A Ferrari-driving Mongrel Mob associate who played a crucial part in a $100 million meth import has had his potential sentence reduced by 75% after arguing that he participated in the record-breaking scheme only under duress. 

Daniel Aperahama Hannett, 40, didn’t want to say which criminal organisation allegedly forced him to participate in importing the 613kg of meth. But Justice Jane Anderson agreed with prosecutors during Hannett’s sentencing last week that he had been working with the Comancheros. 

Hannett, who had experience with freight forwarding, had been offered to the gang in January 2022 as someone who might be of service. 

The person who got him into the mess was an associate close to his family who had gotten in trouble with the gang and was trying to find his way back into their good graces, authorities said. 

During a 55-minute meeting at a North Shore hockey field, a senior patched Comancheros member informed Hannett that he had no choice but to participate. 

“Hannett ultimately agreed to assist with the importation on the understanding that, if he did not, the [criminal organisation] would stand over him and take his property, and that, if he resisted, this would escalate into violence,” court documents state. 

He also feared for the safety of the person who had given his name to the group if he didn’t agree to help, his lawyer said. 

Daniel Hannett (inset) and his late-model Ferrari, which was part of $7 million worth of assets seized by police after Operation Weirton. Hannett was also charged with importing 613kg of methamphetamine. 

Crown prosecutor Ned Fletcher emphasised during the sentencing hearing on Thursday that Hannett wasn’t a law-abiding citizen pulled off the street and forced into a foreign criminal underworld. 

By the time he was recruited, he had already laundered $5m for himself from illegal drug proceeds, the prosecutor said. 

He owned several valuable properties, a collection of 22 performance and luxury vehicles – including late-model Ferrari and Lamborghini vehicles, two Mercedes-Benz and a Nissan Skyline worth around $300,000 – and other assets estimated to be worth $7m. 

While Hannett might have been strong-armed into helping the Comancheros, he also would have been motivated by the prospect of another large financial windfall from the illicit drug trade he already knew so well, Fletcher argued. 

“Mr Hannett had options, mainly going to the authorities,” Fletcher said, adding that the defendant had to know by his past involvement in the criminal underworld that just such a situation might arise. “He had a choice to make: yes or no. And he made his choice.” 

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, represented Daniel Hannett at his sentencing hearing. 

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, acknowledged his client had laundered $5m but argued it could not be proven that money was proceeds from Hannett’s own drug trafficking. 

He also argued there was no evidence his client expected any financial compensation for the 613kg import. 

Justice Jane Anderson agreed with prosecutors that the $5m in previously laundered money would have been from Hannett’s own drug offending – not from some other mystery drug trafficker he was providing a laundering service for. 

But she agreed with the defence that she couldn’t jump to an assumption that he was expecting a payout for the Comancheros scheme. 

“You were told you have no choice but to help,” the judge said. “I acknowledge the coercive power of that.” 

Scheme unravels 

Hannett pleaded guilty more than a year ago to importing methamphetamine, two counts of money laundering, a representative charge of unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition and possession of about 22g of MDMA. 

The methamphetamine charge was the most serious, carrying a maximum possible punishment of life imprisonment. 

The police National Organised Crime Group began focusing on Hannett in 2020 as part of an investigation dubbed Operation Weirton, in which they suspected him of using his freight-forwarding skills to smuggle drugs into New Zealand. 

For 18 months, police intercepted his private communications and installed covert cameras and listening devices in his homes, hotel rooms and vehicles. 

Police and Customs intercepted the more than 600kg of methamphetamine at Auckland Airport. Photo / New Zealand Police 

During that time, they uncovered evidence of his money laundering but were unable to link him directly to any drug imports. Then the Comancheros scheme unravelled. 

The day after the meeting with the Comancheros member, Hannett was recorded in intercepted conversations telling associates the gang wanted him to “smuggle shit for them”. 

He was already discussing how it would take place, he said. 

In the weeks that followed, Hannett took steps to impersonate another company that had imported edging tape in the past – creating a fake email account and forging the company director’s signature. 

The 613kg consignment, which arrived on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur, was intercepted by Customs in February 2022, becoming what was then the largest-ever methamphetamine seizure in New Zealand. 

The shipment had been listed as PVC edging tape but the drugs were instead barely disguised in tea packaging and tin foil. 

The 613kg methamphetamine shipment discovered during Operation Weirton was disguised in green tea packaging and tin foil. Photo / New Zealand Police 

Customs staff replaced the drugs with a substitute placebo, which looked and felt like methamphetamine, before being repackaged with audio and tracking devices inside. 

The shipment was released by Customs and picked up from the warehouse on March 1, 2022 by two men affiliated to the Comancheros. 

The hired van was driven to an industrial address in Weymouth, South Auckland, where five of the 27 boxes were loaded into a Nissan Navara registered to the father of a patched Comanchero. 

The vehicle was then driven to the Comanchero’s home, where they were left inside the fenceline of the property, according to police. 

At this point, Operation Weirton investigators started making arrests, including Daniel Hannett. 

34 years sought 

Numerous co-defendants have been jailed over the past year. They include: 

• Patched Comancheros member Muli Paunga, who was sentenced to seven years and six months’ imprisonment; 
• Comancheros associate and 501 deportee Bradley Wijohn, who was sentenced to 13 years, nine months and two weeks’ imprisonment, and; 
• a 36-year-old Pakuranga Heights man who was sentenced to nine years and six months’ imprisonment. He cannot currently be named for legal reasons. 

Another alleged Comancheros associate, Seni Langi, is set to be sentenced in August and a sixth defendant, Esen Pona, was acquitted at trial. 

Hooi Keat Chai is among Daniel Hannett's many co-defendants who have been sentenced for either money laundering or drug trafficking. Photo / Michael Craig 

Additionally, businessman Hooi Keat Chai was ordered to serve a sentence of two years and one month, Shen Tsyan has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and Mark Lowther has been sentenced to home detention for aiding Hannett in the earlier money laundering schemes. 

Prosecutors last week suggested Hannett’s sentence should attract a 30-year starting point for the meth charge and a four-year uplift for the other charges. Hannett’s lawyer suggested an 18-year starting point paired with significant reductions. 

Kept on a short chain 

Mansfield argued that Hannett was only aware that 200kg of methamphetamine would be smuggled – still a huge haul but significantly less than the record-breaking seizure that eventuated. That’s the amount the Comancheros member initially cited to him, according to the agreed summary of facts. 

The Crown argued that Hannett would have been aware that the shipment amount had significantly changed and still went along with it. 

That’s because he changed the weight of the shipment on the freight documents. At the very least, it was argued, he was negligent as to the increased amount. 

Crown prosecutor Ned Fletcher. Photo / Jason Oxenham 

But shipments of illicit drugs are often concealed inside other items, so the overall weight of a shipment is not necessarily evidence that Hannett knew of the increased amount, Justice Anderson determined. 

The judge also agreed with the defence that Hannett didn’t have a management role in the scheme, with no influence over others or autonomy of his own. 

It’s reasonable, she said, “that the Comancheros would have wanted to keep you on a reasonably short chain”. 

Justice Anderson ordered a 22-year starting point for the import, adjusted to 27 years when factoring in the other charges and totality. 

But with significant reductions for mitigating factors, the end sentence was six-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. 

‘Exposed to further harm’ 

The judge didn’t break down exactly how the 75% reduction was composed, but it included discounts for Hannett’s guilty pleas, the hardship prison would cause for his children, his efforts at rehabilitation and his background. 

Having lived in a violent and controlling household for part of his childhood would have made him “highly alert to threats against yourself and those close to you”, the judge said. 

She noted that since his arrest, Hannett has attended 60 hours of therapy as part of a Courage to Change course and has been lauded as a “positive example that transformation is achievable”. 

Justice Jane Anderson. Photo / Michael Craig 

Once he was recruited against his will, Hannett had little choice but to go along with it, his lawyer had emphasised prior to the decision. 

“No one is going to go to the police in Mr Hannett’s position,” Mansfield explained. “Putting yourself in that position would just be exposing himself and his family to further harm ... There can be no doubt in the suggestion that the individuals behind the importation had the means, the motivation and the history to do just that.” 

Craig Kapitan 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.