High-life for white-collar drug dealers

By CHRIS BARTON


When David Shaida and Theodoor Graaf are sentenced in the High Court at Auckland for drug trafficking in methamphetamine, or P, there is a marked difference in each man's demeanour.

Shaida looks ashen, sick to his stomach - before him is the enormity of his crime and an 11-year sentence.

Graaf has a smirk on his face, smug, seeming almost proud of the 11kg of the drug - valued at $6 to $11 million- that brought him down. Graaf, the big shot usually known as Ted, doesn't seem to mind that he's just been sent down for 14 years.

Most who know Shaida find it hard to believe that such a "thoroughly nice guy" could have been caught up in such a despicable trade. Or they duck for cover when the Herald calls, embarrassed that one of their own - on the board of governors of King's School and once a member of the Northern Club - could bring such shame to Auckland's elite.

Most of those who know Graaf are delighted that the conman who for years ripped off family, friends and business partners has at last got his just desserts. "He's proud of the money he's made by ripping people off," says an anonymous caller. "He's smiling because people now know what he's achieved - making the money importing that much, being the big shot."

Two personalities that couldn't be more different - yet with similar flaws. Both are hopeless businessmen with a string of failures behind them. And both have such an overwhelming need to keep up appearances that it drove them to drugs.

David Cyrus Shaida, 47, of British-Iranian descent and married with three children, did his first drug run at the beginning of 2003 and his last ended on the morning of Sunday, March 28, this year when customs officers searched his bags at Auckland International Airport and found "three long rectangular plastic packages each containing a white crystalline substance" - 1.92kg of P valued at between $1.1 and $1.9 million.

His criminal ventures were his response to "personal and financial difficulties". His job as export manager for Jason Products, which sells tablemats and coasters, wasn't keeping up with the Remuera lifestyle - including fees of $8500 to $10,000 a year for each of the children at King's School.

His consultancy work for businesses in the Middle East had dried up following September 11. Business ventures had gone wrong too - the latest being a wine importing business, Rycobra, set up with the help of lawyer Brian Ellis, who is at pains to distance himself.

"I wasn't involved in any business activities with him, full stop," Ellis says. "I was assisting him in some business enterprises that just didn't go ahead." Rycobra was liquidated in July 2002.

Theodoor Nico Graaf, born in Tauranga in 1952, with five children and separated from his wife, was introduced to the Auckland-based drug syndicate by Shaida in the middle of 2003. He, too, was in financial difficulty, having fled New Caledonia in the late 1990s, leaving behind two liquidated companies and many out-of-pocket investors.

Graaf, declared bankrupt in New Zealand in 1999 - most likely to escape mounting debt - was discharged from that constraint in March 2002. It is said the bankruptcy was a terrible blow to his ego, bringing on bouts of depression.

Graaf also had education expenses - two boys at St Peter's College and some of his older children at university. But thanks to the generosity of family, some of whom were also duped by his dubious business ventures, his lifestyle never suffered too much.

Graaf loved the fruits of drug running and took to its machinations quickly. When he didn't get paid for some drug runs by the Auckland syndicate, Graaf cut out the middleman and started dealing directly with the Iranian drug supplier in Malaysia.

He was immediately recruited as a regular courier. Early in 2004 he convinced Shaida to deal direct as well.

Drug money allowed Graaf to enjoy the high life again. Just before his arrest he bought new cars for his older children. There was also lots of expensive jewellery and he took up residence at the Metropolis apartments. His children often stayed there with him and he lavished them with expensive electronics and other gifts.

Shaida was not as flashy with his drug proceeds. He didn't need to be. Born into privilege, he had always enjoyed the high life. He came to New Zealand in 1979 with his father, a wealthy Iranian largely responsible for orchestrating halal killing of lamb with the New Zealand Meat Board for export to Iran. Shaida had helped with negotiations and was involved with his father in some trade delegations at the time.

At some stage in these proceedings he met Juliette, his New Zealand wife, who was said to be genuinely shocked when police searched their Lingarth St home and found $900,000 of P hidden behind a couch.

Juliette no longer uses the Shaida name and works as a "very valued employee" at the Northern Club, manager Nicki de Villiers says.

In 1994, Shaida formed - with long-time friend Ahmad Asghari - a company called Iranz. Asghari denies all knowledge of the venture - even though his name is on Companies Office records as a shareholder. Asghari does admit to starting Halal Food Supplies with Shaida in 1997 but says the business never took off and was closed down.

He says of his friend: "He was a gentleman, he was a nice person. I could not believe it [the drug trafficking] if he was not admitting it."

Shaida couldn't believe it either when, on the morning of Sunday, March 28, customs officers searched his bags at Auckland International Airport and found the packages of P.

In 1996, Shaida's father - by now living in the European tax haven of Andorra - funded his son into a business venture with AgResearch. The deal - involving a licence for a hydatid vaccine and its manufacture in China - went sour when after months of negotiations AgResearch wanted more money allocated.

Shaida trumpeted his displeasure in the pages of NBR in 1997. Behind the scenes there were rumours of threats of retribution to be carried out by some Iranian friends Shaida had helped settle in New Zealand.

"There was talk of people losing kneecaps when the whole thing was over," said a person associated with the deal. It was perhaps the first inkling of Shaida's unsavoury side.

But mostly Shaida cultivated the image of a perfect gentleman, working hard to be seen in all the right places. First as president of the Friends of King's School, where his work earned a special vote of appreciation from former headmaster Harvey Rees-Thomas. Shaida then graduated to the board of governors.

When news of his arrest hit the headlines there were embarrassed faces everywhere.

Board chairman John Henley wrote to all parents telling of Shaida's shame. He told the Herald at the time that if there had been any indication what trouble Shaida was in, the school would have acted on it. The fallout even affected crown prosecutor Simon Moore, who had to excuse himself from the case because he knew of Shaida through his connections with the school.

Graaf's biggest business failures were in New Caledonia. In 1996, while working there for Goodman Fielder Watties SICA, he was accused of misappropriating a large sum from the company. For reasons that are not clear, he was not prosecuted and left the company taking with him blueprints for a poultry farm and processing venture Watties had been working on.

Graaf set about selling the idea to New Zealand investors and in 1998 Le Coq D'Or Caledonien was formed It attracted some heavyweight Kiwi investors, who lost several million dollars on the deal.

"He told incredible lies all the time and stole all our money," says one of the investors.

The golden rooster turned out to be a turkey. The venture collapsed and the company was liquidated in 2000 - but not before Graaf resold the deal and the land set aside for the development to a second group of New Zealand investors. "The man was mad," says an investor who confronted Graaf with his actions. "He conned his uncles out of money. He conned his grandmother out of money in Holland. He took money from the kids' accounts without them knowing."

Another company set up by Graaf - South Pacific Agronomics, an agricultural machinery importer - also collapsed, leaving yet more Kiwi investors high and dry, and a New Caledonian farmer having to sell his property to pay the bills.

Graaf, who is reputed to speak four languages, escaped having to face the music - he left the country on a different passport.

A New Caledonian lawyer acting for disgruntled investors said of Graaf: "He was very likeable ... like all fraudsters. It was easy to trust him. He was quite laid back and easy-going, not a playboy. I would never had thought before that he would have been a fraud."

Graaf, brought up in a Dutch immigrant family, went to a private school and to university. Just when he developed his mania for money is not clear. But his wife, Katrina, has said she tried to get help for his compulsive desire for money before their separation.

The need to be seen as a success carried on through to his arrest. Found with 6kg of the drug at his Grafton home, Graaf would later confess to another 5kg and having delivered in excess of $1 million in cash to his Malaysian supplier.

He also told police he had made about $300,000 for his role with his syndicate.

Dealing with the business end of P trafficking, both Graaf and Shaida only saw money and plastic bags filled with a crystalline substance exchange hands.

Shaida, whose job at Jason Products provided the perfect cover for his frequent travel, told police he was "like a truck driver who takes alcohol from the brewery to the pub".

But as Justice Hugh Williams pointed out at the sentencing, five months on remand at Mt Eden had shown Graaf the other side of what methamphetamine - "a pernicious, dangerous and addictive drug" - could do.

Defence counsel Ron Mansfield said Graaf was remorseful for his crime and its effect on his family. He is appealing against the 14-year sentence on the grounds that it is excessive.

There is another chapter yet to play out in this story - one that may explain how Shaida and Graaf became drug-running buddies. A third person - an Iranian with name suppression - has been charged with possession of P for supply and conspiring to import the drug.

Unlike Shaida and Graaf he is pleading not guilty. Depositions in the case begin in November.

It is alleged the three met regularly and hatched their drug-running plans in a coffee shop in High St. On the face of it, the three would have looked like any other businessmen meeting for a coffee and a chat.

As one colleague who knew Shaida says: "It was a horrendous cock up of personality or judgment, but it makes me wonder how you judge other people, because apparently you just don't know these days do you?"

* Additional reporting JULIE MIDDLETON