The former acting national commander of the Comancheros motorcycle gang has been sentenced to 13 years and two months’ prison for leading a large-scale commercial drug operation that included an audacious but most likely failed conspiracy to import a 600kg haul of methamphetamine into New Zealand.

Seiana Fakaosilea, 22, and three co-defendants smiled and waved to family members in the High Court at Auckland today as they arrived for the sentencing hearing before Justice Neil Campbell.

Fakaosilea and Richard Pelikani were found guilty by a jury in August of the 600kg methamphetamine scheme, which police described as a plan to smuggle drugs worth roughly $90 million from a supplier in South Africa. Prosecutors said during the trial that they don’t know if the meth ever made its way to New Zealand, but simply trying to put the plan in motion is a criminal offence.

Prosecutor Robin McCoubrey acknowledged today that the facts of the case made for an unusual sentencing scenario.

 “It’s not easy to know exactly how to approach that,” he told Justice Campbell. “There’s no evidence the conspiracy got very far, but in terms of its scale it’s vast.”

Lawyers for Fakaosilea and Pelikani argued that importing such a huge quantity of the drug was never realistic. There was no evidence that the methamphetamine ever existed at all, said Fakaosilea’s lawyer, Jasper Rhodes, suggesting that the defendants might have been scammed.

“Six-hundred kilos of nothing is nothing,” added lawyer Scott McColgan, who represents Pelikani. “This was a plan in its infancy - it was embryonic.

“There was one phone call. It never featured again in an almost 12-month operation.”

But regardless of whether it was achievable, the conspiracy was “genuine”, prosecutors insisted.

The duo was arrested alongside many others in 2020 at the end of Operation Cincinnati, a months-long police investigation into the distribution of meth and ecstasy by the Comancheros in Auckland and the Rebels gang in Christchurch.

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Investigators had obtained a High Court judge’s permission to bug suspects’ phones and place listening devices in vehicles. In March that year, Fakaosilea was driving through Auckland in his Toyota Corolla when authorities listened in on a conversation between him and Jie Huang - a co-defendant who is yet to be sentenced - during which “600 keys” were mentioned.

Although their conversation was jilted and in code, the two were discussing plans to import the 600kg of methamphetamine from South Africa and an unknown amount from Fiji, prosecutors argued.

Police never intercepted any such shipments.

In addition to the conspiracy charges, Fakaosilea was found guilty of one count of possession of methamphetamine for supply. Jurors found him not guilty of two other drug charges. He also pleaded guilty to four counts of supplying a Class A drug, one count of possession of a Class A drug and one count of possession of methamphetamine for supply.

Pelikani, who also pleaded guilty to possession of a Class A drug for supply, was sentenced today to four years and eight months’ prison.

Richard Pelikani has been found guilty of conspiring with others to import 600kg of methamphetamine from South Africa. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Justice Campbell declined to order minimum terms of imprisonment for the two, noting that they already faced lengthy prison stays before they would be eligible for parole.

“You are both relatively young and you have prospects at rehabilitation,” he said.

Two other co-defendants appearing in court today for sentencing, Diamond Shaquille Katoa and Rhakim Eneliko Mataia, avoided trial in August when they pleaded guilty the same day the trial was set to begin.

Katoa admitted to three counts of possession of methamphetamine for supply in Christchurch and was sentenced to four years and nine months’ prison. Mataia, a former Australian resident who returned to New Zealand as a 501 deportee, pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine for supply, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. He was sentenced to five years and three months’ prison.

Authorities said they participated in three drug runs to Christchurch in which commercial quantities of methamphetamine were delivered to the Rebels motorcycle gang.

In determining the sentences, Justice Campbell noted a theme regarding the childhoods of all four men. They suffered “seriously dysfunctional” upbringings that included poverty, family violence and parental abandonment.

Fakaosilea, he noted, grew up in Australia as the youngest of seven children. He was essentially raised by his older siblings and looked up to one of his brothers, the judge said.

“He was a very poor role model,” the judge said of the brother, noting that when Fakaosilea was expelled from school at age 13 his bother encouraged him into gangs.

His brother was deported to New Zealand in 2016 and Fakaosilea, just 16, decided to follow him. He joined the Comancheros in 2018 and began swiftly climbing the ranks.

Police made multiple arrests and seized drugs and cash as part of Operation Cincinnati in late 2020. Photo / Supplied

Mataia, too, was raised in Australia after moving to Sydney in 2008 at age 13. He dropped out of school at age 15 and started committing robberies with friends, resulting in his deportation to Christchurch in 2018 with no money and few connections, the judge said.

In the absence of a real family, he turned to the Comancheros and became “essentially a foot soldier” in the drug scheme, his lawyer said.

Pelikani, who was described as a high-ranking member of the drug syndicate, had his first interaction with police at age 12 and many others followed, the judge said. He spent years being shuffled around to various family members’ homes, sometimes living on the streets, but was influenced by a cousin who has returned from the United States after heavy involvement in gangs.

Pelikani has twice been to prison, including for a gang fight in which he was convicted of assault on a police officer, and described incarceration as “feeling like a second home”. But he provided the judge with a letter described as “a genuine desire to improve your life”.

Katoa, who got involved with drugs and the Comancheros after serving a prison sentence for aggravated robbery, also provided a letter saying he wanted to turn over a new leaf.