Operation Cincinnati was a months-long investigation into the distribution of illegal drugs by the Comancheros in Auckland and the Rebels gang in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied
Operation Cincinnati was a months-long investigation into the distribution of illegal drugs by the Comancheros in Auckland and the Rebels gang in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied
An Australian national linked to a Comancheros’ meth operation remains at risk of being booted out of the country, leaving her daughter with the potential to be permanently separated from her 501 deported father.
Elizabeth Maria Bolea challenged her conviction and sentence in the Court of Appeal, arguing the href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/operation-cincinnati-australian-citizen-elizabeth-bolea-sentenced-for-helping-comancheros-meth-scheme/BQWX7RRFLZH2NMHPKE4BR26X2Q/" target="_blank">High Court was wrong to decline her application for a discharge without conviction.
But the senior court rejected the appeal, meaning the young mother continues to face the potential of being deported.
If exiled from New Zealand, she would be permanently separated from her partner and co-offender, Rhakim Eneliko Mataia.
Their preschool-aged daughter would relocate with Bolea and would no longer have face-to-face contact with Mataia, who has been banished from Australia under its 501 policy.
“The ability of the family to meet in another country would be problematic given the parents’ convictions,” the Court of Appeal’s decision, released last week, stated.
Bolea was arrested alongside many others in 2020 at the end of Operation Cincinnati, a months-long police investigation into the distribution of meth and ecstasy by the Comancheros in Auckland and the Rebels gang in Christchurch.
In July last year, she admitted a charge of participating in an organised criminal group.
Police made multiple arrests and seized drugs and cash as part of Operation Cincinnati in late 2020. Photo / Supplied
Bolea was later refused a discharge without conviction, when the High Court in November instead imposed a sentence of four months’ home detention.
Andrew Bailey, lawyer for Bolea, told the appeal that when considering the application, sentencing judge Justice Neil Campbell should have assessed the gravity of her offending as low, rather than moderate to low.
Bailey argued the judge placed excessive weight on the fact the offending occurred in the context of a drug dealing operation involving a large quantity of meth, without taking sufficient account of her limited role.
Under the direction of Mataia, who was a prospect of the Comancheros Motorcycle Club at the time of the August 2020 offending, Bolea had hired a rental car from Auckland airport.
She and Mataia then collected another co-offender, Diamond Shaquille Katoa, and drove to Christchurch. While Bolea knew there was methamphetamine in the car and that it was for the purpose of supply, she was not aware of the exact quantity.
A covert police search of the vehicle found two plastic containers in the boot with at least 500gm of the class A drug.
When the trio arrived in Christchurch, Bolea, then aged 22, went to Mataia’s family home while he and Katoa went to the Rebels’ gang pad to deliver the meth.
The primary ground of Bolea’s appeal was that Justice Campbell erred in law by finding that deportation, if it were to occur, was a consequence of her offending rather than her conviction.
Bailey argued the finding “stymied” the application for a discharge and was the result of applying the wrong statutory test.
He submitted that in Bolea’s case, only a conviction could trigger a deportation liability notice.
In finding Justice Campbell was right to decline Bolea’s application, the Court of Appeal was not persuaded her’s was a case where the “mere existence” of the risk of deportation is in itself a sufficiently disproportionate consequence, given the gravity of the offending.
“Nor is this a case where there is any reason to believe the [immigration] authorities would not look beyond the fact of the conviction and ignore the circumstances of the offending including mitigating features of that offending and Ms Bolea’s personal circumstances and the interests of her daughter.”
The court also agreed with Justice Campbell’s finding that the gravity of her offending was moderate to low.
In regards to Mataia and Katoa, authorities had found they participated in three drug runs to Christchurch in which commercial quantities of meth were delivered to the Rebels motorcycle gang.
Mataia pleaded guilty to possession of meth for supply, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition and was jailed for five years and three months. Katoa admitted three counts of possession of meth for supply and was sentenced to four years and nine months’ prison.
