A 501 deportee who used meth as a painkiller for serious burns suffered in a bungled arson has been sentenced for his part in a record-breaking drug bust in Auckland.
Bradley Te Mai Koha Wijohn was arrested in March 2022 after a covert police investigation discovered a 613kg shipment of methamphetamine smuggled from Malaysia, estimated to be worth $100 million.
The Operation Weirton bust was the largest seizure of meth at the time.
The main target of the investigation was Daniel Hannett, who had a clean criminal record and the appearance of being a legitimate businessman with connections to the freight-forwarding industry.
While Hannett was a patched member of the Mongrel Mob, the enormous drug haul was destined for the Comancheros outlaw motorcycle gang for distribution.
During the course of the investigation, Hannett had been seen meeting with a high-ranking member of the Comancheros.
The following day, the police intercepted conversations in which Hannett told associates that the gang wanted him to “smuggle shit in for them”.
A figure of “200 keys” - or 200kg - of methamphetamine was discussed.
Ongoing surveillance on Hannett led to police discovering that a large shipment of methamphetamine was due to land in New Zealand soon.
The consignment arrived on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur in late February 2022, where it was inspected by Customs officials at Auckland International Airport.
There were 27 boxes on the pallet, with each box holding 22 or 23 square packages wrapped in tinfoil. Once unwrapped, the contents appeared to be Chinese green tea.
But on further inspection, each parcel was a vacuum-sealed package of methamphetamine weighing 1kg.
The total weight of the drugs was 613kg and with a price range of around $160,000 per kilogram, the import was estimated to be worth $100m.
On 25 February 2022, Customs staff replaced the drugs with a substitute placebo, which looks and feels like methamphetamine and repackaged it with audio and tracking devices inside.
The same day, the customs broker advised Hannett that Nippon Express, the freight forwarder, had been unable to retrieve the consignment that day due to staff shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
They expected to “return to full business” after the weekend.
The following week, the customs broker emailed Hannett to advise him that the consignment was available for pick up that afternoon.
Hannett responded: “We have our own truck so will collect ourselves this afternoon.”
Two men turned up at the premises of the freight forwarding company in a rental truck and presented the documents required for the consignment to be released.
One of the men was identified as Bradley Wijohn, who had paid $925 cash to rent the truck for a week.
The consignment was then loaded onto the hire truck and driven to an address in Weymouth.
Waiting at that address were two other men. Five of the 27 boxes from the consignment were shifted from the hire truck to the rear of a black Nissan Navara ute.
Wijohn and one of the other men then drove the ute to the home of a patched member of the Comancheros.
They unloaded five boxes inside the fence line of the property, before driving away.
Meanwhile, another man drove the rental truck containing the remaining 22 boxes down a driveway to the back of an industrial premises in Manurewa.
He was followed by someone else driving a Hyundai iLoad van.
They then began shifting the remaining 22 boxes from the hire truck into the rear of the van.
During this time, around 3.25pm on 1 March 2022, police intercepted a conversation between the two men shifting the boxes in which they talked about the boxes being heavier than 20kg.
They also joked about how an unknown person had told them they could take 10kg for themselves, and if caught they would probably “go on the news”.
Hannett, Wijohn and their co-defendants were arrested shortly after.
More than three years later, Hannett pleaded guilty to importing a Class-A drug, two counts of money laundering, a representative charge of unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition and possession of nearly 22g of MDMA.
The 39-year-old faces a sentence of up to life imprisonment for the methamphetamine importation charge, but is yet to be sentenced.
Wijohn also admitted his part. The 34-year-old pleaded guilty to possession of a Class-A drug for supply and was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland in late May.
While Wijohn may not have known the precise weight of the methamphetamine he was transporting, Justice Ian Gault said knew the shipment was so large that it needed a truck to move.
The 613kg amount put Wijohn into the highest tier of methamphetamine offending, according to the Court of Appeal judgment, Zhang v R, which sets guidelines for sentencing.
Justice Gault set a starting point of 23 years in prison for Wijohn but reduced the sentence by 15% because he pleaded guilty before trial.
Defence lawyer Anoushka Bloem asked for a further sentencing discount because of Wijohn’s troubled childhood, drug addiction and psychological disorders which were outlined in independent reports given to court.
Justice Gault said the reports described a childhood where Wijohn moved between the houses of his separated parents, as well as his maternal grandparents.
Both his parents engaged in heavy drug and alcohol abuse, his mother struggled with mental health, and Wijohn grew up in an environment where physical punishment was described as “tough love”.
Wijohn struggled at school and left aged 12, shortly after his father and grandfather passed away.
He described himself as “angry and lost” and rarely came home, instead choosing the “life of the street” until he was sent to stay with family in Australia.
This fractured his connection to New Zealand and te ao Maori, but Wijohn found a new family: the Comancheros.
Through rugby league, Wijohn formed relationships with members of the gang and his commitment to the Comancheros became stronger when he was removed from Australia as a 501 deportee.
He was sent back to New Zealand after being convicted of arson, in which Wijohn himself suffered serious burns. Wijohn claims he used methamphetamine as a painkiller, rather than seeking hospital treatment.
He also preferred to use methamphetamine over a drug that he was prescribed for schizophrenia.
“In prison, you were apparently dysregulated and violent. You then spent time at the Christmas Island detention centre, with traumatised refugees and many affiliated with the Comancheros,” said Justice Gault.
“You refer to witnessing suicides. You say you arrived in New Zealand militant, paranoid and traumatised.”
Justice Gault accepted there was a sufficient connection between Wijohn’s personal circumstances and his current offending, and reduced the prison sentence by another 20%.
A discount of 5% was also given for Wijohn’s participation in rehabilitation courses while in prison, although Justice Gault acknowledged that his commitment to the Comancheros “undermined his expressed motivation for change”.
The total discount of 40% cut Wijohn’s sentence to 13 years and 9 ½ months in prison.
However, Justice Gault ordered he must serve 5 ½ years, or 40% of the sentence, before being eligible to apply to the Parole Board to be released early.
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster’s Paradise and Underworld.
