Chiu Tan Yu appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing in October 2020. Photo / Ben Leahy
Chiu Tan Yu appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing in October 2020. Photo / Ben Leahy
A Taiwanese man serving a 15-year sentence for smuggling 110kg of methamphetamine to New Zealand inside golf cart batteries has asked the Court of Appeal for a lighter prison term.
Chiu Tan Yu was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland in October 2020, nearly two years after he arrived in New Zealand on a visitor visa and immediately went about preparations to covertly receive the shipment from California.
The drugs were described by the sentencing judge as having a minimum wholesale value of $17.6 million, capable of causing $136 million worth of "societal harm" to New Zealand.
The scheme lasted less than a month before Customs detected the illicit haul inside three electric six-seater golf carts and decided to replace the drug with a placebo so they could gather more evidence about the scheme.
Yu and another man in New Zealand were arrested following search warrants in February 2019. A third man, who was never identified and who communicated via WhatsApp from overseas, was described as the scheme's mastermind.
Appearing before the Court of Appeal today in Auckland, Yu's lawyer, Scott Brickell, said his client's role in the syndicate was misunderstood at sentencing. Justice Matthew Palmer described Yu during the sentencing as having a significant operational role.
While it's not explicitly spelt out in the summary of facts, Brickell said there is a strong inference that Yu was an underling of the other man who was arrested. That man elected trial by jury and was acquitted last year.
The acquitted co-defendant was described as the "man on the ground" for the syndicate in court documents, while Brickell described his own client as more of a "willing worker".
Given his lesser role, Brickell suggested, the starting point for his sentence should have been 19-20 years rather than the 22-year starting point decided by the sentencing judge.
But Crown prosecutor Dennis Dow said the 22-year starting point was within the appropriate range and that Justice Palmer "didn't err in characterising his role". The judge might have even been generous in having characterised Yu's role as on the "low end" of significant, he told the Court of Appeal.
Around 110kg of meth was found inside golf cart batteries in February 2019. Photo / Supplied
"The evidence simply doesn't support [the co-defendant who was acquitted] directing Mr Yu," Dow said, describing the two as having more of a "working relationship" in which they both had high-level roles underneath the overseas mastermind.
The other man's not-guilty verdict at trial suggested jurors didn't believe beyond a reasonable doubt that he fully understood what he was involved in, Dow also suggested. As someone who was more established in New Zealand, it was alleged he helped Yu exchange money with his bank account and to navigate tasks that needed to be in English.
"He had significant autonomy in how he acted," Dow said of Yu, describing him as the only person in New Zealand entrusted to extract the drugs from the batteries. "More importantly, he had a significant level of trust."
Some of the Court of Appeal justices today seemed sceptical of parts of Yu's appeal as they questioned the lawyers. Justice Graham Lang agreed with prosecutors that Yu appeared to have "some degree of autonomy" and was serving a "trusted role" in the syndicate.
Brickell also argued that Yu's seven-year minimum period of imprisonment for the 15-year sentence was not necessary given the already lengthy sentence and that Yu should have been given a larger discount for his lack of previous convictions and his remorse, as well as for the fact he's a foreign citizen and so a prison sentence would be presumed to be more difficult for him.
Court of Appeal Justices Lang, Forrie Miller and Helen Cull will issue a reserved judgment at a later date.
