By the time he was 25, Auckland resident Louis Hall had developed a knack for business that some might say was beyond his years.

The charismatic entrepreneur had 14 hand-picked employees who regularly sought his guidance and advice as they gathered at luxury Airbnbs throughout New Zealand. He profited off his ability to move among and make connections with diverse groups and, at his peak, the profits were pouring in so rapidly he was able to squander nearly $1 million at SkyCity Casino.

But it wasn’t until his appearance in Auckland District Court this week that his business savvy - and his many mistakes, including his decision to apply his talents to the drug trade - were made public for the first time.

Authorities say Hall, now 29, peddled unknown commercial quantities of esctasy, cannabis, methamphetamine and cocaine and, in some instances, schemed to import the drugs or raw ingredients into New Zealand for their manufacture. He pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including a representative charge of offering to supply methamphetamine punishable by up to life imprisonment, and on Monday received a sentence of 12-and a half years’ imprisonment.

“You are not a bad person,” Judge Kirsten Lummis told him, before adding with a brief, quiet chuckle that was mirrored by the defendant in the dock and his family in the courtroom gallery: “You have just made some bad choices - lots of them.”

Among Hall’s mistakes outlined in a detailed 19-page agreed summary of facts was sloppiness with his phones. One device was left behind after a brief Airbnb stay in June 2020, giving investigators a tantalising glimpse of his recent business dealings after gaining access to his encrypted messaging apps on the phone, which had a six-day auto-delete function engaged. It led to a more sweeping surveillance device warrant a few weeks later, allowing investigators to begin monitoring his phone calls.

When his home was searched at the conclusion of the investigation four months later, police examined another of Hall’s phones, finding unlocked screenshots of what would have been otherwise encrypted or deleted messages.

“Photographs on Mr Hall’s phone showed astounding quantities of controlled drugs packaged for supply and substantial quantities of cash,” the agreed summary of facts states.

Photos extracted from drug trafficker Louis Hall's phone showed "astounding quantities of controlled drugs packaged for supply", court documents state.

Hall, who used his ownership of a construction business as cover for his flashy clothes and extravagant spending, wasn’t initially on authorities’ radar. When the Police National Organised Crime Group launched Operation Cincinnati in 2020, their initial focus was another young drug trafficking boss: Seiana Fakaosilea, then just 20 years old, who had risen to the rank of acting national commander of the Comancheros after a previous drug sting had decimated the motorcycle gang’s leadership ranks.

But Operation Cincinnati branched out into a sub-investigation dubbed Operation Escondido when investigators began to uncover the extent of two other drug syndicates: Hall’s and another one operated by Ferrari-driving fellow construction boss and drug manufacturer Shuchen “Ace” Liu.

Liu pleaded guilty to a number of similar charges earlier this month alongside wife Xiuxiu Hao, who pleaded guilty to money laundering. Hall’s sentencing this week marked the end of the criminal justice process for his own syndicate, with all 14 of his underlings having previously pleaded guilty.

Seiana Fakaosilea was the leader of the Comancheros gang in 2020 when he conspired with others to import 600kg of methamphetamine into New Zealand from South Africa. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Hall, otherwise known by the nicknames “LJ” or “BopBop”, had employed his friends in the club scene to distribute drugs throughout New Zealand - primarily MDMA and cannabis - that he would obtain in bulk quantities from his other acquaintances in the criminal underworld. Although he had no gang affiliation of his own, investigators eavesdropped on him discussing dealings with the Comancheros, Head Hunters, King Cobras and Mongrel Mob at different times.

Police were listening in September 2020 as he called a director at the Ahikaa Trust, namedropping the King Cobras and confirming that “some of the boys” had smashed glass outside the residential bail facility and drug rehab centre because Hall was owed a debt.

“One of your lads owes forty thousand ... The bro just done the dirty. The bro owes me fifty thousand,” he said. “When the club’s involved it’s gonna be a hundred, you know.”

When the facility official threatened to “bounce their sorry ass back to jail”, Hall responded with a threat of his own: “All I know is that that place is gonna be swarmed with f***ing snakes [King Cobras] tomorrow if nothing is sorted.”

According to his guilty pleas, Hall offered to supply “no less than” 3kg of methamphetamine, 1kg of MDMA and 33lb of cannabis, while he sold “no less than” 53lb of cannabis and 2kg of MDMA. But authorities reiterated repeatedly in court documents that the figures they caught him discussing candidly in encrypted messaging apps represented only a “snapshot” of what his syndicate would have been capable of.

Police provided numerous examples of such snapshots.

He discussed on an Instagram message selling a kilo of MDMA for $60,000, and in a stocktake note typed on his cellphone two days later, he noted having about 2kg of MDMA total and calculated the profit if the product was to be diluted with gelatine.

Cannabis, meanwhile, was sold by the pound, with communications retrieved by police showing a 10lb sale in June 2020 for $40,000 and a 2lb sale for $8800. He revealed what authorities interpreted as a longstanding arrangement with the Mongrel Mob in July 2020 when an underling expressed nervousness about delivering 5lb to the Hamilton chapter.

“They all good, they’ll just give you cash like I always do with them,” he advised.

In an August 2020 exchange via Wickr, he asked about sourcing materials for the manufacture of methamphetamine, offered to supply “key ice 180″ [a kilogram of meth for $180,000] and suggested he was currently with a “chef” who was cooking a batch of the drug.

Authorities intercepted this photo sent to Auckland drug trafficker Louis Hall in 2020 when he offered to sell 2kg of methamphetamine for $370,000.

In an exchange with another dealer, he offered to sell 2kg of meth for $370,000. To prove he had the funds, the other man sent a photo of the cash alongside a piece of paper with Hall’s nickname scrawled across it.

Inside his home, police found a room dedicated solely to the packaging of drugs, complete with courier bags, bubble wrap and a vacuum sealing machine. He was also charged with receiving stolen property and unlawful possession of a firearm after police found a stolen Toyota Hiace van in his driveway emblazoned with advertising for his construction business.

“So I got another van,” he had been secretly recorded telling a woman earlier that month. “I got it off a gang member and I found out it’s stolen.”

Inside the van, police found a cut-down Norinco JW-15 rifle that had been fitted with a suppressor.

During Hall’s sentencing hearing this week, defence lawyer Harry Redwood acknowledged his client’s offending was more serious than anyone else in his syndicate, but he described his client as more of a methamphetamine user than a regular methamphetamine dealer.

“I acknowledge there’s a huge amount of drugs in those other offences,” he conceded, noting that the other crimes to which he pleaded guilty carry much lesser maximum terms.

Police discoverd a cut-down Norinco JW-15 rifle fitted with a suppressor while executing a search warrant at drug trafficker Louis Hall's Auckland home in October 2020. Photo / NZ Police

Redwood said Hall suffered from gambling, alcohol and substance abuse addictions which, when combined with “a series of really poor decisions”, culminated in “offending that really spiralled out of control for him”.

But Crown prosecutor Ben Kirkpatrick said the defendant knew what he was doing, pointing out he was the oldest member of his syndicate, with others in their teens or early 20s.

“He’s at the top,” Kirkpatrick said. “Everyone in the group is subservient to him.”

The prosecutor acknowledged the defendant’s background “makes pretty sad reading”, which he should receive a reduction for. But that should be tempered, Kirkpatrick said, by Hall’s audacious attempt to get back into the drug trafficking trade after he was released on bail after his Operation Escondido arrest.

Police executed a search warrant at his bail address in Grey Lynn in May 2021, seven months after the first search warrant. They found nearly $10,000 in his wallet, another vacuum sealing machine, about 8lb of cannabis and 1 gram of cocaine.

A new examination of his phone showed he had recently typed in searches including “MDMA test kit NZ”, “bug detector NZ” and “1lb in grams”. Authorities also found a lengthy discussion on the cost of a kilo of methamphetamine and a separate discussion about how to dilute cocaine with creatine.

The judge agreed with the Crown that Hall’s offending while on bail was a significant aggravating feature. For many of his co-defendants whom she had sentenced in recent years, the October 2020 arrests represented a “wake-up call” and “a significant turning point in their lives”, she said.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the case for you,” Judge Lummis added.

A photo recovered from drug trafficker Louis Hall's phone showed large amounts of cash. Photo / NZ Police

The judge noted that reports submitted to the court described Hall as charming, engaging and personable, all traits that could serve him well if he turns his life around while in prison.

“It is clear you are an intelligent young man,” Lummis said. “That has assisted you with charming others ... and to continue in your operation.”

Due to his outsized role in the operation, she ordered that he serve at least 40 per cent of the 12-and-a-half-year sentence before he can begin applying for parole. Without a minimum term of imprisonment imposed, he could have begun applying after serving one-third of the sentence.

“Would the New Zealand public think that was high enough?” she wondered aloud before determining the answer was no.

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.

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.