A patched member of the New Zealand Hells Angels and a convicted meth cook were arrested during a DEA sting in Romania.
A patched member of the New Zealand Hells Angels and a convicted meth cook were arrested during a DEA sting in Romania.
A double murderer fooled by an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent was allegedly conspiring with the Hells Angels to smuggle 400kg of cocaine into New Zealand. He later committed suicide in his prison cell.
Wen Hui Cui, 40, was sentenced to serve at least 19 years in prison after stabbing his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends to death on Auckland’s North Shore in 2003.
The Chinese national was found in a pool of blood at Auckland South Corrections Facility in June 2021, where he was a low-security inmate, and died at Middlemore Hospital soon after.
The death was confirmed as a suicide by Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon, who said Cui had been experiencing insomnia and anxiety for several months prior in her ruling released this morning.
Cui was an inmate in a residential unit at the private prison, run by Serco, and was scheduled to appear before the Parole Board for the first time in 2022.
During the course of his long imprisonment, Cui had minimal engagement with health staff, but in the months leading up to his death had persistently asked for sleeping pills.
Police investigating his death found Cui’s journals, in which he discussed his past, his fears, his feelings, and how he wished to live with his family upon being released from prison.
There was no discussion in the journals of suicidal ideation.
Fitzgibbon said she considered Cui’s contact with health staff between April and May 2021, and was satisfied no further recommendations were necessary to prevent further deaths in similar circumstances.
“Although Wen Hui raised issues about anxiety and sleeping, there was never any disclosure of suicidal thoughts from Wen Hui, or behaviour which suggested he was mentally unwell,” Fitzgibbon wrote.
“Of significance; on May 26, 2021, he told a nurse he was feeling better and no longer needed any mental health support…Wen Hui denied thoughts of self-harm and said he knew how to contact mental health [services] if needed.
“After this date, there is no further record of Wen Hui seeking help or behaving in a way that would suggest he was unwell.”
Wen Hui Cui, pictured in 2003 after murdering his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends in Auckland. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey
However, there was no mention in the evidence before the coroner of Cui’s role in an undercover DEA sting shortly before his death, which could have led to his extradition to the United States to face drug charges with three other New Zealand criminals.
Aucklander Miles John McKelvy, a convicted fraudster and drug importer, was arrested in Auckland in November 2020 for his alleged role in the drug conspiracy.
US authorities want McKelvy to stand trial in Texas alongside two other New Zealanders, Murray Michael Matthews and Marc Patrick Johnson, who were arrested by Romanian police along with the president of the Bucharest chapter of the Hells Angels.
The trio were caught in a sting operation in dramatic footage captured on a drone-mounted thermal image camera, in a raid orchestrated by the DEA in the United States.
Matthews is a patched member of the Auckland chapter of the Hells Angels, while Johnson is a trained chemist with a long history in the drug world as one of the first meth cooks in the country.
Both men are now fugitives after being released on bail by the Romanian courts, the Herald revealed last year.
While their whereabouts is unknown, their alleged co-conspirator McKelvy continues to fight the extradition order granted in the Auckland District Court last year.
The ruling of Judge Peter Winter to send McKelvy to the United States contains new details of the extraordinary DEA operation, including how Wen Hui Cui set the whole chain of events in motion.
Using a smartphone smuggled into prison, Cui started communicating in May 2020 with someone he believed to be a large-scale drug trafficker based in the United States.
The pair contacted each other through Wickr, an encrypted app favoured by the criminal fraternity because law enforcement cannot intercept the communications.
However, the purported drug supplier was in fact an undercover DEA agent.
Cui told the undercover agent he was interested in purchasing a large quantity of cocaine for shipment to New Zealand to supply the Hells Angels motorcycle club.
The double murderer then introduced his business partner, Murray Matthews, and the trio continued to negotiate by Wickr.
As a result of those discussions, $50,000 was transferred into a US bank account - controlled by the DEA - as a deposit for the purported 400kg of cocaine.
Matthews travelled to Bucharest in July 2020 to meet the DEA agent, where they were joined by Marc Johnson. He was introduced as the financier of the planned transaction, and the plans for the drug shipment were made.
The drugs were supposed to be shipped from Peru to Texas, where the cocaine would be repackaged, concealed inside machinery and freighted to Romania, then New Zealand.
Three more payments totalling more than $1 million were deposited into the secret DEA bank account.
Then on September 16, 2020, Matthews gave the undercover agent the contact details of someone who would allegedly receive the cocaine shipment on behalf of the Hells Angels.
This “broker” was Miles McKelvy, who allegedly communicated with the undercover agent about delivering the cocaine shipment to New Zealand.
As part of the DEA sting, the undercover agent told Cui the bank funds deposited as payment for the cocaine shipment had been frozen and another meeting in Romania was necessary.
Soon after the meeting, Murray Matthews and Marc Johnson were locked up in Romania in November 2020, and McKelvy was arrested in Auckland for extradition.
The 65-year-old has been charged in the United States with conspiracy to manufacture, import and export cocaine.
Late last year, Justice Christine Gordon rejected McKelvy’s appeal in the High Court and the case is now destined for the Court of Appeal.
Whether he is ultimately likely to be guilty of the US charge does not determine the extradition claims.
Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.
