An Auckland businessman who smuggled millions of black-market cigarettes into New Zealand has been sentenced to prison after a judge didn’t buy his story about being abandoned by his wife.
Weijie Ru, 34, appeared in Auckland District Court this week alongside older brother Jiehong Ru, who received a non-custodial sentence for having sold roughly $30,000 worth of the illicit tobacco.
At the conclusion of a judge-alone trial for Weijie Ru over a year ago, Judge Stephen Bonnar said he rejected the testimony of both brothers, as well as that of Weijie Ru’s wife.
That scepticism continued through the sentencing process, as Weijie Ru claimed his children would have nowhere to go if he received a prison term.
Deterrence was especially important in cases like this, the judge said.
“You were clearly a leading participant in a transnational operation intended to import cigarettes into New Zealand,” he said this week.
“Clearly, your offending was planned and premeditated. It was sophisticated ... Clearly, the offending was committed for the purpose of significant financial gain.”
Weijie Ru and his wife operated twin metal export businesses out of the same Onehunga premises.
In 2020 he used the Customs client code of a seemingly defunct timber flooring business to import shipping containers with goods from China.
The timber business’ listed address was an empty construction site, while the director had left New Zealand in 2019 and never returned, the court was told.
In April 2020, a container arrived with listed contents of paper cartons and miscellaneous tools. It was delivered to the defendant’s Onehunga business address. Another container – listed as containing paperboard, a nail gun, nails and canvas – arrived in the following month and was shipped to the same address.
Although those shipments were not intercepted by Customs, they raised suspicion in retrospect after authorities X-rayed a third shipment in July 2020 and discovered three pallets of concealed cigarettes.
“However, due to a miscommunication within Customs, the shipping container was cleared for delivery,” Judge Bonnar noted in his verdict.
But authorities got another chance in October 2020, when a fourth container arrived under similar circumstances.
“The container was examined by Customs and found to contain 1,679,800 tobacco cigarettes concealed within three pallets of hollowed-out, collapsed cardboard boxes,” Judge Bonnar noted.
After comparing X-ray images of the final import with the third, Customs determined the third container would have also contained roughly 1.6 million cigarettes.
Weijie Ru was charged in 2021, with prosecutors focusing on the last two shipments only.
While giving evidence at his September 2024 trial, the defendant suggested he had been duped by a customer at his scrap metal business named “Tim” – the same name as on the importation documents.
The customer had arranged each of the shipments, allowing the defendant to include items needed for his business in exchange for them being delivered to the scrap metal site, Weijie Ru testified. He had no idea that when Tim picked up the remaining items from the container the haul included cigarettes, he insisted.
Prosecutors, however, said “Tim” was actually Weijie Ru.
They noted that his older brother, who had been set to stand trial beside him before pleading guilty at the last minute, had been selling cigarettes on the black market for years. The sales were not remotely subtle, with “smoke”, “cigarettes” and “tobacco” listed in the memo sections of some of his electronic bank deposits.
Weijie Ru’s wife and brother both gave evidence for the defence. Jiehong Ru said he had obtained the cigarettes from a stranger on WeChat, not his brother. The spouse said she had met a man named “Tim” at the business two or three times.
But Judge Bonnar concluded none of the defence testimony was believable.
“Much of his evidence simply did not have the ring of truth about it,” the judge said of the defendant’s trip to the witness box.
A phone linked to “Tim” on the import documents was linked to the defendant, the judge noted.
“His evidence that he asked Tim to arrange the purchase ... but that he did not know Tim’s Chinese name or any other identifying details for Tim was simply not credible,” the judge added.
Of Jiehong Ru’s evidence, the judge noted: “I gained the clear impression that he was giving false evidence to assist his brother.”
The most believable witness noted in the judge’s decision was a freight forwarding company employee called by the Crown who said Weijie Ru called himself both “Ray” and “Tim”.
Judge Bonnar found the younger brother guilty of two counts each of knowingly importing prohibited goods and defrauding Customs Revenue.
“I was satisfied that import three formed part of what appeared to be a pattern of four importations in total,” he said.
“I accepted the Crown’s submission that Mr Ru’s evidence as to his dealings with Tim simply did not make sense and were not credible.”
Weijie Ru’s older brother was sentenced to 200 hours of community work this week after both sides agreed a non-custodial sentence was appropriate.
Crown prosecutor Kasey Nihill had different thoughts for the main defendant, estimating that through the imports, Weijie Ru had successfully evaded over $4 million in Customs taxes.
She sought a starting point of three years and eight months’ imprisonment.
Any discount for prior good character should be tempered by the fact it was repeated offending, she said, pointing out that he was already a successful businessman. The crimes don’t appear to have been motivated by financial desperation, she explained.
Defence lawyer Mark Ryan sought a three-year starting point with reductions substantial enough to bring the sentence down to less than two years – the point at which a judge can consider a non-custodial alternative to prison.
The largest and most contentious reduction he argued for was 20% for hardship to Weijie Ru’s three children in light of his wife having allegedly abandoned the family and moved to China due to the shame caused by the case.
“She’s ceased contact with me and I don’t know if she’s going to show up in my life or my children’s lives again,” the defendant said in an affidavit to the court.
Weijie Ru said his mother couldn’t care for the children and neither would his brother, as Jiehong Ru is also awaiting sentencing for a methamphetamine trafficking-related charge that is likely to result in imprisonment.
But Judge Bonnar said he found the whole thing suspicious, especially given the timing. The defendant’s wife was loyal enough to give evidence – characterised by the judge as dubious – for her husband at trial.
It would be odd that her attitude would change so drastically, and only after it was made clear the Crown would seek a prison term, the judge said.
“I note that until very recently there was no information placed before me that your wife was planning to return to China without the children,” the judge said, adding that he was left with “a significant degree of scepticism”.
Judge Bonnar adopted the Crown starting point before allowing discounts of 10% for previous good character and 5% for his background. A report submitted to the court had suggested cigarettes were significant in Chinese culture, which had a nexus with the offending, but the judge said he didn’t see the connection.
The judge allowed a further 10% reduction for hardship to the defendant’s children, half of what the defence had sought.
The result – two years and nine months’ imprisonment – left home detention out of range.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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