Rhodes did point out, however, that there had previously been suggestions his client had been coerced through possible gang involvement, but he did not take that information any further in court today.
Lomu and Vaivai, 38, were sentenced in the Manukau District Court for their role in a drug-smuggling operation that saw an unknown quantity of unknown drugs removed from international packages and supplied to the community.
Lomu faced one representative charge of possessing a controlled drug for supply, while Vaivai faced charges of importing controlled drugs for supply and refusing to give police access to his phone.
According to the summary, Lomu was a ramp agent at a FedEx depot in East Tāmaki, Auckland, and one of his jobs was to deliver packages from the FedEx depot to the air cargo inspections facility.
Customs noticed some of the packages appeared to have been opened and tampered with before being delivered by FedEx to Customs.
In August 2023, undercover investigators watched Lomu stop at a house in Māngere, South Auckland, while driving from the FedEx depot to the Customs site.
On his return journey, he met Vaivai, a former FedEx employee.
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 Lomu provided to Vaivai, which had just arrived from overseas, contained “controlled drugs”, the summary said.
Vaivai would remove the drugs from the newly arrived packages and allow Lomu to take them on to Customs.
John Lomu and Silila Vaivai were sentenced in the Manukau District Court for their roles in the importation of “controlled drugs” into the country. Photo / Jason Dorday
Investigators counted 15 instances of Vaivai importing drugs, 14 of which were aided by Lomu.
In one instance, a package labelled “lightings” was found by Customs to contain used clothing and weigh 3kg less than it was listed to weigh.
Notes later found on Vaivai’s phone labelled “projects” included bullet points that read “Ice” and “7712 LED lights”.
Lomu made multiple cash deposits to his ASB account during the relevant period, ranging from $200 to $2500 and totalling $58,695.
There was also a direct credit transaction of nearly $200,000 in November 2023, and his Wise banking app was found to contain $250,000.
During a police search of Vaivai’s Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, home in May 2024, around $500,000 in cash was found in the boot of his car, as well as a cash-counting machine and a phone that he refused to give police the passcode for.
John Lomu photographed in 2018. Photo / Michael Craig
At the sentencing hearing, the public gallery was filled with whānau of Vaivai and Lomu.
Judge Richard McIlraith detailed the caution he had to take in sentencing the men when he did not know the quantity or type of drugs that had been imported.
What Crown lawyer Aysser Al-Janabi said the judge should consider instead was the number of importations recorded, amount of money “flowing” into the men’s accounts and the cash found inside Vaivai’s boot.
The judge said he tried to consider the cash in the boot without making any assumptions.
“With half a million dollars in the car, it’s hard not to. We’re clearly not dealing with shoes.”
Vaivai’s lawyer Kima Tuialii said the Crown ultimately couldn’t prove how much drugs her client had imported and the cash in the car might suggest he held a high-up role in the operation, which he did not.
The judge pointed out there was no suggestion the cash was from anything else.
John Lomu (left) and Silila Vaivai in Manukau District Court in June. Photo / Ella Scott-Fleming
Al-Janabi said both men had the last sentencing put off, to better explain their offending, such as possible coercion, gang involvement and lawful reasons for the “large amounts” of money they were caught with.
She said the judge could disregard their actions as “late-stage attempts” by both men to minimise their crimes.
Vaivai was a former employee of FedEx and used what he learned in that job to orchestrate the offending, she said, and Lomu’s actions were aggravated by the job he held, the trust of which he abused.
She accepted Vaivai had a more significant role than Lomu.
Rhodes said not all the money the Crown recorded as coming into Lomu’s accounts was profit from the importation and his client was reckless but not naïve and a transporter, not a supplier or importer.
In terms of the suggestions of coercion and possible gang influence, Rhodes told the judge to “make what you will” of the alcohol or drug report. But it contained no “positive” evidence to back up those claims.
Lomu had given reasons for his offending, but Judge McIlraith said he did not want to go into them in open court.
‘You get my respect’
He said Lomu was clearly willing to rehabilitate himself and acknowledged that he was not seeking a sentence discount for his background.
He “respected” Lomu saying he was not motivated by drug addiction, the judge said.
“You get my respect for not embellishing things in that report.”
What was the biggest difference in sentencing the two men, Judge McIlraith said, was that Lomu had spent more than two years on 24-7 Electronically Monitored (EM) bail with no breaches and minimal exceptions.
Whereas Vaivai had been on straight bail, albeit with a curfew, and with a few breaches.
Lomu’s sentence was reduced for his extended time EM bail, clean record and guilty plea, and sentenced him to nine months’ home detention.
“But for the fact that you have been on EM bail … you would have been going to jail.”
Vaivai, on the other hand
Judge McIlraith noted Tuialii was in the “difficult position” of trying to “valiantly” suggest that the money in Vaivai’s car did not indicate he played a “significant role” in the operation.
Judge McIlraith said he had to disagree.
Then he told Vaivai he was not going to “gild the lily” – he was going to prison.
Vaivai had “unfortunately” fallen prone to greed, the judge said, and chosen to involve himself in the international drug trade for financial gain.
The judge reduced Vaivai’s sentence for his rehabilitation efforts, for the effect his incarceration would have on his young children and his time on bail.
Vaivai was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
The judge said it was a “very unusual quirk” of the process that the two men were given such different outcomes, but it came down to the way each of them had been bailed.
Vaivai and Lomu shook hands and hugged and as the younger man was being taken away to prison, “love you son” and “love you dad” was called out from the public gallery.
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.
Join the NZ Herald’s Open Justice team for Case by Case, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand.