In 2005, young Australian banker Sean Clifford made headlines at home and overseas for a bizarre mistake in judgment in which he reportedly found A$263,000 cash in an alleyway and stowed it under his work desk rather than informing police.
When the stash was found by a co-worker, the optics were bad and his job at Macquarie Bank didn’t last much longer. He ended up with a larceny conviction and his photo in the Sydney Morning-Herald.
But it would be almost two more decades before he hit rock bottom, it was suggested to an Auckland District Court judge recently as Clifford’s intended days-long visit to New Zealand turned into months of rehab followed by a lengthy prison stretch.
A self-described methamphetamine addict, Clifford said he was sent to New Zealand under the direction of an unidentified man – known only to New Zealand authorities by the handle “Siberia” – to pay off a drug debt that had earlier led to Clifford being violently assaulted in Tasmania.
But his career as a drug cartel lackey would be short-lived.
He and co-defendant Jamaica Faletoilalo, a New Zealander who also lived in Australia, were caught red-handed three days after their arrival when police found them clad in black near a South Auckland storage yard where they had been removing bricks of cocaine secreted inside a refrigerated container that had been shipped from Brazil.
Faletoilalo, appearing at the recent hearing via an audio-video feed, was also sentenced to prison.
Court documents show Clifford, 43, and Faletoilalo, 34, arrived in Auckland on the afternoon of May 29 last year via a flight from Melbourne and immediately began preparing for the shipping container heist.
They went to numerous stores, purchasing power tools, bolt cutters, black clothes, duffel bags, gloves, a ladder and two e-scooters.
“They also carried out significant counter-surveillance measures and efforts to avoid law enforcement detection,” court documents state. “This included changing accommodation between an Airbnb address and two different hotels, the use of at least five phones and eight SIM cards and using two separate rental vehicles.”
The pair left their first accommodation just after midnight the next day and spent the next several hours until sunrise scoping out the area near the Port of Onehunga where the container yard was located.
The duo broke into the container yard for the first time in the early morning hours of May 31, after receiving instructions from Siberia, and retrieved 18 bricks of cocaine weighing 1kg each from behind one of the inspection panels of a container’s refrigeration unit.
But they had accidentally left 17 bricks behind in the cavity of the other inspection panel, they were told by Siberia. They decided to return the next night.
“Anyway, we won half the battle,” wrote Clifford, who went by the handle “Make1train”. “We try tomorrow for round 2.”
He added a few minutes later of the bricks they had retrieved: “Please have these sold and us paid.”
Police and Customs officials don’t know to whom the cocaine was sold, but messages later retrieved from the duo’s phones confirmed an exchange took place just hours later.
The following night and early morning, the duo broke into the container yard at least three more times, parking their rental vehicle near the Manukau Foreshore Walkway and riding their e-scooters the rest of the way.
But they were stymied. The container had been moved from the night before and was now stacked on top of two others.
They returned around 5.30pm on June 1 with a ladder and found the container thanks to a GPS tracker inside the shipment that was being monitored from abroad by Siberia.
“For the next few hours, the defendants attempted to make entry to the refrigeration section of the container,” the agreed summary of facts for the case states. “Mr Faletoilalo held the ladder while Mr Clifford scaled the container and began drilling open the hatch on the end of the container.”
Police found them around 9.30pm as they were scootering back to the rental vehicle. Clifford tried to run but didn’t get far. The 17 bricks were found in the vehicle and on a grass verge next to the car.
In a press release after the bust, Customs officials noted the bricks the pair were caught with would have been worth about $7.65 million on the street. At the men’s side-by-side sentencings late last month, Judge Kirsten Lummis estimated both hauls combined to be worth about $10m.
During the pair’s sentencing, the courtroom gallery was filled with supporters for Clifford – including family who had flown from Australia for the hearing and new friends he had made in rehabilitation.
Clifford stood in the dock while Faletoilalo, already in custody, appeared on a television screen via audio-video feed.
Defence lawyer Paul Wicks, KC, noted that, despite the looming prison sentence, Clifford’s future was looking brighter than it had in quite some time. While on electronically monitored bail, his client had completed his first rehabilitation programme “in his long history of drug use and addiction”, the lawyer said.
Clifford had indicated he wants to obtain a diploma that would allow him to work in the future as an addiction counsellor. The optimism was echoed by his mother, who acknowledged her son, up until recently, had “muddled through life”.
“The growth I have seen in Sean during his time on bail is remarkable,” she said. “I attribute [it] to the wonderful New Zealand rehabilitation programmes he was allowed to access.”
Wicks described his client as “genuinely and wholly remorseful” for participating in the scheme – a sentiment that was echoed by lawyer Mikaela Ryan, representing Faletoilalo.
She described Faletoilalo’s involvement in the scheme as “an expression of desperation” caused by addiction and financial deprivation. The father of three young children was a support worker in Melbourne for disabled people, Ryan said, adding that he felt pressure to send money overseas to family even when he had none.
Faletoilalo immediately admitted his involvement in a recorded police interview but said he had no idea how much cocaine was involved in the scheme.
“He stated he was getting paid $20,000 to assist Mr Clifford, who he had met at the airport a few months ago,” the agreed summary of facts state. “He said that Mr Clifford provided him with instructions and he just followed them.”
Prosecutor Pip McNabb was sceptical of the pair’s proclaimed naivety about the scale of the smuggling operation, and Judge Lummis agreed.
McNabb also pointed out that the location of Clifford’s story about getting attacked over a drug debt has changed over time. It was not to be believed, she argued.
She noted that Siberia was referred to as “brother” and their conversations appeared to be jocular – not the sort of terse, stilted communications one might expect if participating under duress.
Both men faced sentences of up to life imprisonment. Judge Lummis settled on a starting point of 15 and a half years for both.
She noted Clifford had a lengthy history in Australia of dishonesty and drug offending that included a drug trafficking conviction in 2013.
The judge did not specifically refer to his 2005 larceny by finding conviction, which appeared to be one of his earliest charges.
Clifford’s lawyer at the time said he “did not appreciate the gravity of the situation” because of his then-inexperience with the justice system, according to media reports.
The bank settlements officer received an 18-month good-behaviour bond, and in the meantime lost his job, was denied his A$7000 annual bonus and was instead working at a Melbourne salad bar. It paid less than A$17,000 a year, the Sydney Morning-Herald said.
Nobody ever claimed the money, suggesting it was probably the proceeds of a crime, authorities had said.
“It’s probably understandable why someone confronted with the situation of finding a bag full of money must have thought all their Christmases had come at once,” magistrate Geoffrey Bradd said.
Ironically, he added, Clifford probably would have been allowed to keep the unclaimed money had he done the right thing and notified police.
For the New Zealand case, Judge Lummis ordered an end sentence of eight and a half years, taking into account a minor uplift for Clifford’s Australia offending and reductions for other factors such as his rehabilitation efforts and traumatic background.
Faletoilalo was ordered to serve eight years and two months’ imprisonment. It marked his first time “in serious trouble before the courts” of either country, the judge noted.
The Crown also asked for a minimum term of imprisonment as a way of discouraging people from flying to New Zealand to commit crimes.
“There needs to be a deterrence,” McNabb said.
The judge agreed such a message was needed but decided against the measure. Their prison terms should already send a strong message, she said.
New Zealand law already requires prisoners to serve at least one-third of their sentence before they can begin to apply for parole.
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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Gang associate kicked out of Australia for arson became truck driver for 613kg drug bust.