Comancheros: Man who bought car for vice president of gangs receives community detention

A man who admitted to buying a $ 215,000 car on behalf of the vice president of the Comancheros gang was sentenced to six months in community detention.

Ron Junior Amani previously admitted to a money laundering charge in connection with the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz vehicle for Tyson Daniels.

Earlier on Wednesday, the gang’s “drug dealer” Connor Michael Tamati Clausen was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for his involvement in a large-scale money and drug laundering operation.

Clausen was found guilty of conspiring to supply pseudoephedrine along with gang president Pasilika Naufahu.

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One woman, who has name suppression, was sentenced to 175 hours of community service after being found guilty of laundering nearly $ 300,000 for the Comancheros, which was used to buy luxury cars.

Judge Graham Lang convicted the trio in Auckland High Court on Wednesday.

They were arrested, along with 18 others, following a series of raids in Auckland in April 2019, in which more than $ 3.7 million in assets were seized along with luxury cars, motorcycles, luxury luggage and jewelry.

The police investigation focused on the supply of controlled drugs by the New Zealand chapter of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club.

Clausen was also sentenced on firearms charges, including the illegal possession of a pistol and a pump-action shotgun.

On Wednesday, Amani told the court that she did not know Daniels was a gang member after they became friends at a gym.

He thought Daniels was a successful businessman and was impressed by his wealth and the “luxury cars” he drove, Amani said.

In May 2019, a month after Daniels was arrested along with other comancheros, he asked Amani to put his name on the car’s purchase and sale agreement.

In hindsight, Amani said he should have asked Daniels where the funds came from.

“It was me being silly and dumb.”

Maria Pecotic asked Judge Lang to fire her “naive” client without conviction.

“There is nothing to suggest that he received any payment for this … or was involved in any gang,” Pecotic said.

But Crown Prosecutor Emma Smith said Amani sought to downplay her involvement and that her evidence of not knowing about Daniels’ lifestyle was not credible.

Judge Lang refused to fire Amani without conviction, saying he must have appreciated that the money was derived from a crime.

“The fact that you were prepared to act as a buyer put a barrier between the merchant and Mr. Daniels … that was important since Mr. Daniels had been arrested in April 2019 and would have known that the police were investigating his movements of close, ”Judge Lang said.

Judge Lang sentenced him to six months in community detention, subject to a curfew between 7 pm and 7 am, and ordered him not to contact any co-defendants or any member of the comancheros.

Clausen was a ‘messenger’

At trial, the Crown’s case was that Clausen was the one who delivered the money, inspected the pseudoephedrine, and returned it to Naufahu, either to make methamphetamine or simply to sell it.

The Crown said Clausen must have been trusted by those higher up in the gang with a lot of money.

At the trial, a video was reproduced, taken by the police, showing the brother of a man who, according to the Crown, is at the “heart of the case” and an Australian hairdresser meeting with Clausen.

The hairdresser, He Sha, was jailed earlier this year after admitting he crossed the Tasman to sell pseudoephedrine in a botched $ 1 million deal.

However, “there was no drug trade,” said Clausen’s attorney, Simon Lance.

“His role was fleeting.”

Clausen was simply the passenger and was not “very informed” about the deal, Lance told the court.

Judge Lang accepted that Clausen’s role was that of “messenger” or “runner.”

“His obligation was to bring the money to the place and take the drugs,” the judge said.

Judge Lang gave Clausen discounts from his sentence because he was left with little family support after being deported from Australia and was “inevitably taken to the Comancheros” out of friendship.

Cash drops

The woman, who faced a representative laundering charge of $ 292,496, was far more interested in taking “relatively easy money” than in investigating where it came from, the Crown said at trial.

Numerous intercepted calls between a man, said to be handling cash, and the woman were reproduced at trial, as well as videos of the couple breaking into various Auckland banks.

“We’re going to work tomorrow, honey,” the man says on one of the calls before asking him to bring his ID to the bank.

Judge Lang said the man persuaded the woman to help her with cash deliveries on four occasions in 2018, during a time when she was “particularly vulnerable” and suffered from mental health problems.

She only received around $ 2000 in cash for her efforts.

“It is no wonder the jury concluded that they should have suspected the funds came from illegal sources and chose to continue anyway,” Judge Lang told him.

Naufahu and his brother Vetekina will be convicted of their crime in 2021.

Earlier this year, Jarome Fonua, the gang’s secretary, attorney Andrew Simpson, and the gang’s vice president, Tyson Daniels, were jailed after admitting their involvement in the operation.

A media personality, who has name suppression, and accountant Wiwini Himi Hakaraia were originally charged, however their charges were formally released mid-trial.