Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Head of Hawke's Bay meth ring pleads guilty

Hawkes Bay Today
14 Nov, 2019 02:00 AM2 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The head of a Hawke's Bay meth ring pleaded guilty in Napier District Court on Thursday afternoon. Photo / File

The head of a Hawke's Bay meth ring pleaded guilty in Napier District Court on Thursday afternoon. Photo / File

A principal player in a Hawke's Bay methamphetamine ring has pleaded guilty to charges of possessing and supplying methamphetamine.

Roman Tua, 33, appeared in front of Judge Geoff Rea in the Napier District Court on Thursday afternoon.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of supplying methamphetamine and one charge of possessing methamphetamine for supply.

According to the summary of facts, Tua was the principal offender within the Hawke's Bay network.

He was responsible for either supplying, or possessing to supply, around 2.5kg of methamphetamine.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

READ MORE:
• Head of Hawke's Bay meth ring pleads guilty
• Hawke's Bay man bragged that his meth 'safe house' had $300,000 cash stash
• Historic sentence: Hawke's Bay meth addicts get home detention, first under new laws
• Premium - P in the post: Half a kilogram of meth delivered by courier to Napier man's door

Tua sourced the meth from both Auckland and Hamilton, purchasing the drug approximately once a month.

In late July 2018, while Tua was out of town reloading, a "safe house" was burgled with about $200,000 stolen.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

On one occasion, in September 2018, Tua travelled to Auckland with two accomplices, and purchased an unknown amount of product.

According to the summary of facts, he then discovered he had been cheated, with the product heavily "cut", unlike that which had been sampled.

He stayed in Auckland for two days to attempt to remedy the situation, but was unsuccessful.

Later, two other people attempted to "clean" the product, producing 309 grams of meth of unknown purity.

Discover more

New Zealand|crime

Hawke's Bay man bragged his meth 'safe house' had $300k cash stash

14 Nov 05:00 PM

On the last occasion on October 4, 2018, Tua bought 1kg of meth from Auckland.

On October 25, 2018, police seized 454.5g of product, and $274,265 in cash, found across several locations.

He has been remanded on bail for sentencing on February 12.

In total, there are eight defendants in the case, arrested as part of police Operation Chrome.

According to the summary of facts, police were able to retrieve text data back to April 2018, and were authorised to monitor certain phone numbers live.

The operation ended on October 25, 2018 with a number of addresses searched.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The case was put on hold while the Court of Appeal reviewed the scale of available penalties.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Crowds of up to 15,000 at Matariki fires on Hawke's Bay beaches

22 Jun 02:35 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Taradale flex their Maddison muscles

22 Jun 02:31 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Tararua District Council to install water meters

22 Jun 01:40 AM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Crowds of up to 15,000 at Matariki fires on Hawke's Bay beaches

Crowds of up to 15,000 at Matariki fires on Hawke's Bay beaches

22 Jun 02:35 AM

'The twinkling fires dotted north and south as far as Te Awanga was magical.'

Taradale flex their Maddison muscles

Taradale flex their Maddison muscles

22 Jun 02:31 AM
Tararua District Council to install water meters

Tararua District Council to install water meters

22 Jun 01:40 AM
Engineer called in as project to reopen Shine Falls begins

Engineer called in as project to reopen Shine Falls begins

22 Jun 01:08 AM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP