Legal high Kronic King Matthew Wielenga pleads guilty to importing synthetic cannabis to United States

Matthew Wielenga was such a big part of the legal high world that he was called King Kronic. The product he sold was banned in New Zealand and then elsewhere around the world - including in the United States, where he was arrested for importing the substance. He had planned to defend the charge but has now pleaded guilty in a deal with authorities. David Fisher reports on that plea bargain.

The so-called “Kronic King” who made a fortune out of legal highs has cut a plea deal with United States authorities, admitting to illegally importing synthetic cannabis to be used in a new vape product.

The deal has seen Matthew Biuwe Wielenga also promising to pay the $7.7 million earned from the drug deal to the US authorities when he appears to be sentenced in March.

Wielenga was one of the most high-profile entrepreneurs to emerge from the legal high years in which substances mimicking illegal drugs were widely available in New Zealand.

Public concern over the health effects of the substances - particularly synthetic cannabis products - led to the government making the substances illegal in 2014.

Wielenga has been sitting in prison in San Diego since his arrest in 2022 and had previously signalled an intention to defend the charges.

That planned defence has been waived with the plea bargain struck between Wielenga and the prosecution.

A plea deal is an arrangement made in the United States between a person accused of a crime and the authorities carrying out the prosecution. The deal occurs when the accused agrees to plead guilty to an agreed level in return for concessions from the prosecution.

In Wielenga’s case, he was originally charged with conspiracy to import a “schedule 1″ controlled substance - the United States category for drugs with no accepted medical use that includes heroin, LSD and marijuana - and conspiracy to launder money.

The plea deal document - available as part of the US court record - showed the money laundering charge had been dropped.

However, the allegation of a conspiracy to import a controlled substance remained - and the document made clear that Wielenga’s deal included his concession that there was a factual basis for pleading guilty.

The court documents offer known pseudonyms for Wielenga, saying he was also known as “King Kronic” and “Mr Kronic”.

Matthew Wielenga has pleaded guilty to importing a banned synthetic cannabis product into the United States.

The plea deal said Wielenga had planned to import the synthetic cannabinoid 5f-cumyl-pinaca to an individual in southern California. That person was identified in other court papers as Joseph A Girouard, who is still facing trial.

The court documents state the date of offending began in April 2019 - the date the US Drug Enforcement Agency put in place a ban on the synthetic cannabis substance as an “imminent hazard to the public safety”.

The case then detailed six occasions from 2019 to 2021 on which Wielenga sent about 177kg of synthetic cannabis product to the United States. It also said the Wielenga had planned the delivery of another 170kg of synthetic cannabis.

The court documents do not state where the synthetic cannabis was sent from.

According to the plea deal, the synthetic cannabis product was to have been manufactured in such a way as to be used in vapes and was stored with other chemicals that would have allowed that to happen.

Wielenga also agreed as part of the plea deal that the “agreement and conspiracy included money laundering in excess” of $7.7m “which were in fact proceeds of the conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances”.

Opposition to legal highs led to protests such as this in Whangārei.

The charge to which Wielenga pleaded guilty carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1m fine. The court document said it was “practically inevitable and a virtual certainty” Wielenga would be deported from the United States and potentially banned from entering the country again.

The plea document set out guidelines for sentencing which covered a range of 12-16 years in prison with possible discounts for a guilty plea and other factors. It also stated that the sentencing judge was not bound by the guidelines.

Wielenga was one of the biggest names in New Zealand’s legal high industry which went from boom to bust over a decade, with community safety concerns over the products leading to the 2014 ban.

At one stage, there were around 3000 outlets across the country selling various legal highs from synthetic cannabis to BZP pills which had an amphetamine-style effect. The ban came after users reported increasingly adverse effects from using the products, particularly those marketed as synthetic cannabis.

For a period of 18 months, there was even an Ecstasy analogue for sale with one of the industry’s leading lights selling the “Ease” pill across a bar on Karangahape Road in Auckland.

As Mr Kronic, Wielenga’s Lightyears Ahead was reported to be turning over $700,000 a month selling the controversial product.

Wielenga’s company marketed pre-rolled Kronic joints which was believed to have led to the product’s huge rise in popularity and the subsequent clampdown.

Kronic sold its product as pre-rolled joints leading to a surge in its popularity.

The exact size of Wielenga’s fortune is not known but public records show trusts and companies with which he is associated own eight properties worth around $40m on public valuations. The property portfolio included a North Shore beach house valued around $18m. Wielenga’s wealth also seeded the successful start up Zenith Tecnica, a titanium 3D printing company. He resigned as managing director after his arrest but maintains his shareholding.

The substance over which Wielenga had pleaded guilty - 5f-cumyl-pinaca - was the brainchild of another leading light in the legal high industry, Matt Bowden, who had registered a patent over the substance.

That patent lapsed during a lengthy period in which Bowden lived in Thailand. While Bowden and Wielenga had previously been in business together, he had no connection to the current case.

The same substance was being sold in the United Kingdom in 2018 as “Kronic Juice”. It was made illegal there and banned from sale.

Then in 2019 - just ahead of the United States ban - a European Commission-sponsored scientific inquiry was carried out into the emergence of vaping products containing the specific synthetic cannabinoid Bowden developed and Wielenga admitted importing.

That study said: “The increasing popularity of e-liquids particularly among young people and the high potency of the synthetic cannabinoids added pose a serious threat to the health of consumers.

“There is a high risk of unintended poisoning, and in the long term the prevalence of these drugs might rise in the younger population as a consequence of the introduction of trendy products.”

David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.