New Zealand Police say they have dealt a "huge blow" to organised crime after a major trans-national sting resulted in 35 arrests and $3.7 million in assets seized.
A 66-year-old Auckland man who served as “the bank” for an international drug syndicate - ordering a woman to bury cash in her backyard as police, having secretly monitored him for months, began to swoop in - has been sentenced to nine years in prison.
The man, who continues to have interim name suppression, admitted earlier this year to having laundered at least $2.3 million on behalf of the syndicate.
He also acknowledged through his guilty pleas to having helped devise schemes to smuggle an unknown amount of cocaine secreted in South American timber and more than 600kg of methamphetamine inside ships imported from China. In addition, he participated in a conspiracy to retrieve 1.5 tonnes of cocaine from a mothership 320km off the coast of Tauranga.
Ultimately, all of those plans appear to have been unsuccessful, but it is a crime to make such arrangements even when they aren’t carried out.
The syndicate would have better luck with other smuggling schemes, court documents indicate.
Justice Graham Lang described the man today as having no prior criminal record but a significant role in the syndicate. The defendant appeared via video link as the sentencing hearing was held in the High Court at Auckland.
He was arrested in June 2021 as part of a massive international law enforcement effort dubbed the “sting of the century”.
Hundreds of people were arrested - including dozens in New Zealand - due to Operation Trojan Shield, in which millions of conversations on a fake encrypted network resulted in globally coordinated raids. The communications platform had been thought to be impossible for law enforcement to intercept but had actually been created by the FBI and the Australian Federal Police, law enforcement officials said at the time.
The sting bookended with Operation Van, which had already been an ongoing investigation in New Zealand into the defendant and his syndicate.
Police first obtained a warrant to begin listening in on the defendant’s calls in January 2018. Over the following months they overheard about the various importation schemes and what was being done to carry them out.
In February that year, police recorded him discussing the importation of cocaine in balsa wood blocks from an Ecuadorian timber business. In follow-up conversations, the man discussed selling the wood once the cocaine was removed to “offset the price” and getting other shipments of timber and plywood into New Zealand “so it would look legit”. He expressed frustration that the scheme wasn’t progressing faster.
Discussions about the timber scheme and another scheme to hide methamphetamine in boats from China had both “petered out” by June 2018. But there was no indication the plans had stopped. Rather, authorities said, the defendant and others appeared to be waiting on finance.
In October 2018, police picked up on a new scheme being discussed to retrieve 1.5 tonnes of cocaine from a mothership 320km off the coast of Tauranga.
The defendant and others purchased a $180,000 boat dubbed the MV Matariki in the Marlborough Sounds and renamed it “Kryptonite”. The boat was taken to Rotorua and $100,000 was spent upgrading it with extra fuel capacity, a specialised radar and night-vision capabilities, authorities said.
“The boat was maintained in a state of readiness but, as far as is known, was not used for any importations,” court documents state.
The $180,000 vessel was part of an alleged plot to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of drugs into New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
In April 2019, the defendant received a delivery while aboard the vessel that resulted in a new role for him within the syndicate. The delivery included scales, a money-counting machine and about $800,000 that was intended to serve as his “float”.
“Thereafter, you began acting as the bank for the syndicate,” Justice Lang said during today’s hearing. “You would receive the cash and check it before authorising [the distribution of the drugs].”
A month later, the defendant arranged for the delivery of a safe to another person and was secretly monitored by police as he took frequent trips between Auckland and Rotorua to retrieve cash. The quantities were often in amounts of over $300,000 and sometimes in quantities of over $1m, Justice Lang said.
Around that same time period, he helped facilitate the purchase of six gold bars worth $416,000 as part of the money laundering effort.
A July 2019 covert search at a Rotorua storage facility resulted in police finding four lockers filled with 140 packages labelled as Chinese tea. Police estimated the packages to contain 150kg of methamphetamine. But the discovery was kept secret so the investigation could continue.
A month later, police decided to officially search the storage facility, arresting another man who would also later plead guilty to his involvement in the syndicate. Police found 100 packages labelled Chinese green tea, each with a 1kg block of methamphetamine inside, and recovered another 38kg of meth from a chilly bin at another location.
Combined, the stashes had an estimated street value of $138m.
The defendant who appeared in court today had appeared shaken as he left Rotorua at 2.44am shortly after his co-conspirator’s arrest, documents indicate. In an intercepted call that took place during the drive, the defendant had a conversation with another person about destroying his phones and what to tell police if he was contacted.
That same day, he instructed another person over the phone to immediately vacuum pack cash that had been stashed in a safe and bury the cash in her yard.
Seemingly worried that the heat was on him, he was given permission to retire from his role as banker for the syndicate, documents state.
It had been roughly 20 months since police had begun recording the defendant. It would be nearly two years later before police decided to end Operation Van, executing multiple search warrants and arresting the defendant and others.
