{"id":528719,"date":"2026-07-16T09:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528719\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T09:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:17:09","slug":"waikato-comanchero-sergeant-at-arms-dwight-fatu-jailed-after-fbi-led-drugs-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528719\/","title":{"rendered":"Waikato Comanchero Sergeant at Arms Dwight Fatu jailed after FBI-led drugs investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it resulted in arrests, it was also the start of a four-year-long fight by the defendants to stop any evidence from Anom being used in a New Zealand court<\/a> because of how it was gathered.<\/p>\n

During Fatu\u2019s sentencing in the High Court at Hamilton today, his counsel Stephen Lack sought a discount for \u201cunlawful interception\u201d after the Court of Appeal found the FBI \u201cprobably\u201d breached the Crimes Act by intercepting communications of defendants without a warrant. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you boil it down to the context, a crime was committed in New Zealand by virtue of the fact that a surveillance device warrant wasn\u2019t in operation when communications were being intercepted by New Zealand-based users, which is a breach of the Human Rights Act, in my submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Justice Mathew Downs wasn\u2019t as convinced.<\/p>\n

\u2018Preferred to chase higher prices outside the Waikato\u2019<\/p>\n

The joint police and customs investigation, Operation Equinox, began in 2019 and concluded in 2021.<\/p>\n

At the time, Fatu, 55, was the Sergeant at Arms of the Waikato chapter of the Comancheros.<\/p>\n

Using the Anom device, between March 28 and August 1, 2020, Fatu was found to have supplied at least 1kg of methamphetamine and on-sold it to his own customers. <\/p>\n

\u201cYour \u2018trade craft\u2019 was careful,\u201d Justice Downs said today. \u201cYou were vigilant; you were not surveilled.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his offending, Fatu made it clear he was going to focus on supplying methamphetamine \u201coutside the Waikato area, where prices for methamphetamine were higher\u201d, Justice Downs said in explaining the facts. <\/p>\n

Also, on May 11, 2021, Fatu took delivery of 20 litres of hypophosphorous acid and knew it was going to be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.<\/p>\n

Last month, Fatu pleaded guilty to charges of supplying 1kg of methamphetamine, possessing the precursor substance hypophosphorous acid, and participating in an organised criminal group.<\/p>\n

\u2018Highly profit-focused\u2019<\/p>\n

Crown solicitor Jacinda Hamilton characterised Fatu\u2019s offending as \u201csophisticated\u201d and \u201cthe most savvy of the group\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was extremely careful about the use of communications, even in circumstances where members of the group believed they were operating encrypted devices that law enforcement couldn\u2019t intercept.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe preferred to deal with individuals in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she also accepted he wasn\u2019t an avid user of the Anom technology because he didn\u2019t know how to use it.<\/p>\n

Fatu was \u201chighly profit-focused\u201d and spoke about wanting to deal with people outside of Waikato \u201cwhere prices were higher\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hamilton labelled Fatu a \u201crecidivist commercial drug dealer\u201d and said his offending occurred while he was already serving a sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Crown contention that previous periods of imprisonment have only acted as a pause on his drug offending and I suggest it is fair to characterise his history as rinse and repeat, serious drug offending.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DwightDwight Fatu has been sent to prison and labelled a \u201crecidivist commercial drug dealer\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said there should be no discount for an undue delay in proceedings, nor for any suggested impropriety by police, as requested by the defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has not been prejudiced for a delay in any real way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cited an earlier decision by Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith, who said there was no evidence to establish any impropriety by the Crown or police, as the evidence was ruled admissible.<\/p>\n

Hamilton urged Justice Downs to issue a minimum non-parole period of 60%. <\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s handed in his Comancheros membership\u2019<\/p>\n

Lack said he wasn\u2019t intending to minimise the commerciality aspect of the offending, nor his client\u2019s membership with the gang at the time, but he did take issue with the Crown labelling Fatu as \u201cthe most savvy\u201d of the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s apparent from the communications …that Mr Fatu had difficulty in operating the Anom phone at first instance when they were in use, and that was the reason that there weren\u2019t messages sent by him during that period of time, and that is the reason that the charge period for the methamphetamine is now limited to only a four-month period, rather than a far broader period that the communications were being intercepted for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fatu accepted he played a significant role in sourcing methamphetamine to on-sell to his own network of buyers. <\/p>\n

He also pushed for a discount of 20% for \u201cundue delay\u201d given the five years and one month since he was first charged.<\/p>\n

Lack said while some of the delay had been because of the challenge from defendants over the Anom communications, the Crown also caused delays in seeking admissibility of the communications. <\/p>\n

The High Court decision on the admissibility of the Anom evidence wasn\u2019t delivered until 2024, before it was challenged again in the Court of Appeal, but that was dismissed in September of the same year.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court declined the defendants\u2019 leave to apply in November last year and since then negotiations had been taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all of the delays were attributable to Mr Fatu or the other defendants,\u201d Lack said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even if they were attributable solely to Mr Fatu … this does not prevent him from seeking a reduction for undue delay.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lack said Fatu had \u201cdistanced himself\u201d and \u201chanded in his membership\u201d from the Comancheros and had been segregated in prison for the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

Exceptional demands on the courts<\/p>\n

Justice Downs said that, looking at Fatu\u2019s criminal history, it wasn\u2019t \u201can exaggeration\u201d to say most of his adult life had been spent in prison for commercial drug dealing.<\/p>\n

As for undue delay, Justice Downs said much of it had been because of the admissibility challenge of the Anom evidence, which continued through to November last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis period is long by any measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not know of a case in which an admissibility determination has affected so many charges and defendants … there are, or were, almost 800 charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cNor do I know of any other case that has involved this technology, or technology quite like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also involved the FBI and, altogether, produced a case that was \u201cexceptional in its demands upon the courts, and the delay is justified accordingly\u201d.<\/p>\n

As for the FBI\u2019s involvement, he found the case involved \u201cunfairly obtained \u2013 but nonetheless admissible \u2013 evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anom devices were also different from cellphones as they cannot make or receive phone calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not mobile phones. Consequently, Anom devices are not used by countless billions of people the world over, for everything that modern life entails.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, Anom devices were used by small groups of people, including the syndicate of which you were part, to co-ordinate serious criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

After taking an overall starting point of 12 years\u2019 prison, Justice Downs gave credit for Fatu\u2019s pleas and history before landing on an end sentence of nine years and five months. <\/p>\n

He declined to impose a minimum period of imprisonment. <\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While it resulted in arrests, it was also the start of a four-year-long fight by the defendants to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,12116,1975,1558,9525,177209,117265,3401,1757,21935,261107,261108,1328,1437,12898,14641,13489,111,139,69,17286,5843,36821,213,1524],"class_list":["post-528719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-arms","tag-at","tag-been","tag-caught","tag-comanchero","tag-comancheros","tag-drug","tag-drugs","tag-dwight","tag-fatu","tag-fbiled","tag-gang","tag-global","tag-investigation","tag-jailed","tag-leader","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-operation","tag-senior","tag-sergeant","tag-sports","tag-waikato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528719","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=528719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}