Comancheros trial: Jury retires, deliberation can begin

Pasilika Naufahu, Comanchero MC president, pictured during the first day of his trial. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A jury will decide the fate of the president of the New Zealand chapter of the Comancheros.

Gang leader Pasilika Naufahu is accused of two charges of money laundering - one in respect of a Ford Ranger and the other in respect of a $102,075 Bentley.

He is also accused, along with Connor Clausen, of conspiring to supply the Class B drug pseudoephedrine in September 2018.

The men were arrested after a covert police investigation known as Operation Nova which included bugged cars, intercepted calls and CCTV footage from places like airports and banks.

Also on trial is a woman - who has name suppression - accused of money laundering in July and August 2018.

This afternoon Justice Graham Lang directed the jury on how to approach their deliberations.

"You are now the sole judges of the facts," he said, warning them to set aside any prejudice.

The allegations included gang involvement, drugs, and luxury vehicles - for which it could be easy to draw an adverse inference, he said.

Late-model Range Rovers were among the assets seized in Operation Nova. Photo / Supplied

People can be influenced by "internal prejudices" built up over years, apathy to people using drugs or profiting off it, he said.

But those sentiments play no part in reasoning, he said.

The High Court judge summarised the opposing arguments in respect of every charge, including the two money laundering charges levelled against Naufahu.

Justice Lang said the Crown case was that money moved for the luxury cars could not be explained by employment.

While the defence case, led by Ron Mansfield, said Naufahu had numerous sources of income and the Crown had not proven where the money came from.

Further the Crown says when an alleged drug smuggler arrived in New Zealand the "very first thing" he did was to go meet the gang boss at a Howick cafe, Justice Lang said.

Later they met again at a reserve, which the Crown says is "sufficiently important" as it was a place they could not be overhead, he said.

The Crown alleges Clausen was supposed to deliver money, inspect the pseudoephedrine and take it to back to the Comancheros president for this deal.

Clausen was caught on film meeting an alleged drug smuggler and He Sha.

The Crown say: "This was not a meeting by chance. This was a meeting by design," Justice Lang said.

This is where for the Crown the Comanchero connection was important, and not surprising, that someone lower down in the organisation would be nominated to uplift drugs, he Lang said.

Connor Clausen pictured during the first day of the Operation Nova trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs

While the defence painted it as some "grand pipedream" on the part of the alleged drug smuggler, maintaining that Clausen did not know what was going on, Justice Lang said.

The defence say in that for the two minutes and 19 seconds that Clausen was on film he was in a state of confusion about what is happening, he said.

Justice Lang said the jury were at the "most critical stage of the trial" now and further cautioned them not to discuss the case with others before they returned tomorrow for deliberation.