International smuggling syndicate: Yangzi Li sentenced for trafficking meth, MDMA and 8000 illegal cigarettes

Co-defendants Yangzi Li and Han Zhang have both been sentenced for trying to smuggle large amounts of methamphetamine, MDMA and black-market cigarettes into New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

An Auckland man who was caught trying to smuggle over $770,000 worth of methamphetamine and ecstasy into New Zealand has been sentenced to seven years and three months’ prison.

Yangzi Li pleaded guilty to numerous serious drug-related charges in February, including the importation of methamphetamine and ecstasy and possession of cannabis and cocaine for supply.

He stood before Justice Anne Hinton in the High Court at Auckland last week as his lawyer handed the judge a letter of remorse prior to his sentence being determined.

Authorities outlined in court documents how Li and co-defendant Han Zhang, a businessman dubbed the “little prince of counterfeit cigarettes”, first caught their attention in 2018 after Customs intercepted multiple packages with undeclared tobacco imported by Zhang using false consignee names and addresses.

A year later, Customs would intercept packages meant for Li containing 8320 tobacco cigarettes worth nearly $9700 in unpaid duty, and as the investigation continued into 2020 they intercepted packages that contained over 7kg of MDMA and just under 1.5kg of methamphetamine.

The MDMA had a street value of about $477,000 while the methamphetamine was worth roughly $294,000, authorities said in an agreed summary of facts.

Police were able to examine Li’s phone after executing a search warrant at his Flat Bush home in July 2020.

“Mr Li’s personal mobile phone featured messaging applications with end-to-end encryption and auto-deletion,” police noted in court documents. “Forensic analysis of that phone however showed that Mr Li was in regular contact with overseas suppliers regarding the importation of controlled drugs to New Zealand and their distribution here.

“It also showed that those overseas suppliers knew of Mr Zhang and the tasks that Mr Li had him complete. Mr Li similarly shared screenshots of his messaging history with those overseas suppliers with Mr Zhang.”

Defence lawyer Steven Lack acknowledged on Friday that his client’s offending was financially motivated. But Li was also clearly a user of methamphetamine, and that addiction resulted in the associations that led to his offending, Lack said.

Li, he added, had engaged in “quite a significant level” of attempts at rehabilitation since his incarceration.

“You clearly had operational knowledge,” Justice Hinton said of the drug importation scheme. “There’s no evidence of you being coerced.”

The sentencing came less than a year after Li was ordered to serve a separate sentence of one year and eight months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty in Auckland District Court to unrelated charges of possession of cocaine and MDMA for supply.

Zhang, his co-defendant in the High Court case, was sentenced in December 2021 to 11 years’ imprisonment after authorities said he was responsible for smuggling roughly $5.5 million worth of drugs into New Zealand as well as hundreds of thousands of illegally imported cigarettes.

The black market cigarettes were likely intended to be sold in bulk over social media, Customs officials said at the time of Zhang’s arrest.