Abdul Ahmadi operated stolen-car "chop shops" in Wellington and Christchurch until police caught up with him.
A jailed “chop-shop” owner who received $800,000 in stolen cars has failed to get his sentence reduced, just months after losing millions in property to the Crown.
Abdul Karim Ahmadi was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on November 12 to three years and three months in prison, having pleaded guilty to 18 charges of receiving, and representative charges of failing to keep dealer’s records and failing to keep articles in an unaltered state.
Within two weeks of his sentencing, the High Court gave police a green light to sell two of Ahmadi’s Wellington wrecking yards, worth a combined $1,790,000, after an application for restraining orders under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.
Ahmadi appealed his jail sentence, submitting that the starting point of five years was too high.
The High Court has now dismissed that appeal.
In a recently released decision, Ahmadi’s lawyer Philip McDonnell submitted that the sentencing judge, Judge Quentin Hix, had adopted an “overtly formulated approach”, contending it was not the most serious case of its kind.
McDonnell said a starting point of four to four-and-a-half years in prison was appropriate.
The summary of facts showed stolen vehicles, including several of high value, would be delivered to Ahmadi’s Christchurch yard, promptly dismantled and then shipped overseas, most commonly to the United Arab Emirates.
He received 38 stolen vehicles between May 2022 and March 2024 and was jointly charged with a co-defendant, who faces several related charges alleging similar offending arising from operations in Christchurch and Wellington.
McDonnell submitted that as a consequence of the summary of facts summarising the alleged offending by Ahmadi and a co-defendant, there was a “real risk the judge wrongly assessed” Ahmadi’s culpability, having relied on actions and/or offences committed solely by the co-defendant.
He submitted that Ahmadi was the less culpable offender, highlighting the theft of four brand-new Toyota Land Cruisers, which according to the summary of facts were received and paid for by the co-defendant.
In sentencing Ahmadi, Judge Hix considered that the nature of the operation, the values involved, and the duration of the offending put the offending at the top end in terms of culpability.
With reference to a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment, a starting point of five years’ imprisonment was adopted to reflect the offending.
Judge Hix applied a 25% discount for guilty pleas and allowed a 10% deduction for the combined factors of past trauma, good character and prospects of rehabilitation.
McDonnell said the judge should have given discounts of 10% for previous good character, 10% for a cultural report and 5% for rehabilitation prospects.
He submitted that the appropriate end sentence was close to two years, accounting for a four-and-a-half-year starting point reduced by 50% for personal mitigating factors.
Crown lawyer Grace Collett said the five-year starting point was generous considering the sophistication and scale of the operation and Ahmadi’s role.
Collett accepted that the co-defendant was more culpable, but said that reflected the extent of the alleged offending at the Wellington operation.
The Christchurch offending was under Ahmadi’s secondhand dealer licence and he regularly offended independently of the co-defendant, she said.
Collett said Ahmadi was entitled to a good character credit, but the level of deduction had to be tempered with the premeditated and prolonged nature of the offending.
In his appeal decision, Justice Jonathan Eaton said Judge Hix was not constrained by a seven-year maximum and that it would have been open to adopt a starting point higher than the starting maximum for a single offence of receiving.
Justice Eaton said Ahmadi offended within a joint criminal enterprise, and in those circumstances, it was not necessary or appropriate for Judge Hix to distinguish Ahmadi’s culpability from that of his co-defendant.
“I consider the starting point of five years’ imprisonment to be very much at the bottom of the available range. It was not excessive.”
Justice Eaton dismissed the appeal.
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the past 16 years. Most recently, he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.