• Watesoni Nacagilevu was sentenced to prison for drug smuggling and money laundering.
• He admitted to participating in approximately $3 million in money drops, handing over duffel bags full of cash.
• Judge Kirsten Lummis allowed a substantial sentence reduction for his co-operation with police.

Church-going bank employee Watesoni Nacagilevu once featured in an online ad for ASB, showcasing his virtuousness and lamenting how he believed the media portrayed people with his cultural background.

“If not a successful athlete, you will be painted in a negative light,” the customer service officer explained. “An obstacle I faced whilst growing up was trying to not become a statistic but making a difference.”

He didn’t mention that, by that time, he was using cocaine daily as a self-described “functional addict”.

Not long after, while still working for the bank, he’d end up in the crosshairs of a major police undercover operation.

Nacagilevu was unknowingly under surveillance during clandestine meetings in supermarket garages in 2021 in which he handed over duffel bags full of drug cartel cash to other underworld figures tasked with laundering it.

He helped launder millions of dollars dating back to 2020, persuading co-workers to join in on some occasions, and helped smuggle at least 3kg of methamphetamine into New Zealand.

Watesoni Nacagilevu has been sent to prison for his offending.

A more accurate portrayal of Nacagilevu’s life emerged recently as the now 32-year-old appeared in Auckland District Court for sentencing, six years after the ad. Having since sought rehab and reflected on his mistakes, he was at peace with the inevitable prison sentence that concluded the hearing.

“The person who got arrested in June 2021 is not the same person standing before you today,” he told the packed courtroom and gallery. “There’s no excuses ... I do appreciate there’s a consequence to every action.”

In an unusual address, he thanked Judge Kirsten Lummis and the prosecutor, acknowledging that they were doing their jobs.

“Whatever happens, I understand,” he added. “I just have to wake up every day and be a better person.

“Just don’t give up on me.”

Duffel bags of cash

Nacagilevu was caught in a compromising position when Operation Worthington – a massive, months-long undercover investigation that started with a focus on money laundering but ended up busting several substantial drug syndicates as well – ended with a blitz of search warrants and more than 30 arrests across Auckland.

Inside his home, police found $235,670 in cash and a handwritten note with several addresses and tracking numbers, linking him to several large importations of methamphetamine.

Investigators also seized and searched his mobile phones, which resulted in a trove of further incriminating details.

Court documents outline in meticulous detail 11 different money drops dating back to April 2021, most of which took place as Nacagilevu parked his silver Mercedes-Benz side-by-side with a co-defendant’s car at an Auckland Central Woolworths parking garage.

Cash seized in 2021 as part of Operation Worthington.

Police identified several of the cash exchanges as being worth $350,000, while on other occasions, authorities used imprecise descriptions such as “a large duffel bag” full of cash. Nacagilevu agreed the total amount was roughly $3 million.

Nacagilevu said he was taking directions from a then-Sydney-based drug syndicate leader, to whom the drug profits allegedly belonged. That man, a New Zealander, was also charged but went missing in January. He has not yet gone to trial.

Police also outlined 16 occasions in which Nacagilevu laundered money directly for the syndicate, either through his own bank accounts or those of others he recruited.

Cash - usually in increments just below $10,000, at which point a bank is required to alert police – was deposited into individual accounts before the majority of the money was then transferred to accounts in Australia. Some transfers, under the guise of Covid relief, went to a Sydney dairy described by police as a business front for the alleged drug boss.

In August 2020, he convinced a co-worker to transfer almost $5000 even though police noted, as a bank employee, she would have been “well aware of money laundering legislation”. Another ASB employee was enlisted three months later to transfer just under $10,000.

Meat grinders and meth

In addition to the money laundering, police outlined how Nacagilevu tried to help smuggle – to varying degrees of success – methamphetamine into New Zealand via packages sent from the United States.

In May 2021, a month before his arrest, a package labelled as a meat packer arrived in New Zealand but was deemed “abandoned” after the importer was unable to provide a client code.

Investigators showed that the package’s status had been repeatedly checked by a phone linked to rapper Romney Fukofuka, who has since been sentenced to prison for an unrelated bungled import attempt at Auckland Airport. But Nacagilevu’s phone was also used.

Watesoni Nacagilevu was touted in a 2019 ASB Bank ad as a valued employee grounded in religion and culture. But he was leading a secret life, a court learned at his sentencing for helping launder an estimated $3 million for a drug syndicate. Photo / Supplied

On June 8, Nacagilevu called DHL claiming to be the listed recipient: “Susie Lou”. Susie is a Polynesian male name, not the Anglo female name one might expect, he tried to convince the employee. Investigators later retrieved the package, which was slated for destruction, and found 4kg of meth concealed inside.

Two other packages linked back to Nacagilevu were labelled as containing Baldor motors or meat choppers and were addressed to a man in Blenheim.

One was intercepted by US authorities before arriving in New Zealand. It had 5.3kg of meth concealed inside. Another made it through both countries’ borders and was delivered. Police believe it also contained at least 4kg of meth.

On Nacagilevu’s phone, police also found screenshots from an encrypted messaging app in which he instructed a co-defendant how to respond to DHL for another package later found to contain headphones, electrical components and almost 2kg of meth.

Investigators traced IP addresses for devices that had been used to check on the package’s delivery status. One was a computer used by Nacagilevu at ASB Bank.

‘Very dark position’

Nacagilevu was supported in the courtroom gallery at his sentencing by a crowd so large the hearing had to be transferred to a bigger courtroom.

“I came from a good family; I just happened to make some bad mistakes,” he said as members of his family, which includes a fellow bank employee and a lawyer, sat in the front row.

Defence lawyer Harrison Smith outside the High Court at Auckland during an unrelated trial. Photo / Jason Oxenham

He blamed “poor judgment and naivety” for getting himself into the situation and thanked the crowd for continuing to pray for him.

Defence lawyer Harrison Smith asked the judge for discounts for his client’s rehabilitation efforts, pointing to the “overwhelming support he has in the community”.

“He put himself in a very dark position,” Smith said, adding that Nacagilevu‘s addiction issues were finally addressed after his arrest, when he could no longer hide it from his family.

According to reports prepared for the hearing, Nacagilevu started drinking to excess in his teen years while experiencing homesickness and a “culture of violence” at boarding school. He was expelled after several years but later did well, including some success on the rugby pitch at Auckland Boys Grammar.

After graduation, he remained active in the community, including volunteering with youth weightlifting in South Auckland, and described having a strong Christian faith.

But at age 22, he was introduced to cocaine, he said, and by 25, he was using it every day and drinking to the point where he had blackouts. The high cost of maintaining the habit led to his offending, he said, after reconnecting with an old boarding school mate who turned out to be the alleged leader of the drug syndicate.

Smith described his client as “wilfully blind to the source of the cash” at first, although his awareness grew over time. However, the judge was sceptical.

“He was ... well-educated, working in a bank – no doubt well aware of anti-money laundering legislation,” Judge Lummis said.

Helping police

Nacagilevu faced up to life imprisonment for two counts of importing methamphetamine and 10 years for two additional counts involving unsuccessful attempts to import or possess the drug. Then there were 27 counts of money laundering, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.

The judge agreed with Crown prosecutor Daniel Becker that the defendant played a critical role in the syndicate and was well aware of the scale of the operation.

She agreed to a 12-year starting point for the drug charges, with an uplift of two years for the significant money laundering.

Auckland District Court Judge Kirsten Lummis. Photo / Alex Burton

Judge Lummis pointed out that co-defendant Samiuela Kuki, sentenced by another judge weeks earlier, had been handed an 11-year starting point but had a lesser role and laundered a fraction of what Nacagilevu had. Kuki’s end sentence, when factoring in reductions, was eight years’ imprisonment.

The judge then allowed Nacagilevu 60% in reductions, including for his guilty pleas late last year, the role drug addiction had in his offending and for his co-operation with police.

A 21-page statement he volunteered to police was not much more than “icing on the cake” given what investigators already knew from his phone and the fact all but two of the co-defendants have already pleaded guilty, the judge said. But the Crown acknowledged it was deserving of a discount of up to 20% and the judge agreed.

An end sentence of five years’ imprisonment, she said, would balance “your hopes and dreams for the future” with the need for deterrence and denunciation.

She noted that Nacagilevu was assessed as being a moderate risk of re-offending but said she believed the risk was actually lower, based on his support in the gallery and the steps he’d taken to get his life back on track.

“I expect if you continue on the positive path you are on, there is no reason you shouldn’t be released ... after completing one-third of your sentence,” she said as the hearing concluded.

Nacagilevu thanked her again, told those in the gallery that he loved them, then was escorted away to a holding cell to await transport to prison.

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.