A wealthy South Auckland businessman linked to a massive, deadly methamphetamine shipment partially disguised as Canadian “Honey Bear” beer can finally be named in New Zealand, despite his identity having been common knowledge overseas for years.
Baltej Singh, 33, has been serving a 22-year sentence since February last year, after pleading guilty to multiple drug trafficking charges, including the importation of more than 700 kilograms of meth disguised as beer, coconut water and kombucha.
It was the largest known importation of meth into New Zealand at the time.
Singh’s co-defendant, Himatjit Kahlon, is serving a 21-year sentence for manslaughter. A jury found him guilty in 2024 of causing the death of Aiden Sagala, 21, who overdosed in March 2023 when he drank from a “Honey Bear” can that he mistakenly thought contained beer.
The reason why Singh’s arrest made headlines overseas is because of his family’s background. His uncle, Satwant Singh, helped in 1984 to assassinate Indira Gandhi, India’s then-prime minister, and was executed for it five years later.
Multiple overseas publications, including the Times of India – the world’s highest-circulation English-language daily in the world, with millions of readers – reported Baltej Singh’s name in relation to the drug arrest in 2023.
While New Zealand judges have the ability to restrict local reports on court cases, suppression is not enforceable in other countries. In the age of the internet, a Google search is likely to undermine any suppression orders if a defendant’s name has already been widely reported overseas.
That was among the arguments made by the Herald, Stuff and Crown prosecutors in December 2024, when Baltej Singh made an application for permanent name suppression after his guilty pleas.
Justice Kiri Tahana, in the High Court at Auckland, was not persuaded.
She barred reporting of his name in New Zealand after taking into consideration affidavits from the defendant’s family describing how they had long suffered threats due to the 1984 killing.
The defendant’s father recounted an unsolved drive-by shooting in 2005 in which he suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to the collarbone. The family believed it to be an act of retribution. The judge was also handed a list of high-profile killings across the globe in recent years in which Sikh activists were targeted.
“The history of threats faced by Mr Singh’s father and the international developments which have resulted in the assassination of Sikh activists indicate that these risks are not hollow and indicate a real danger to the safety of Mr Singh’s family,” the judge noted in her decision, which was also suppressed until recently.
Because of the restrictions placed on the media, the Herald has until now referred to Baltej Singh only as “a well-known businessman” who had garnered respect from some aspects of society “for an unusual reason”.
That respect was part of co-defendant Kahlon’s argument to the jury. Although Baltej Singh is 10 years younger, his stature in the community prompted Kahlon to place “blind trust” in him when he served as an unwitting “lackey” for the drug import operation, his lawyers had argued.
During a Court of Appeal hearing in October, the Crown argued that the very high threshold for permanent name suppression had not been met because those who might undertake vigilante activities already knew of Baltej Singh and his family’s connection to the events of 1984.
This time, the three-judge panel agreed with the Crown.
Justice Tahana “overstated the risk” that New Zealand-based publication of his name would cause Baltej Singh’s family and didn’t give enough weight to “the very serious nature of the offending and the requirement for open justice in relation to such serious drug offending”, the Court of Appeal agreed.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, had argued that Baltej Singh’s family had “enjoyed a period of relative quiet” in the years before the drug schemes came to light, but the atmosphere changed and the family received death threats on social media after his name was reported overseas.
However, none of the social media threats from people who already knew Baltej Singh’s identity had resulted in real-world violence, the Court of Appeal noted.
“There is a possible link between publication of [his] name and the possibility of increased threats to his family, but that falls well short of establishing that their safety is likely to be endangered,” the decision reads, noting a “significant difference between people anonymously posting threats on the internet and persons actually taking action”.
Any risk of violence that might exist is independent of his name being published, the appellate panel found.
“Bearing in mind the serious nature of the charges, the quantity of drugs imported into New Zealand and the convictions entered against [him], there is an appreciable public interest in being able to understand the circumstances and issues involved in the determination of the charges, including [his] identity and role in the offending.
“That public interest and the principles of open justice are not outweighed by the very low risk (if any) of harm to [his] family given the underlying reason for any threats or harm that may exist.”
The Court of Appeal decision was issued in late November, but Baltej Singh’s identity remained secret in the interim after he said he might want to take the fight to the Supreme Court. He has since indicated he will not appeal the matter further.
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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