On the eve of his trial, a man has admitted he was the drug chemist who manufactured meth for a Kiwi cartel kingpin in a hidden shack in the Northland bush.
His guilty plea marks the effective end of the final prosecution in Operation Mystic, the investigation by Auckland detectives that brought down Xavier Valent’s drug syndicate, notwithstanding appeals.
The other members of the sprawling syndicate of the modern-day Mr Asia have now been found guilty at trial or admitted their roles.
Several ex-minions received reduced sentences or immunity in exchange for testifying against the kingpin after his downfall.
The cook retains the interim name suppression he was granted when his name was repeatedly mentioned in evidence during Valent’s marathon trial this year.
At the time, he had pleaded not guilty to manufacturing methamphetamine and was headed to his own trial.
The cook showed up to the Auckland District Court and the trial was all set to start on Monday, August 21.
After pre-trial wrangling between his lawyer Ian Brookie, Crown prosecutor Ben Kirkpatrick and Judge Kirsten Lummis, the man pleaded guilty to manufacturing meth, a charge carrying a maximum penalty of life in prison.
He has been remanded on bail ahead of sentencing.
A Judge later granted the Herald’s application to access the summary of facts to which the man admitted.
Valent, 34, is at the heart of the man’s case.
He was found guilty on dozens of charges covering a range of Class A and B drugs including meth, cocaine and MDMA and jailed for life. Valent has now lodged an appeal but the Court of Appeal said there is as yet no date for the hearing.
The former Auckland Grammar student is serving a life sentence in a special unit of Auckland prison at Paremoremo for the country’s most dangerous inmates, reflecting the fear prison authorities have over his ability to influence other inmates.
Valent, formerly Harry Whitehead, was a small-scale street criminal, drug dealer and prolific tagger in Auckland in the 2000s under the nickname “Fokus”.
He continued to use that alias while he ran his syndicate from overseas, coordinating massive drug imports to New Zealand while living a globe-trotting life of luxury.
Valent was jailed in 2010 for selling LSD and MDMA, with Justice Graham Lang warning further similar crimes would bring a life sentence.
When he was released in 2015 he used connections he had made in prison, which he called his “university”, to start importing ephedrine.
The following year, he fled overseas as Customs closed in on his nascent drug importation syndicate.
Some of his associates were arrested but Valent managed to grow the syndicate overseas, continuing to source ever-increasing amounts of drugs, slipping them into New Zealand concealed in packages.
He ruled his network with an iron fist, subjecting them to polygraph tests to prove they weren’t ripping him off or robbing his safe houses, or reducing their wages if they made mistakes.
Alongside drug runners, he also employed “catchers” to receive shipments and storemen to hold and package the product.
Valent’s trial heard evidence from a former drug runner turned Crown witness who described his first assignment in the syndicate.
He was sent to deliver ephedrine to a clandestine meth laboratory in Northland.
“My first job was basically I was dropped off at the end of a road up north with a half a kilo of ephedrine, and left on the side of the road, and some people came and picked me up and we went on a boat to what I was told was an island,” the witness said.
The Crown charge notice for the cook names “the Island” as the place where the manufacture took place.
It was not an island, but rather a clearing with a shack hidden in the bush at Whangaruru, a remote peninsula and harbour just south of the Bay of Islands.
He discovered he was part of a large-scale methamphetamine production led by the cook, described in court as having an oily complexion and a knack for making the Class A drug.
After two days and nights of making meth at the shack, where the illicit chemists stayed awake the whole time, the cook gave him a ride back to Auckland, the witness said.
The summary of facts said Valent was concerned he would be ripped off if the cook was left to his own devices.
As a result he would get his workers - who later became Crown witnesses - to watch over the operation.
The worker said that on the first cook he watched, in November 2017, another key Valent lieutenant gave the cook 0.5kg of ephedrine from which he produced at least 250g of methamphetamine.
One gram of meth generally sells for between $450 and $700 in New Zealand, according to trial evidence from Detective Sergeant John Sowter, the veteran Auckland drug squad detective who ran Operation Mystic.
Over a two-month period after the first manufacture, at least two further cooks produced more than a kilogram of meth, worth between $120,000 and $180,000.
The cook was paid in leftover meth.
On September 9, 2021, police raided the Whangaruru property and found the meth cooking shack “in an extreme state of dereliction”, the summary of facts says.
A few months later the cook was pulled over in Symonds St, central Auckland, driving a Nissan Primera.
Inquiries revealed he was wanted to arrest in connection with Operation Mystic and he was taken into custody, where he declined to make a statement to police.
The cook is likely to be sentenced next year.
He is 54 and has previous convictions for supplying and possessing meth.
His most recent Parole Board decision said he was released from prison in 2014 after serving a little over two years for drug dealing. He had a “significant history of drug involvement”, the decision said.
At that stage, he had a supportive employer with whom he had undertook release-to-work, and had support from his partner.
The Migrant Workers' Association says it is supporting the victim.