Musabayoufu Fuati has agreed to a settlement forfeiting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Photo / NZ Police
A professional money launderer whose criminal enterprise generated more than $120 million for customers must forfeit half a million to the Crown.
Musabayoufu Fuati and his co-offender, Daniel Hu, both served sentences of home detention for their crimes, which included laundering money for drug dealers, smugglers and fraudsters.
The pair used false identities and a network of disposable “money mules” to make $123 million in cash deposits over three years for their foreign exchange and money transfer businesses, which operated from an office on Auckland’s Queen St.
Now a judge has ordered that Fuati will permanently lose roughly $600,000, which police said were proceeds of his offending.
He and Hu were arrested in 2020, and the Commissioner of Police filed applications to restrain property and funds under legislation governing proceeds of crime.
The courts restrained multiple properties, proceeds of sales from luxury cars, about $140,000 in bank funds and $64,000 in cash.
The total estimated value of the seized property and money is $1,168,606.77.
In 2024, the Commissioner applied to the Court for forfeiture of the amount to the Crown, stating that Fuati had used funds from his business to purchase the assets.
The parties were due to attend a four-week hearing in September this year, but have instead agreed to a settlement, which has been put before Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith in the High Court at Auckland.
The legislationallows the Commissioner to enter into a settlement with any person regarding the forfeiture of any property or sum of money to the Crown, but such a settlement does not bind the parties unless approved by the court.
Neither Hu nor Fuati was listed as a director or shareholder in any of the entities known as the Wanda Group, which maintained a facade of compliance with New Zealand’s anti-money laundering legislation.
The settlement provides that half of the value of the seized property shall be forfeited, and the other half shall go to his partner, Tayier Suliya.
“The Commissioner does not allege that Ms Suliya had knowledge of Mr Fuati’s significant criminal activity,” the judge said.
The settlement assumes the restrained property is relationship property. While the Commissioner considered some of the cars, including a Bentley and a BMW, and the cash, to be connected to Fuati and Hu’s business and therefore might not be relationship property, he acknowledged the point was arguable.
“He further considers it appropriate to forgo a much larger profit forfeiture order in these circumstances.”
The judge approved the settlement, ordering forfeiture of 50% of the restrained property. The order includes a note that a further forfeiture order will be sought for the sale proceeds on the restrained real estate properties, which are to be sold.
Operation Martinez was one of the first investigations of its kind in New Zealand as part of a strategic shift by police to focus on professional money launderers.
An audit in 2012 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body that assesses the anti-money laundering performance of member countries, noted that New Zealand had a low rate of prosecutions for money laundering.
Police conducted a covert operation in 2020 to expose the pair, who had been using multiple aliases and low-paid proxies to evade detection by financial authorities.
Typically, it was Hu’s job to take cash from clients and arrange for funds to be transferred to offshore bank accounts nominated by the client.
Surveillance during what police dubbed Operation Martinez showed Hu meeting furtively with criminals, often in carparks, where he was handed large sums of cash.
Fuati was then responsible for arranging for the unexplained cash to be deposited into the legitimate banking system, without raising suspicion.
Between January 2018 and November 2020, a network of a dozen “third-party depositors” — often young or vulnerable individuals hired as money mules — deposited a total of $123,455,400 in cash into about 400 bank accounts.
They would be paid $100 for every $100,000 deposited. Customers were also charged a commission of 10% to 20% on funds sent overseas.
In March 2023, Fuati pleaded guilty to structuring a transaction — an offence under New Zealand’s anti-money laundering laws. He was placed on home detention for two months and 14 days.
Hu — also known as Jun Jin — pleaded guilty to the same offence. However, he also admitted to four counts of money laundering. He was sentenced to nine months’ home detention.