Jailed Fijian drug importer who voluntarily faced justice gets reduced sentence

Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji is currently in prison for importing pseudoephedrine into New Zealand. Photo / Fiji Times

A top Fijian businessman and sports official jailed for importing drugs into New Zealand has had his sentence reduced after a judge gave him credit for returning to this country to face justice.

Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, 47, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in August to four years in prison for importing at least $5 million worth of pseudoephedrine - a precursor for methamphetamine - into New Zealand.

Umarji, a Fijian national who was overseas when an arrest warrant was issued but voluntarily came to New Zealand to face charges, was jailed for four years.

This has now been reduced by six months on appeal.

Umarji was the managing director of several pharmacies in Fiji and across the Pacific region, part of a group called Hyperchem. Through it, Umarji was responsible for the legal importation and exportation of pharmaceuticals into and out of Fiji.

He was also a major figure in sports, serving as a vice-president of the Fiji Football Association and as a committee member for football’s global governing body, Fifa.

However, Umarji was also the sole shareholder of a company called Bio Pharma Ltd, set up for the sole purpose of transferring money in connection with the distribution of illicit drugs.

The director of Bio Pharma was a co-offender, Firdos “Freddie” Dalal, who was employed at a freight forwarding company in Auckland, through which he had access to a Customs-controlled area.

On October 23, 2017, police went to Dalal’s home and found more than 4000 boxes of Actifed pills, a cold and flu medicine containing pseudoephedrine, and $726,190 in cash.

Three importation charges were filed each against Dalal and Umarji, relating to different consignments.

In total, there were 678,000 Actifed pills imported in the three consignments, containing a total amount of 40.68kg of pseudoephedrine, worth between $5m and $6m.

Aiyaz Umarji used his Hyperchem pharmacies as a cover to import drugs into New Zealand. Image / Edin Pasovic and James O’Brien of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

The scheme worked in the following way: Using his Pacific-wide Hyperchem network, Umarji ordered Actifed pills to be delivered from abroad to his pharmacies in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

The shipments were set to transit through New Zealand, where Dalal’s forwarding company was responsible for the cargo.

While the drugs sat in the restricted Customs holding area, Dalal went in and swapped them for other medicines, such as anti-fungal creams, which were then sent on to their island destinations.

The pseudoephedrine was then diverted to New Zealand’s black market.

New Zealand police filed charges against Umarji in December 2019 but believed there was little chance of getting Umarji to voluntarily fly to Auckland from Fiji and show up in court.

Instead, they requested extradition. In November 2021, a Fijian court agreed to the request, and New Zealand police issued an Interpol red notice.

Shortly afterward, Fijian authorities advised that Umarji had gone to India.

In early 2022, he first contacted his Auckland lawyer, David Jones KC, to arrange his surrender to New Zealand police.

He pleaded guilty to the Auckland court earlier this year and was allowed to return to Fiji to sort his affairs before handing himself in for sentencing.

Both Dalal and Umarji received sentences of four years in prison in the District Court, but Umarji appealed his jail term to the High Court, claiming it was manifestly excessive.

He argued that his sentencing discounts gave “inadequate” credit to his previous good character, his remorse, the hardship he would suffer through the isolation of being in a New Zealand prison, and his “co-operation with the authorities and surrendering to the New Zealand jurisdiction”.

High Court Justice Laura O’Gorman said Umarji’s co-operation was not cited as an independent discounting factor in the sentencing judge’s notes, and it should have been.

“Stepping back and assessing the overall end sentence imposed, the appellant has succeeded in showing that the end sentence was manifestly excessive, having failed to provide adequate discount for Mr Umarji’s cooperation as a distinct mitigating factor,” she said.

She recalculated Umarji’s sentence from scratch, applying separate discounts for good character, co-operation, his guilty plea, remorse and isolation.

Justice O’Gorman quashed the four-year jail term and imposed a sentence of three years and six months in prison.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.