{"id":297155,"date":"2026-02-22T21:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297155\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T21:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:34:07","slug":"operation-worthington-jailed-auckland-nurse-maata-vi-named-after-meth-case-suppression-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297155\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Worthington: Jailed Auckland nurse Ma\u2019ata Vi named after meth case suppression battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Vi\u2019s sentencing last year in Auckland District Court<\/a>, Judge Claire Ryan noted multiple letters of support for the defendant. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe has been a devoted mother and a hardworking nurse,\u201d she said before announcing the prison sentence. \u201cThe real tragedy of this offending is she lost both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CashCash seized in 2021 after police arrested 30 people at the conclusion of Operation Worthington. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n

\u2018Naive pawn\u2019<\/p>\n

A police search of Vi\u2019s phone showed that in May and June 2021, she schemed with the alleged head of the importation operation – a man residing in Australia whom both she and her husband were close to. <\/p>\n

Messages via encrypted messaging app Signal show the man had offered her and another woman $1000 to receive a parcel from Australia that was later found to contain nearly 2kg of methamphetamine. <\/p>\n

In the 10 months before that importation, she had agreed to make numerous cash deposits – totalling nearly $65,000 – to help launder drug proceeds before transferring much of it back to the alleged overseas kingpin under the guise of \u201cCovid-19 family support\u201d. <\/p>\n

Vi said she didn\u2019t know what was in the package, which was intercepted before it got to her. The sentencing judge, however, was highly dubious of the claim. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an example of her minimising her offending,\u201d Judge Ryan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe had to have been highly suspicious of the package. You don\u2019t import methamphetamine of almost 2 kilograms by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Jo Murdoch said her client, who had a strong religious background and no prior criminal history, was brought into the scheme initially \u201cwith a high level of naivety and susceptibility\u201d. <\/p>\n

But it was also acknowledged that she continued to participate in the scheme after that naivety dissipated. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe has been very much, in my submission, a pawn in this proceeding,\u201d her lawyer said, describing Vi as having been stuck between her husband and the alleged kingpin who remains at large. <\/p>\n

\u201cMs Vi has really had no voice in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyer said financial hardship was a lure for both Vi and her husband. Kuki was sentenced last year to eight years\u2019 imprisonment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t live in any extravagant way,\u201d Murdoch said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t live a life of luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WatesoniWatesoni Nacagilevu was touted in a 2019 ASB Bank ad as a valued employee grounded in religion and culture. But he was leading a secret life, a court learned at his sentencing for helping launder an estimated $3 million for a drug syndicate. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Another co-defendant, former bank employee Watesoni Nacagilevu<\/a>, was sentenced to five years\u2019 imprisonment last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe [Vi] played a lesser but still important role,\u201d the judge said of Vi\u2019s two co-defendants, emphasising that a non-custodial sentence would not be a realistic outcome. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d she said flatly as the hearing began. <\/p>\n

\u2018There are consequences\u2019<\/p>\n

A major focus of attention during the June hearing, aside from the sentencing process itself, was whether Vi should keep her name permanently secret. <\/p>\n

Her family has already suffered enough after the police raid on their home, the fatal shooting of Vi\u2019s father and the earlier sentencing of her husband, it was argued. <\/p>\n

Judge Ryan said she accepted that the impact on the couple\u2019s children of having both parents imprisoned would be \u201cdevastating\u201d. She allowed Vi\u2019s sentence to be reduced by 15% as a result. <\/p>\n

But it was the crime itself rather than the potential publication of the defendants\u2019 names that was the main source of the hardship, she determined. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can do nothing about that. I didn\u2019t compel these two people to offend,\u201d Judge Ryan said. \u201cThere are consequences for this type of offending, and unfortunately those consequences are imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n

At any rate, the judge said, it was unlikely that the children would suffer \u201cextreme\u201d hardship, which is the requirement for permanent suppression. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, this is not a nation where particularly awful teasing takes place in the playground when a child\u2019s parents are seen to be imprisoned through publication,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cSchool principals, counsellors and other important school leaders can be expected to be aware of the publication and to take action accordingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany children who have famous parents are subject to an element of publicity when their parents do something that is perceived in public or perceived as right, as the case may be. Parents and their behaviour in public can well be the subject of publication and the children become aware of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appeared, the judge added, that the family\u2019s turmoil was already well known in their community. <\/p>\n

Judge Ryan denied permanent suppression but allowed it to remain in place for a month longer while the defence considered whether to appeal the matter to the High Court at Auckland, which they did.<\/p>\n

However, in a High Court decision issued late last year, Justice Graham Lang dismissed the appeal but allowed suppression to remain in place one more month so the family could prepare for publication. <\/p>\n

\"JusticeJustice Graham Lang dismissed the High Court appeal. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

He agreed with Vi\u2019s lawyer that the district court judge had \u201coverstated the position when she said that \u2018family and friends in the community are all aware\u2019 of Ms Vi\u2019s offending\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a case in which an order for suppression would be futile because her offending is already a matter of widespread knowledge,\u201d he went on to explain. <\/p>\n

But Justice Lang did agree with Judge Ryan that it did not reach the threshold of extreme hardship. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Vi\u2019s sentencing last year in Auckland District Court, Judge Claire Ryan noted multiple letters of support for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,51,5837,3246,1121,3401,9872,60044,57511,2241,33018,56779,14641,13739,42031,163763,1868,94502,10136,111,43,139,11515,69,17286,22262,8442,3170,13618,85548,163762],"class_list":["post-297155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-auckland","tag-battle","tag-both","tag-case","tag-drug","tag-finally","tag-followed","tag-footsteps","tag-hospital","tag-husbands","tag-importation","tag-jailed","tag-largescale","tag-lengthy","tag-maata","tag-meth","tag-middlemore","tag-named","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nurse","tag-nz","tag-operation","tag-participated","tag-prison","tag-scheme","tag-suppression","tag-vi","tag-worthington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}