John Lomu, the brother of late All Blacks great Jonah Lomu, has admitted aiding a drug-smuggling operation. Photo / Michael Craig
Customs had conducted two other investigations into East Tāmaki FedEx employees, dubbed Operations Sink and Pharaoh, the previous year. Six employees had been arrested as a result.
Now they began a new investigation, Operation Dark, and focused their attention primarily on John Lomu.
Part of his work duties included using a Budget rental truck to deliver consignments from the FedEx depot to the Air Cargo Inspections Facility.
In August 2023, undercover investigators watched Lomu make an unscheduled stop at a residential address in Māngere while driving the truck from the FedEx depot to the Customs site. On his return journey, he met co-defendant Silila Vaivai, who also pleaded guilty this week.
Vaivai, a former FedEx employee, admitted to importing controlled drugs.
The clandestine meeting was enough to persuade a judge to allow the use of surveillance devices on both men, including GPS tracking and covert cameras.
The devices helped to prove that, between June and September 2023, the two defendants met to exchange packages when Lomu should have been driving straight from the FedEx depot to the Customs site.
“The parcels Mr Lomu provided Mr Vaivai, which had recently arrived from overseas, contained controlled drugs as well as sundry other items,” the summary of facts states. “Mr Vaivai would remove the drugs and return them to Mr Lomu for replacement in the Customs facility.”
John Lomu, younger brother of Jonah Lomu. Photo / Nick Reed
Investigators counted 15 times when Vaivai imported drugs, 14 of which were aided by Lomu.
The packages arrived from all over the world and were sent to various homes around Auckland, with one addressed to the fictional movie character Rocky Balboa. Authorities still don’t know the exact amounts and type of drugs that were imported, but they were left with little doubt that the packages had been tampered with.
The packages often included blocks of A4 paper and used clothes, and were far off the weight that had been on their labels.
For example, a package sent at the end of August 2023 was labelled as “lightings” valued at $277 and was supposed to weigh 14.95kg. Customs, searching the package after Lomu delivered it, found used clothing instead of lights and noticed that it weighed 3kg less.
A short list labelled “projects” that was later recovered from the notes app on Vaivai’s phone included bullet points that read “Ice” and “7712 LED lights”.
Investigators also looked into Lomu’s bank accounts, showing that he made more than $100,000 in cash deposits during a roughly one-year period ending in late 2023. There was also a direct credit transaction for nearly $200,000 in November 2023, and his Wise banking app was found to contain $250,000.
An examination of Vaivai’s Wise app showed that he had received more than $350,000 between January and August 2023.
John Lomu used his job at the FedEx base in East Tāmaki, Auckland, to help smuggle illegal drugs into New Zealand. Photo / Google
While executing a search warrant at Vaivai’s Blockhouse Bay home in May 2024, police found more than $500,000 in cash in the boot of his car and two cash-counting machines.
“A review of Mr Lomu’s phone revealed four screenshots of WhatsApp messages from Mr Vaivai, with advice on what to say in relation to suspicious money transactions,” court documents outline.
In an interview with police, Lomu described Vaivai as an “acquaintance” whom he saw rarely. He declined to answer questions about the drug imports, authorities noted.
Both men had been set to go to trial this week in the Manukau District Court.
They’ll instead be sentenced in June.
John Lomu’s older brother, one of the most famous rugby players of all time, died in 2015.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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