{"id":604116,"date":"2026-09-18T08:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T08:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604116\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T08:52:10","slug":"all-blacks-great-jonah-lomus-brother-john-silila-vaivai-sentenced-for-role-in-east-auckland-fedex-drug-importation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604116\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks great Jonah Lomu\u2019s brother John, Silila Vaivai sentenced for role in East Auckland FedEx drug importation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rhodes did point out, however, that there had previously been suggestions his client had been coerced through possible gang involvement<\/a>, but he did not take that information any further in court today.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

According to the summary, Lomu was a ramp agent at a FedEx depot in East T\u0101maki, Auckland, and one of his jobs was to deliver packages from the FedEx depot to the air cargo inspections facility.<\/p>\n

Customs noticed some of the packages appeared to have been opened and tampered with before being delivered by FedEx to Customs.<\/p>\n

In August 2023, undercover investigators<\/a> watched Lomu stop at a house in M\u0101ngere, South Auckland, while driving from the FedEx depot to the Customs site.<\/p>\n

On his return journey, he met Vaivai, a former FedEx employee.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The parcels Lomu provided to Vaivai, which had just arrived from overseas, contained \u201ccontrolled drugs\u201d, the summary said.<\/p>\n

Vaivai would remove the drugs from the newly arrived packages and allow Lomu to take them on to Customs.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn 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<\/p>\n

Investigators counted 15 instances of Vaivai importing drugs, 14 of which were aided by Lomu.<\/p>\n

In one instance, a package labelled \u201clightings\u201d was found by Customs to contain used clothing and weigh 3kg less than it was listed to weigh.<\/p>\n

Notes later found on Vaivai\u2019s phone labelled \u201cprojects\u201d included bullet points that read \u201cIce\u201d and \u201c7712 LED lights\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lomu made multiple cash deposits to his ASB account during the relevant period, ranging from $200 to $2500 and totalling $58,695.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

During a police search of Vaivai\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Lomu photographed in 2018. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

At the sentencing hearing, the public gallery was filled with wh\u0101nau of Vaivai and Lomu.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What Crown lawyer Aysser Al-Janabi said the judge should consider instead was the number of importations recorded, amount of money \u201cflowing\u201d into the men\u2019s accounts and the cash found inside Vaivai\u2019s boot.<\/p>\n

The judge said he tried to consider the cash in the boot without making any assumptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith half a million dollars in the car, it\u2019s hard not to. We\u2019re clearly not dealing with shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaivai\u2019s lawyer Kima Tuialii said the Crown ultimately couldn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n

The judge pointed out there was no suggestion the cash was from anything else.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Lomu (left) and Silila Vaivai in Manukau District Court in June. Photo \/ Ella Scott-Fleming<\/p>\n

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 \u201clarge amounts\u201d of money they were caught with. <\/p>\n

She said the judge could disregard their actions as \u201clate-stage attempts\u201d by both men to minimise their crimes.<\/p>\n

Vaivai was a former employee of FedEx and used what he learned in that job to orchestrate the offending, she said, and Lomu\u2019s actions were aggravated by the job he held, the trust of which he abused.<\/p>\n

She accepted Vaivai had a more significant role than Lomu. <\/p>\n

Rhodes said not all the money the Crown recorded as coming into Lomu\u2019s accounts was profit from the importation and his client was reckless but not na\u00efve and a transporter, not a supplier or importer.<\/p>\n

In terms of the suggestions of coercion and possible gang influence, Rhodes told the judge to \u201cmake what you will\u201d of the alcohol or drug report. But it contained no \u201cpositive\u201d evidence to back up those claims. <\/p>\n

Lomu had given reasons for his offending, but Judge McIlraith said he did not want to go into them in open court.<\/p>\n

\u2018You get my respect\u2019<\/p>\n

He said Lomu was clearly willing to rehabilitate himself and acknowledged that he was not seeking a sentence discount for his background. <\/p>\n

He \u201crespected\u201d Lomu saying he was not motivated by drug addiction, the judge said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou get my respect for not embellishing things in that report.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Whereas Vaivai had been on straight bail, albeit with a curfew, and with a few breaches.<\/p>\n

Lomu\u2019s sentence was reduced for his extended time EM bail, clean record and guilty plea, and sentenced him to nine months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for the fact that you have been on EM bail … you would have been going to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaivai, on the other hand<\/p>\n

Judge McIlraith noted Tuialii was in the \u201cdifficult position\u201d of trying to \u201cvaliantly\u201d suggest that the money in Vaivai\u2019s car did not indicate he played a \u201csignificant role\u201d in the operation. <\/p>\n

Judge McIlraith said he had to disagree.<\/p>\n

Then he told Vaivai he was not going to \u201cgild the lily\u201d – he was going to prison.<\/p>\n

Vaivai had \u201cunfortunately\u201d fallen prone to greed, the judge said, and chosen to involve himself in the international drug trade for financial gain.<\/p>\n

The judge reduced Vaivai\u2019s sentence for his rehabilitation efforts, for the effect his incarceration would have on his young children and his time on bail.<\/p>\n

Vaivai was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.<\/p>\n

The judge said it was a \u201cvery unusual quirk\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Vaivai and Lomu shook hands and hugged and as the younger man was being taken away to prison, \u201clove you son\u201d and \u201clove you dad\u201d was called out from the public gallery.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.<\/p>\n

Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rhodes did point out, however, that there had previously been suggestions his client had been coerced through possible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5263,51,8136,31468,3401,3806,17074,2082,16773,56779,78,5126,159965,159966,111,139,69,205,5161,297772,213,297773],"class_list":["post-604116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-all","tag-auckland","tag-blacks","tag-brother","tag-drug","tag-east","tag-fedex","tag-for","tag-great","tag-importation","tag-in","tag-john","tag-jonah","tag-lomus","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-role","tag-sentenced","tag-silila","tag-sports","tag-vaivai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604116","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=604116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}