{"id":405671,"date":"2026-04-30T22:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405671\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:00:20","slug":"operation-hercules-final-offender-deported-in-20m-tauranga-cocaine-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405671\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Hercules: Final offender deported in $20m Tauranga cocaine bust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immigration NZ said in a statement today that Habulin was deported last weekend for his role in the transnational drug\u2011trafficking and money\u2011laundering syndicate.<\/p>\n

Immigration said returning him to Croatia was its final step in the years-long case.<\/p>\n

The other three offenders had been deported over the past three years after completing their sentences.<\/p>\n

\"DeniDeni Cavallo (from left), Matthew Scott, Benjamin Northway and Mario Habulin were sentenced in the High Court at Rotorua in February 2020. Photo \/ NZME <\/p>\n

Immigration\u2019s national manager compliance, Fadia Mudafar, said it was a complex deportation with \u201cextensive co-ordination across multiple agencies and international jurisdictions\u201d and \u201cunexpected challenges\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were diplomatic, security and medical complexities.<\/p>\n

With no Croatian Embassy in New Zealand, Immigration worked with the Italian Embassy to secure a European Union emergency travel document.<\/p>\n

The evolving situation in the Middle East forced last-minute travel plan changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeportation is a critical part of protecting New Zealand, ensuring that foreign nationals who commit serious crimes are removed once they have completed their sentences,\u201d Mudafar said.<\/p>\n

\"ParcelsParcels of cocaine weighing 46kg were stashed in the Maersk Antares, which arrived in Tauranga from Chile. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n

NZME has previously reported that authorities had been watching<\/a> the men for months before the cocaine arrived at the Port of Tauranga on October 31, 2017.<\/p>\n

Police filmed as Habulin swam to the rudder of the cargo ship, climbed into the bulkhead and retrieved two duffel bags of drugs, throwing them into the water for the Australians to retrieve.<\/p>\n

The drugs were seized by police within hours. More drugs and cash were found at a different address connected to the four the next day.<\/p>\n

Habulin was 48 at the time of his sentencing in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Immigration NZ said in a statement today that Habulin was deported last weekend for his role in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18479,1558,29950,20926,125,5904,42,171666,917,78,19136,43,17699,17286,26859,205,312,10890,1227,40,38,41,39,80,2963],"class_list":["post-405671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-20m","tag-been","tag-bust","tag-cocaine","tag-deported","tag-final","tag-headlines","tag-hercules","tag-immigration","tag-in","tag-largest","tag-news","tag-offender","tag-operation","tag-operations","tag-role","tag-says","tag-smuggling","tag-tauranga","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-zealand","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405671","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=405671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}