Police again turned their attention to Tuala in 2022, after an investigation into a $2.5 million methamphetamine haul from Iran that was hidden inside shock absorbers led investigators to his son-in-law.
When police knocked on Tuala’s door with a search warrant later that year, the defendant snapped multiple cellphones. Cumbersome efforts to reconstruct the phones to extract information are among the reasons it has taken four years for the case to resolve.
Not all of the information was recovered, but the messages that police were able to retrieve suggested that Tuala had helped import at least 28kg of methamphetamine in crystal form and 8.5 litres of the drug in liquid form. He also imported at least 2.5kg of MDMA.
Illicit packages sent to New Zealand – only some of which were intercepted by Customs – were listed as a belt sander, sleep salts, coffee beans, permanent markers and other seemingly innocuous items.
Tuala had in his possession a Customs document showing a list of countries that were good to send drugs from.
“The messages made it clear that the street value of some consignments was in excess of $1 million, and suggested that Mr Tuala would sometimes get paid in significant amounts of cash and a quantity of the imported drugs,” according to the agreed summary of facts for his case.
In one message cited by authorities, Tuala boasted he and his associates could handle the entire importation, delivery and sale of the product.
Other messages threatened violence.
“It’s time to give the box over. Or cop a bullet. True!” he wrote at one point.
On another occasion, he wrote: “Yeah we can put a bullet in these c**** but that will f*** everything up.”
While executing the 6am search warrant at Tuala’s Long Bay home, officers also found a loaded pistol under his bed.
Tuala faced up to life imprisonment for six counts of importing methamphetamine, up to 14 years for importing MDMA and up to four years for the gun and ammunition charges.
Defence lawyer Bradley Moyer speaks during the Auckland District Court sentencing of Alvin Tuala on drug trafficking charges. Photo / Anna Heath
Defence lawyer Bradley Moyer described his client as a “cog in the wheel” beholden to overseas exporters rather than an autonomous ringleader.
He asked the judge to consider Tuala’s Australia-born children, who now live in New Zealand but have already missed out on time with their father when he served an eight-year sentence followed by two years in detention awaiting deportation.
Tuala was initially charged in 2012 with two counts of shooting with intent to murder following a shooting in Sydney. Tuala said he shot the vice president of the local Hells Angels chapter and the man’s brother in self-defence after they shot at him in his tattoo parlour.
News Corp Australia previously described the shooting as having been over a debt collection.
Tuala was acquitted of the attempted murder but found guilty of excessive self-defence causing grievous bodily harm. He later became a figurehead of sorts while in immigration detention, speaking to media outlets in New Zealand and Australia after detainees held a hunger strike for better conditions.
Moyer said his client was once seen to have a bright future, recruited to play American football at Brigham Young University in the United States. He was on his way to a professional sporting career when an injury dashed his dreams, and he returned home to Australia aimless and falling into the orbit of outlaw motorcycle clubs.
A lengthy prison term will be especially hard for Tuala, Moyer said, because of health issues that he said saw his client nearly die in prison last year.
He weighed 276kg at one point but has since lost over 100kg.
“It’s been an ongoing battle and it will continue to be an ongoing battle throughout his sentence,” Moyer said.
He hoped for a seven-year sentence but acknowledged the judge may find that too light.
Crown prosecutor Taniela-Afu Veikune asked for an end sentence of around 10 years, with a minimum period of imprisonment of up to 50% to denounce the crimes and protect the community.
The defence’s contention that he was a “cog in the wheel” didn’t square with the summary of facts, Veikune argued.
“He’s a cog without which the wheel falls apart,” he said. “Anyone else in this operation is replaceable. He’s not.”
Judge Kirsten Lummis agreed that Tuala held a leadership role.
Judge Kirsten Lummis. Photo / Michael Craig
She ordered an 18-year starting point for all of the offences combined, then ordered an uplift of about six months for the fact that Tuala was on bail at the time of offending. He had been arrested in November 2019 for attempting to import GBL, another illegal drug.
“Not withstanding that, you doubled down,” the judge said, noting that the defendant was sentenced in 2023 to two years and five months’ imprisonment for that charge.
The judge allowed a 40% reduction for Tuala’s guilty pleas, his background, the impact imprisonment will have on his children, and his efforts at rehabilitation. It resulted in an end sentence of 10 years and six months’ imprisonment.
The judge declined to impose a minimum term of imprisonment, even though he was assessed as a high risk of reoffending.
“I know you have been trying really hard … to put yourself in the best possible position for when you do return to society and your family,” she acknowledged.
“I am willing to accept that, at 48 years of age, with the help and support of your whānau, you are likely to be at a turning point. I certainly hope you are at a turning point.
“I hope you can get yourself sorted out to be there for your family in the future.”
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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