\u201cOn any assessment, this was money laundering on a large scale,\u201d the judge said, describing the case as among the highest dollar amounts on record. <\/p>\n
Thi Thai Van, 57, appears for sentencing in the Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to laundering over $7 million for a Vietnamese cannabis syndicate. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n
She agreed with the Crown that such prosecutions are vital to disrupting transnational drug trafficking. <\/p>\n
\u201cYour offending risks undermining public and international confidence in finance systems,\u201d she added. \u201cBecause it is tempting and because it can feel relatively safe simply moving money, there is a real need to deter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twice raided<\/p>\n
Court documents suggest Van first ended up on the radar of New Zealand law enforcement in April 2018, when they raided two adjoining Papakura rental homes. Van and another defendant, Dinh Lam Vuong, had been living in the lounge of one of the homes while all of the bedrooms were used for cannabis grows. <\/p>\n
Almost 150 plants were discovered and destroyed. Vuong took responsibility for the plants but tried unsuccessflly to convince police they were for personal use only. <\/p>\n
An overstayer, Vuong later vanished for four years until police located him during a July 2022 raid at a Mt Eden home where Van was then living. In the years between the first and second raids, police had launched Operation Bush<\/a>, focusing on money laundering by cannabis-cultivating organised crime groups.<\/p>\n At the second raid, Vuong again took responsibility for the roughly 5kg of packaged cannabis – worth between $49,500 and $88,000 – found in the home. <\/p>\n During his sentencing earlier this year<\/a> for both raids, Vuong tried to claim the drugs found in 2022 were the exact same cannabis that police had found and failed to adequately destroy in 2018. The Crown dismissed the claim as ludicrous and the judge overseeing the hearing ultimately agreed.<\/p>\n Vuong was sentenced to six months\u2019 home detention, taking into account the lengthy period he spent either in jail or on electronically monitored bail awaiting sentecing. <\/p>\n Another defendant, Ky Van Pham, who owned the two Papakura homes raided in 2018, was sentenced last August to four years and nine months\u2019 imprisonment. He was described by police as \u201cthe principal offender of an organised criminal group identified in Operation Bush\u201d. <\/p>\n Van, meanwhile, was also charged with possession of cannabis for supply following the 2022 raid. But police also confiscated two of her phones, hundreds of ATM receipts in her bedroom and bank cards in other people\u2019s names, resulting in myriad other money laundering and cannabis-related charges.<\/p>\n Numerous photographs of cannabis and offers to sell the drugs were found on the phones. The sales ranged from $50 to nearly $8000.<\/p>\n Police also discovered that Van had worked closely with another woman who operated 76 bank accounts – into which $2.3 million was deposited. Of that, $2.2 million was then shifted to \u201cher criminal associates in Vietnam via international money transfers or currency purchases\u201d, court documents state. <\/p>\n Three other people were also used by Van for their banking credentials, her agreed summary of facts outlines. <\/p>\n One was a woman Van met through mutual friends in 2021. Van asked if she could use the woman\u2019s accounts to make purchases for her flower shop. She ended up using 12 accounts in the woman\u2019s name, depositing $117,000.<\/p>\n Another woman, who Van met in 2020 through Auckland\u2019s Vietnamese ex-pat community, was paid $3000 to open a new bank account. <\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as the pair left ANZ Quay Street, Ms Van immediately took the bank card and the internet banking details …\u201d court documents state. \u201cFrom that point onward, Ms Van had complete control over this bank account.\u201d <\/p>\n Over $880,000 was deposited into it. <\/p>\n Another person gave Van control of 13 of his bank accounts in 2020 after the defendant asked if she could use his banking credentials to transfer money overseas. <\/p>\n She also used her own business accounts in the schemes, court documents state. <\/p>\n \u2018Not strong or brazen\u2019<\/p>\n Van was initially accused of laundering over $10 million and described in court documents as as \u201cthe principal offender of a money-laundering syndicate\u201d. The figure was later revised to $7.3 million as part of the plea agreement despite there having been strong evidence to support the first figure, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n She faced up to eight years\u2019 imprisonment for nine cannabis charges, which included supplying the drug, conspiring to supply, offering to supply and possession for supply. She also faced up to seven years\u2019 imprisonment for one count of obtaining by deception and 30 counts of money laundering. <\/p>\n Van, who had no prior criminal convictions, didn\u2019t make a whole lot of money out of the scheme, her lawyer said, describing her as a pawn used by larger criminal figures. <\/p>\n Mansfield suggested that some of the offending could have been prompted by financial issues that came with trying to keep her flower business afloat during the Covid-19 lockdowns. The company went into liquidation in December, he noted. <\/p>\n While it was accepted the money laundering was at a \u201cvery high level\u201d, some \u201cleniency and understanding\u201d were needed in the approach to sentencing when considering her non-leadership role and her sad history of domestic abuse, Mansfield argued. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not a strong, brazen person who\u2019s done it for financial gain or set about doing it on her own,\u201d he added, describing Van as \u201ca humble woman of humble means\u201d who had been \u201cused\u201d. <\/p>\n Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney acknowledged that Van wasn\u2019t the overall syndicate leader. But her role as lead launderer, along with her willingness to sell the drugs herself, was significant, she said. <\/p>\n The pandemic, the prosecutor added, was irrelevant. Many businesses struggled, but very few entrepreneurs committed crimes, escpecially to the level that Van did, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cThis was not a situation… where Ms Van was exploited,\u201d Culliney said. \u201cThe offending goes well beyond that, and certainly there was a financial aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n While the defence had proposed 70% in sentence reductions for personal mitigation, that would be manifestly inadequate, Culliney argued, proposing instead reductions of 25% to 30%.<\/p>\n Not reckless<\/p>\n Judge Maxwell, while trying to find similar cases as reference points, pointed to the 2023 sentencing of Ye \u201cCathay\u201d Hua after an Auckland District Court jury found her guilty of laundering about $18 million for drug cartel boss Xavier Valent and others. <\/p>\n She was initially sentenced to seven and a half years in prison<\/a> but it was later reduced by the Court of Appeal<\/a> to six years\u2019 imprisonment. <\/p>\n But while Hua dealt with a larger sum of money, the court also found that she was reckless, having preserved records in a way that suggested she wasn\u2019t fully aware the funds were tainted. It was also a small part of her overall business. Neither of those mitigating factors applied to Van, Judge Maxwell noted. <\/p>\n \u201cAny suggestion that you were reckless is unfounded,\u201d the judge said. \u201cYour offending is clearly aggravated by your knowledge, your role, your direct financial gain and your drug dealing.\u201d<\/p>\n The judge ordered a starting point of eight years for the money-laundering charges, the same that Hua received on appeal, then added an additional year for her cannabis charges. <\/p>\n She then allowed 25% in total reductions for Van\u2019s guilty pleas and the effect that incarceration will have on her 103-year-old mother-in-law, for whom she is a caregiver, resulting in an end sentence of six years and nine months\u2019 imprisonment. <\/p>\n The judge declined discounts for psychological issues and remorse, noting that psychological records were scant and Van appeared to minimise her offending in pre-sentence interviews. <\/p>\n Van was also declined a discount for the extra burden a prison sentence might cause on a person from another country. It doesn\u2019t apply to Van, the judge determined, because she has been living in New Zealand since 2012 and is married to a New Zealand citizen.<\/p>\nDinh Vuong appears for sentencing in the Auckland District Court in February 2026. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Ron Mansfield, KC. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney. Photo \/ Michael Craig <\/p>\n
Ye “Cathay” Hua. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n
Thi Thai Van appears in the Auckland District Court for sentencing. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n