The mastermind of a major meth smuggling syndicate faces a lengthy stint behind bars after a spectacular downfall. Kurt Bayer reports.
With steam rising, bare-chested Sami Zagros, aka Saman Ahmad Khan Bigy, leaned back and unwound. The sauna was hot and things were good, better than good, mint. The drugs had rolled in. He had stacks of cash and was looking sharp. The new Mercedes was legit. The Bitcoin hit was a downer but he had plenty more where that came from.
Yeah, things were real good.
Confident the audio jamming device "Bug Hunter" was corrupting any potential police intercepts, he used one of two burner phones with him at the inner-city luxury hotel sauna to fire off a message. Ping.
A suited man emerged through the mist. He stood in front of him.
"Is your name Sami Zagros?" he asked, flashing a badge.
Zagros replied that he was.
And with that, his empire came crashing down.
The cops had acted quickly, they had been worried.
Witness statements and court documents obtained by the Weekend Herald show for the first time just how Zagros' world unravelled so spectacularly – for the second time.
Zagros had just done three years behind bars for drug dealing after being snared in an operation that swooped on VIP guests at SkyCity Casino in Auckland.
Fresh out of jail, he saw a gap in the Christchurch drug market, changed his name and set up shop down south.
Just two hours before entering the Christchurch hotel's spa and sauna, on September 4, 2018, police officers had rolled Zagros' underling, the underpaid and highly-exposed Preston Radford.
They had been intercepting four phones run by Zagros and Radford for weeks.
Each line was code-named: Arrest, Restraint, Temptation, Pushback.
More than 3000 calls and text messages had been intercepted. One cop listening in knew their individual voices, their slang, ticks and rhythms.
The drug dealers weren't being as clever as they thought they were.
"The Boss" Zagros unwittingly gave away his cellphone number to police while applying for a new passport under his new name.
Radford did the same thing when jotting it down on a KiwiRail application form getting a Cook Strait ferry.
In several calls, Radford had identified himself and family members. In another, he rambled about a money counting machine and how he'd discovered moisture on the notes can muck it right up.
But earlier that cool spring day, Radford got a call that should have raised an alarm. The caller suggested that one of his close family members had been tipped off that he was being actively investigated by police and NZ Customs.
Over the past four months, 32-year-old Zagros had been busy flooding the Christchurch drug market with Class-A methamphetamine and Class-B MDMA (known as ecstasy).
Using underworld links overseas through the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Wickr, the Iranian ex-travel agent had organised at least six consignments of meth to be smuggled into New Zealand.
It worked like this: packages of dining utensils, stereo components, adaptors and fan samples, and colourful African clothing would be legitimately declared but inside would be secreted parcels of meth.
The drugs mainly came from Mexico and the United States, but also from the West African country of Guinea.
They were sent to vacant or yet-to-be-rented properties dotted around Christchurch, or addresses linked to drug syndicate members or neighbouring properties.
The names were fake or had slight variations: Patrick Rainfield, Patrick Steinfield Rashford, Presto Rashford.
Once the drugs landed, Radford would go pick them up.
They would later be packaged up and distributed around the country to be sold on the street.
Little did Zagros know that some meth shipments had been intercepted in the United States and in Brazil and Hong Kong.
The latter was the same Asian city where his parents once ran a money transfer service before allegations of dishonoured airfares and incomplete international money transfers that embroiled their son and his Mt Eden travel agency just before his last drug downfall.
But in Christchurch, Zagros, perhaps trying to learn from his earlier mistakes, limited his own risk of being caught by rarely handling the imported drugs himself.
Radford was the one doing the danger work and was being paid proportionately poorly.
Later, when the game was up, Zagros would accept either importing or trying to import approximately 8kg of methamphetamine into New Zealand.
They thought it was going so well.
Zagros cut a flash figure around town. He liked designer suits, expensive jewellery, late-model exotic cars, and splashing cash at nightclubs and bars.
He was also paranoid. In the driver's door of his Mercedes, he stashed a stun gun, while at his St Albans flat, he kept five imitation pistols in various hiding places, including under his mattress.
When he gave one man $100,000 to invest in Bitcoin, and $35,000 of his "investment" was lost inside 10 days on the volatile cryptocurrency market, Zagros made thinly-veiled threats that the man was incompetent and would be knee-capped unless he paid it back.
Afraid for his life, the man quickly took out a $30,000 loan to pay him back.
But despite Zagros' threats, laundering, and precautions, including the purchase of an audio jamming device that he hoped would prevent being bugged by authorities, the cops were on to him.
And when Radford got tipped off that they were on the police radar, officers heard it all.
They were still concerned though. If Radford alerted Zagros straight away, the whole of Operation Resist could be busted.
They had to act quickly.
On the afternoon of September 4, 2018, top detectives met at Christchurch South Police Station with specialist senior Customs officers down from Wellington for an urgent briefing.
Just after 6pm, a tracking device showed that Radford's silver Toyota Hiace van was on the move.
A call was made to follow it and bring him in.
With help from the tracker, they spotted Radford stopped at an intersection, at Stanmore Rd and North Avon Rd, indicating to turn right.
They boxed him in with lights and sirens going.
Handcuffed, Radford was taken to the central police station for questioning.
The 46-year-old would later admit 21 charges and be jailed for more than six years.
Another accomplice, Cherie Ann Akehurst - who let some meth be delivered to her house - was also convicted and given 11 months home detention.
Although Radford was locked up, police were still worried that he'd told his boss that police were sniffing around.
But Zagros was clueless.
While Radford was being arrested, Zagros had grabbed his blue sports bag and gone for a gym workout at the Heritage Hotel in Cathedral Square.
Phone intercepts told police he was still there and had planned to have a sauna afterwards.
At 8.15pm, a sergeant with the police response and operations group walked into the steaming sauna room and recognised Zagros.
Zagros knew the game was up; he'd been here before.
Back in 2013, Zagros, then known as Saman Bigy, was caught up in Operation Ghost – a vast 18-month covert sting targeting an organised crime syndicate.
Then, as a mid-level dealer, he was seen buying three ounces of meth from "Baldy Mark", aka See Meng Hoo, a VIP at SkyCity Casino.
Zagros was later found guilty of six serious drugs charges and jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Sitting in Christchurch police station, he must've known how much trouble he was in.
Although he refused to give officers the access codes to the two Samsung cellphones he had with him, he admitted that his house keys were tucked inside his gym bag.
The next morning, Customs led a search warrant of Zagros' flat.
They found a veritable Aladdin's cave of drug-dealing accoutrements: BlackBerry mobile phones; SIM cards; imitation firearms (two inside his office safe, one in a bedroom drawer, one in the bed headboard, and another beneath his mattress); bundles of cash amounting to $169,800; an electric bill counter; digital scales and zip-lock bags; and a few green "Gucci" MDMA pills.
But it was at a storage unit across town on Blenheim Rd where the real stash was to be found.
Bursting bags of ecstasy tablets sorted into colours – pink ones stamped "Porsche", green "Gucci", and yellow "Rolex" - amounted to 13,900 party pills in total.
The drugs were fetching $30-$40 each on the street at the time.
Wickr messages also showed him trying to buy a further $80,000 worth of ecstasy from "persons unknown".
Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence against him, Zagros originally denied charges and vowed to fight them.
But after much legal wrangling, and back and forth with lawyers, he pleaded guilty to six charges of importing methamphetamine and one of possession of MDMA for supply.
He will be sentenced in the High Court at Christchurch in November and faces another lengthy stint behind bars.