Immigration scam ringleader Kolini Tatafu was sentenced to home detention at the age of 61 after she blamed a gambling addiction for swindling dozens of Tongan overstayers with false hope of sorting their visas.
Now a decade on, she has again blamed the lure of Auckland’s SkyCity Casino for executing what prosecutors have described as a “carbon copy” scam from her old playbook.
This time, judges have shown considerably less patience for the unproven claim. The 71-year-old has been sent to prison despite a major health scare.
Twenty-six victims, mostly of meagre means and all connected through a church in Māngere, have lost about $63,000 in the latest round of offending.
Among Tatafu’s myriad tactics for parting people with their money was to claim she could cut through immigration red tape because she was dating and had influence over a High Court judge.
“Plainly, this was false, and she knew it to be false,” Judge Luke Radich said at Tatafu’s Manukau District Court sentencing in January.
“As a result of these representations, various people who were desperate to obtain citizenship and/or permanent residence paid sums of money which, of course, were not applied to any purpose associated with the promises she had made.”
Tatafu, also known as Kolini Vaka, can now finally be identified seven months after her sentence and two months after her failed appeal to the High Court at Auckland.
Name suppression lapsed last week when she declined to appeal a belated district court decision rejecting her bid for permanent suppression.
“The victims in this case were almost universally vulnerable and clearly of very limited means,” Judge Radich noted at the January hearing, acknowledging that it would “be a body blow to a number of the victims” that he wouldn’t be ordering restitution because the defendant claimed to be broke.
“One of the most striking factors about this case is Ms Tatafu’s abject lack of remorse. She has not, as far as I have seen, even said sorry.”
But immigration scams weren’t Tatafu’s only source of income during the latest offending, which stretched over four years before her 2023 arrest.
Judge Radich outlined in detail “the various schemes” that she came up with to “exploit” members of the small home-based church - including promises that if people paid her money she would be able to get them fast-tracked into a government home ownership programme.
“Obviously, again, that was false, and known by her to be false,” the judge said.
“Many people trusted her and paid her money. That trust was breached entirely.”
Others were promised access to grant money from a government small business fund - for a fee. There was no fund.
“It appears that the money was simply pocketed,” the judge explained.
Yet another scheme used the church itself as bait, convincing parishioners that if they paid a fee they could be appointed a church director and receive a stipend.
“They, of course, never received anything in return,” the judge said.
And others were told that if they paid an “application and processing fee”, they could be sent on a trip to Tonga to help their community while receiving pocket money for expenses. There was no trip.
In determining the sentence, Judge Radich considered Tatafu’s high level of premeditation and planning, as well as the especially egregious breach of trust targeting members of her church.
“One of the victim impact statements states that the defendant told them that if they believed in Christ then they had to trust her,” Judge Radich noted.
“The victims were all vulnerable individuals unfamiliar with processes for acquiring visas, setting up small businesses, buying houses and such. They were sometimes in desperate situations which made them easy targets for Ms Tatafu.”
Defence lawyer Rebecca Keenan argued that blame should be shared with two church elders who helped collect the money.
But it was unclear, the judge noted, if they were co-conspirators, victims themselves or “innocent agents” - a legal term for someone who doesn’t understand they are committing a crime.
Crown prosecutor Aminiasi Kefu, formerly the Attorney General of Tonga before moving to New Zealand, said both of the church leaders had said they also lost money. However, when that couldn’t be independently verified, law enforcement treated them as innocent agents instead of victims.
But regardless of whether Tatafu acted alone or as part of a trio, the summary of facts that she agreed to clearly stated she was the mastermind behind the illegal efforts, the judge noted.
He also recalled that Tatafu’s last sentencing, in 2015, involved the swindling of almost $270,000 from members of Auckland’s Tongan community.
“...It needs to be recognised that she has not learnt from her mistakes,” the judge said.
“Her history and attitudes to her offending demonstrate a significant risk of re-offending.”
He dismissed her similarly carbon-copied contention that a gambling addiction drove the offending.
“I have received no evidence of that, let alone any evidence of rehabilitative steps taken,” he explained.
The judge settled on a starting point of three years and nine months’ prison, suggesting that the figure could have justifiably been higher had the Crown asked for it. He then allowed a 25% reduction for her guilty pleas to three representative charges of causing loss by deception.
A final discount of 10% was allowed for her self-described fragility and potential extra vulnerability in prison as she approaches old age.
The end result was a sentence of two years and seven months’ imprisonment.
At a High Court at Auckland appeal hearing in June, Tatafu’s lawyer argued before Justice Greg Blanchard that the discount for her age-related ailments should be increased.
The lawyer had initially asked for the 10% discount that the district court judge granted, but the situation changed considerably when Tatafu suffered a stroke two weeks after sentencing, she said.
The defendant spent a considerable amount of time in hospital and continued to suffer mobility issues at the time of the appeal hearing, her lawyer said.
In light of the health scare, Justice Blanchard allowed the defence to submit two new pieces of evidence - letters from a doctor and a psychiatrist outlining her medical condition.
The letters, however, did not sway the High Court judge to substitute the district court judge’s 10% age and health discount with one of 25%. That figure, the defence noted, would result in a sentence of two years, the threshold at which a judge can consider substituting prison time with a non-custodial sentence.
Home detention would be the most compassionate choice in light of the changed medical landscape, Keenan argued.
But such a move would be unprecedented, Justice Blanchard replied.
“Ms Keenan acknowledges that she is not aware of a case in which the courts have allowed a discount in the order of 25 per cent for age and health,” he noted.
“But she submits that, nevertheless, a discount of that order is appropriate in this case.
“I do not accept [the] submission.”
He dismissed the appeal.
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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