Op Maddale sentencing: Christchurch man Charlie Tereora travelled NZ for meth syndicate

A Christchurch man who travelled the country with suitcases full of cash on behalf of a multimillion-dollar methamphetamine syndicate says he wants to serve as an example to young people in his church about how drugs can lead one astray.

Proof of just how far Charlie Tuatini Tereora’s life went off the rails came when he showed up for sentencing at Auckland District Court late last month with an overnight bag - his lawyer acknowledging that a non-custodial sentence would be unrealistic following his guilty pleas to meth supply and money laundering.

Judge Evangelos Thomas sentenced the Avonside resident to six years’ imprisonment for his participation in a long-running drug supply scheme that came to be known by authorities as Operation Maddale. Although not a leader of the syndicate, the judge described Tereora as “the pivot” between the Auckland and Christchurch distribution arms and the “custodian of the cash”.

“You were one of the most important cogs in the wheel between Auckland and Christchurch,” Judge Thomas said. “You were quite happy to do it. You knew how big this was.”

Police launched Operation Maddale in September 2018, focusing on a suspected drug supply ring operating out of a New Lynn, West Auckland, car yard and selling wholesale amounts to members of the Comancheros and Head Hunters motorcycle gangs for an estimated $180,000 per kilo. From Auckland, drugs were then distributed to Wellington and Christchurch in vehicles altered with sophisticated secret compartments.

One such compartment was accessible only by the sequenced activation of several of the vehicle’s electronic dash functions, according to court documents. Another was within the airbag cavity of the passenger seat, while another vehicle was found to have drugs secreted in the rear bumper.

The total amount of drugs and cash involved in the operation isn’t known, but police analysed the estimated weight of suitcases observed by undercover officers, airline data on the weight of checked baggage and information from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand on the weight of notes. Tereora was estimated to have helped deliver approximately $450,000 in cash to the Auckland car yard in November 2018 and an estimated $600,000 to $700,000 cash the following month.

Twenty-one people were arrested when the investigation ended in August 2019.

Comancheros members or associates Khalid Slaimankhel, Jalal Asmatullah Safi, Farshad Esfehani-Bahadori and Ibrahim Yousef are among those who have already received prison sentences, as well as a car importer who was described during his 2021 sentencing as having been seduced by the drug trade - forfeiting his legitimate businessman standing in lieu of a role as trusted lieutenant for the syndicate.

Others still await trial.

During Tereora’s sentencing last Friday, defence lawyer Jane-Frances O’Halloran asked the judge to consider her client’s “level of naivety”, his “significant disadvantage” and his vulnerability after having witnessed a fatal house fire. She noted her client has significant involvement in his church, where he “holds himself up ... as an example of what can go wrong” due to addiction.

“He’s not hiding behind the sanctimony of the church,” she said, arguing that Tereora has “a very real prospect” of rehabilitation because he “does not hide behind excuses”.

“He’s holding himself out as someone who has really erred,” she explained.

Her client received little if any money from his involvement in the syndicate, which she said was akin to a courier driver. He has not reoffended in the three-and-a-half years since he’s been charged, she noted.

Crown prosecutor Helen Brown disagreed, saying the defendant was more than a “mere courier”.

Tereora could have faced up to life imprisonment for four counts of possession of methamphetamine for supply and up to seven years’ imprisonment for two counts of money laundering.

In addition to the money runs, court documents state Tereora also helped facilitate four cross-country methamphetamine shipments between November 2018 and February 2019. He helped move an estimated total of between five-and-a-half and eight-and-a-half kilos of meth, the judge surmised.

“Yours was an important role,” Judge Thomas said. “Without you performing your very important task, methamphetamine could not get to Christchurch.”

The judge credited the defendant for “doing all the right things in terms of acknowledging your offending to others”, predicting he would find “strength and peace” in that path. But as a religious person, Tereora would have especially known that actions have consequences, he added.

“You went into it with your eyes open,” the judge said. “You stayed in it with your eyes open. You would have known that if you were caught there were heavy consequences for you.”

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.