NZ hideaway for drug-bust billionaire's daughter

By STAFF REPORTERS

The billionaire drug smuggler fighting to keep his name secret has a daughter and grandchildren living in New Zealand.

The woman and her husband moved from Colorado late last year and bought a home here for $3.4 million.

They have built two cottages on a previously undeveloped part of the property, and a large schoolroom where they plan to home-school their three children, aged 7 to 11.

Access to the site is difficult, and the family have their own helicopter.

Contacted by the Weekend Herald, the woman's husband said his wife was not available. "The point is we came here for privacy, and it's pretty clear you guys are going to do what you're going to do."

An acquaintance of the family said the parents had made the drastic lifestyle change for the sake of their children.

"I think they are just really wanting to get away, and get their children away from that society. They just want to bring them back to basics.

"They are really neat, down-to-earth people. You were expecting to deal with arseholes really, being that well off."

The family were settling in to a drastically different lifestyle. "It's very remote, and very hard to do anything down here, as they've discovered. It's not like being in Colorado.

"Even just to get groceries is a mission."

The billionaire businessman, who was visiting Auckland for the America's Cup regatta, walked free from court eight days ago after being caught with more than 100g of cannabis resin and leaf.

Despite the man's name featuring prominently in overseas media, he has instructed his lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg, to fight to keep his name secret in New Zealand.

Herald lawyers trying to overturn the court order suppressing the billionaire's name applied yesterday afternoon to see his file, which is protected by an order preventing all access to it.

In the Otahuhu District Court on Thursday, after a request from Marie Dyhrberg, Judge Stan Thorburn ruled that no one, including the lawyers involved, could see the case file without the permission of a judge.

However, Herald lawyer Rosena Rasalingam said that because Herald lawyers were arguing the merits of the case, they needed access to submissions in the file.

In the file are details from police about the man's charges, and notes of Ms Dyhrberg's submissions arguing why the man should be discharged without conviction and have his name suppressed.

Police confirmed yesterday that the billionaire had made a voluntary donation of about $50,000 to the drug rehabilitation centre Odyssey House.

Sergeant Pete Syddall of Otahuhu police prosecutions said he did not know the exact amount, but "it was in the region of $50,000."

As the row over the use of name suppression in the courts continued yesterday, the lawyer for multimillionaire Alan Gibbs, who has been charged over an incident in the Far North in which a girl and her mother were injured by a jetski, said he would not seek name suppression.

Gibbs will be summonsed to appear in the Auckland District Court charged with using a jetski in a manner likely to cause risk or injury.

A former Inland Revenue Department worker accused of corruptly selling taxpayers' details can now be named after suppression of her details lapsed in the Auckland District Court.

Sopo Matagi, aged 30, of Manurewa, faces a jury trial in the court in May on 102 counts of corruptly disclosing information to obtain a pecuniary advantage.

Matagi has admitted earning thousands of dollars by selling up-to-date information to loan companies and a repossession agent.