In March 2020, when New Zealand went into lockdown for the first time because of the Covid-19 outbreak, a former radio star in Auckland saw it as a business opportunity.
“White collar people [are] partying hard right now,” Nate Nauer said in a text message to his girlfriend three days into the lockdown.
“One of the boys visited a mansion party where they spent 12k,” he wrote in another message, adding an emoji of someone blowing their nose in a veiled reference to snorting cocaine.
“I exist in a different world,” Nauer told his partner. “Why do you think I get paid so much.”
Nauer, 40, once earned a six-figure salary as a member of Mai FM’s popular “Breakfast Crew”, but by 2020, he had turned to another line of work: laundering drug money for the Comancheros motorcycle gang.
Nauer’s involvement with the Comancheros - an Australian gang which quickly established itself in New Zealand’s criminal underworld - was revealed on Wednesday morning when name suppression was lifted at a hearing at the Auckland District Court.
He was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to laundering $420,000 of drug money, by making cash payments for five expensive cars and a dodgy payment to a law firm.
The jail time for Nauer, more than four years after he was first arrested, is an extraordinary change of fortune for a man who became an unlikely media celebrity.
Born in New Zealand and raised in Samoa, Nauer was working as a forklift driver in Auckland in the early 2000s when he accidentally stumbled into the broadcasting industry.
One day, Nauer accompanied a friend to collect a prize from Niu FM, a small community radio station, and was sitting in the lobby when a receptionist asked Nauer if he was waiting for an audition. For a laugh, Nauer said yes.
The programme director was impressed by Nauer’s monologue about why he loved the Blues Super Rugby team, and called back to offer him the job hosting an afternoon show for youth, despite his lack of training or experience.
It wasn’t long before others recognised his on-air talent. Nauer was poached by Mai FM, owned by Mediaworks, where he worked his way up to the primetime breakfast show as a member of the Morning Crew.
At the peak of his career, Nauer broadcast to an audience of about 455,000 a week, but that all came crashing down when he was arrested in Operation Nova.
Detectives in the National Organised Crime Group had been covertly investigating senior members of the Comancheros, an international motorcycle gang which started a chapter in New Zealand after 14 members were deported from Australia.
Operation Nova was launched because police were concerned the gang’s connections to international organised crime groups, relatively sophisticated methods, and propensity to use firearms would give it outsized influence in New Zealand’s criminal underworld.
The operation came to an end in April 2019, when most of the Comancheros’ hierarchy were arrested and charged with money laundering and participating in an organised criminal group.
More than $4 million worth of assets were seized.
Nauer was among those arrested but his identity was kept out of media coverage because of name suppression orders. News reports about the case referred only to a “media personality”.
He had never kept his friendship with members of the gang hidden.
There were photographs of Nauer among the guests on a charter boat trip celebrating the stag party of a senior patched member, socialising with the gang’s president Pasilika Naufahu, and getting a haircut with another.
He had even invited some of the Comancheros to visit him at the Mai FM studios.
But a High Court judge accepted the argument that his career would be over if his name was published in connection with the criminal charges and the Comancheros, which would leave his reputation permanently damaged even if Nauer was eventually acquitted.
Name suppression was kept in place, for the time being, but two months later, Nauer departed abruptly from Mai FM.
“After 10 years of being a part of the whānau here at Mai FM, Nate has left the Mai Morning Crew to focus on spending time with family and other career opportunities,” read the statement from Mediaworks in January 2020.
“Let’s give it up for Nate for all the hard mahi over the years. You’ll be missed bro, all the best!”
That was the official explanation but with the suppression order in place, social media was rife with speculation about the true reason for his departure.
In the lead-up to the trial in September 2020, most of the gang’s hierarchy - Pasilika Naufahu, Tyson Daniels, Jarome Fonua and Vetekina Naufahu - admitted various charges of money laundering and participating in an organised criminal group.
But Nauer pleaded not guilty. Although he was an associate of the Comancheros, he maintained he was not involved in their criminal activities.
The trial focused on a company that Nauer incorporated in May 2017 called Heavy Heavy Ltd. The business provided legitimate concrete pumping services but the Crown contended it was a money laundering front.
Prosecutors alleged that this was demonstrated by the fact it paid salaries to the Naufahu brothers, Pasilika and Vetekina, and Tyson Daniels even though they did not appear to be working at the time that payments were made.
Nauer also let the Comancheros use Heavy Heavy Ltd, as well as his own name, to disguise the true ownership of assets including cars and a house.
An expensive Bentley vehicle was purchased by Heavy Heavy Ltd, even though it was for the sole use of Pasilika Naufahu, while Nauer also agreed to have a Range Rover registered in his personal name on behalf of Vetekina Naufahu.
Nauer also helped Pasilika Naufahu to purchase a $1.3m home in Bucklands Beach. The gang’s president paid 50 per cent up front, which was transferred from lawyer Andrew Simpson’s trust account. Because Naufahu could not secure financing for the balance of the unconditional offer, Nauer stepped in to obtain a mortgage to pay the balance of $650,000 and complete the sale.
The property was then registered in the name of a trust associated with Nauer to disguise the fact that Naufahu was the beneficial owner.
At the end of the Crown case, Nauer’s defence lawyer Steven Lack said there was not enough evidence to convict his client and asked the trial judge to dismiss the charges.
While the Crown alleged that Heavy Heavy Ltd was established for the express purpose of laundering dirty money for the Comancheros, Justice Graham Lang said the jury could not properly reach that conclusion.
There was no dispute that the company provided concrete pumping services, said Justice Lang, and had earned income of $377,287 between May 2017 and March 2019. Of that, cash deposits totalled only $38,650.
“This does not suggest it was involved in laundering quantities of cash derived from criminal offending.”
The High Court judge pointed out that the Comancheros already had another way of laundering cash during this time.
Cash deposits of $1.3m were made into the trust account of Andrew Simpson’s law firm, which was used to buy the Bucklands Beach house and numerous expensive vehicles.
“There was no apparent reason for the group to use Heavy Heavy Ltd as a conduit when they had the ability to use Simpson’s trust account,” said Justice Lang, although he noted the Comancheros could have used the business to potentially launder money in the future.
The charges were dismissed, and Nauer walked from the dock as a free man and with his identity still secret.
But unknown to the jury in that case, Nauer was facing a different set of money laundering charges relating to the Comancheros.
In late 2019, about six months after Nauer was arrested in Operation Nova, the police became aware that he and Vetekina Naufahu were seen with expensive cars.
Detective Sergeant Damian Espinosa was the officer in charge of Operation Nova, and decided to start a new investigation, Operation Rider, into the unexplained wealth the pair had accumulated while on bail.
Operation Rider uncovered a pattern of money laundering transactions in which Nauer would make cash payments to a car dealer, Yonghao “Chris” Huang, for luxury motor vehicles.
They referred to cash in code as “noodles”, and Nauer would always distance himself from the transaction by sending a driver to deliver the money.
Huang allowed each vehicle to remain registered in the name of his company, Baili Enterprise Limited, to disguise the true ownership.
The first sale was an early Christmas present for Nauer’s partner: a BMW X5 for $100,000 purchased in November 2019.
Huang messaged Nauer to ask if his partner liked the BMW.
Nauer replied: “Brother. She loves it”.
At the time, Nauer was no longer working at Mai FM but could somehow afford to pay rent of $1800 a week, as well as the household bills and spending money.
The next month, Nauer purchased a Mercedes Benz E63 for $176,000. He sent his driver - “a big Tongan guy with tattoos” - to deliver $100,000 to Huang in the carpark of the Gillies Ave badminton court in Epsom.
The Mercedes Benz was later seized from the home of another senior Comanchero, Seiana Fakaosilea.
Nauer purchased three other cars from Huang during Operation Rider: a BMW M5 for $50,000, an Audi RS6 for $178,000, and a Mercedes Benz G wagon worth $275,000.
The more expensive Audi and G wagon vehicles were seized from Vetekina Naufahu’s home in Silverdale when the police terminated Operation Rider in June 2020.
When he was arrested, Naufahu said: “[I’ll’] just have an even better car next time”.
The arrest of Huang, and lawyer Andrew Simpson previously, was seen as a warning shot to those offering professional services to aid organised criminal groups.
“Money laundering is not a victimless crime,” said Detective Inspector Julian Rinckes in a press statement at the time.
“By enabling organised crime groups to conceal the profits of their illegal activities, it is continuing a cycle of harm imposed on vulnerable communities that are preyed on by these groups.”
The police also took a novel approach to lay charges of money laundering for other unusual expenditures.
Vetekina Naufahu was paying $930 a week to rent the Silverdale property, with $77,820 paid in cash directly to the agent.
He was charged with money laundering for the rental payments, as well as the $16,000 he paid in March 2020 for silicone implants to make his calf muscles bigger.
The police also charged Nauer over a $100,000 payment made to a law firm, as a retainer for legal representation while on active charges for Operation Nova.
“Can you help me with lawyer? I bring noodle,” was the message Nauer sent Huang on WeChat.
He arranged for a driver to deliver $100,000 to Huang at the badminton courts in Epsom, and in turn Huang deposited the same amount into the solicitor’s trust account.
A short time later, Nauer received a text message from his solicitor and asked for an explanation as to the source of the funds.
“Hey Nate, I need you to call me urgently re: the funds deposited to my trust account. I need to clearly identify the source or am obliged to notify the police within three days.”
Nauer replied: “No problem. I’m getting my friend whose name is Chris to get his paperwork to show you why and how he’s helping me.”
He then asked Huang to call the solicitor and reassure him the $100,000 was a loan, as opposed to an unidentified source.
Second time around, there was no acquittal for Nauer.
On the eve of their trial in the Auckland District Court in May 2022, the trio of Nauer, Vetekina Naufahu and Yonghao Huang all pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.
One year later, after multiple delays in the court process, the trio were finally sentenced by Judge Nevin Dawson on Wednesday morning: two years and nine months for Nauer, two years and four months for Naufahu, and two years and eight months for Huang.
At the hearing, defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC said Nauer had been “improperly charged” with money laundering in Operation Nova (in which the charges were ultimately dismissed at trial). As a result of the failed prosecution, Mansfield said his client’s life fell apart and Nauer was put on the path to prison.
He lost his successful career in the media, was abandoned by his colleagues and friends, and turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with his isolation. The only people who stood by Nauer, said Mansfield, were his criminal associates.
“Mr Nauer was someone who had a brilliant career in the media... Everyone that he knew professionally and personally walked away from him,” Mansfield said.
“His life just spiralled down.”
'He was such a nice chap. He had a word for everybody.'