together it makes a convincing case, he argued.
Alleged methamphetamine trafficking syndicate leader Nigel Iuvale appears in the High Court at Auckland at the start of the Operation Selena jury trial. He is accused of having co-ordinated the illegal smuggling of hundreds of kilograms of the drug with the help of Auckland Airport baggage handlers. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Using the handle “L1nkag3″ on encrypted app Wickr, Iuvale gave instructions for a test run of the importation scheme in early 2021, Nathan said. He said jurors could be sure it was Iuvale because the account was found to have photos of him with his partner and children. While not charged for the test run, it shows a pattern of supervising drug imports, he argued.
Nathan also noted that Iuvale was found guilty in Auckland District Court earlier this year alongside his brother of possession of methamphetamine for supply, after authorities uncovered an importation scheme at Port of Auckland occurring around the same time as the Auckland Airport scheme. Jurors might find that to also indicate a pattern, he said.
Immediately after a July 12 airport import from Los Angeles, a person using the handle “L1nk3d″ on encrypted app Threema was giving people orders about what to do with the drugs - including dropping them off on a street where Iuvale’s parents lived. That handle - similar to “L1nkag3″ on Wickr - also belonged to Iuvale, it was alleged.
“Nigel Iuvale, L1nkag3, L1nk3d was a person who was cautious, who understood the importance of security,” Nathan told jurors, suggesting the defendant was savvy enough to either use encrypted apps to give orders or meet face-to-face. But unfortunately for him, Nathan said, he was surrounded by people who weren’t so smart, which is how police built a case against him.
The prosecutor recited a saying he said his grandfather would often repeat: “It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys.”
As for co-defendant Manuel, described as a lower-level syndicate member who didn’t have any direct communication with Iuvale, he made a strong case for his own guilt in an interview he gave with police, the Crown said. Nathan described the voluntary interview as a “spectacularly unsuccessful” effort to minimise his role.
Former airport employee Tungane Manuel appears in the High Court at Auckland for the start of the Operation Selena methamphetamine importation trial. Photo / Jason Oxenham
“So what I do is just ... confirm if it’s coming today, like that,” Manuel said when asked about one of the flights that contained drugs. “I don’t know anything else ... I’m just saying which gate ... it’s gonna go to.”
Manuel admitted getting money “just for watching out” but insisted the payment was $20,000 instead of the $26,000 that was suggested by the detective interviewing him.
The detective asked Manuel directly if he knew why it was he was asked to “watch out”.
“Um, not really, but I’ve got a fair idea, yeah,” he responded.
He insisted he didn’t know what box the drugs came in. The Crown said he didn’t need to know that information to be part of a syndicate, as long as he was helping in other ways.
“I’m offloading [the aeroplane], but I don’t pick out. I don’t know,” Manuel explained. “So I am just doing my normal job. I am just a lookout. A watcher. See they, they just ring me like to confirm ...
“I’m just watching out like if the boys gonna be suspicious or something.”
Prosecutors suggested that both defendants also seemed to know about a drug shipment that was seized by Malaysian authorities well before police in New Zealand were aware of it.
Manuel chose to represent himself at trial, but he allowed standby lawyer Nick Leader to deliver a closing address on his behalf. Leader suggested there was a major breakdown in communication during the interview, noting that his client speaks with a heavy accent and would have been quite nervous, having never been in trouble with the law before.
Manuel may have known that things looked “dodgy” but he only wanted to do his job, Leader said, reminding jurors of something else the defendant told police in the interview: “I told them I didn’t want to be involved. I told them ‘one day you will get caught’.”
Telling others what gate a plane was at couldn’t be seen as assisting a drug import when it was information made readily available on flight arrival boards throughout the airport, Leader said. Manuel only thought of the large cash payment as “free money”, he said.
Even if Manuel did unwittingly help with the importation of the drugs, he never intended to help and so can’t be found guilty, Leader argued.
The jury began deliberating at 3pm today after Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith summed up the case. They have opted to continue considering the case past when the courthouse would have normally closed. If no verdict is reached tonight, they are expected to return on Monday to continue the process.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
