Comancheros trial: defense begins final argument

Defense attorneys have started addressing the jury as the four-week trial involving the president of the New Zealand Comancheros draws to a close.

Gang leader Pasilika Naufahu and her partner Connor Clausen were arrested last year following an undercover police investigation dubbed Operation Nova.

Both men are charged with conspiring to supply pseudoephedrine, a class B drug, in September 2018.

Clausen’s attorney, Simon Lance, said the jury had not heard much of his defense during the high-profile trial.

But it wasn’t because he wasn’t paying attention, he said.

It was because there was very little evidence related to his client, he said.

There was plenty of information in the case following a “long, thorough and well-resourced police investigation” that lasted 15 months.

Lance said the investigation involved plainclothes police officers like the ones in the movies.

There were also cars with microphones, intercepted calls and CCTV footage from various places, including airports and banks, he said.

“However, Mr. Connor Clausen shows up for two minutes and 19 seconds,” Lance said.

“Nothing before. Nothing after.”

Undercover video played in court today shows a meeting between a suspected drug dealer, an Australian hairdresser named He Sha and Clausen.

Sha has already been convicted and imprisoned for his actions.

What Clausen was shown doing on police surveillance video – briefly getting out of a car – was not a crime, Lance said.

There was no drug trade, he said, and there was “no mythical million dollars.”

However, seven months later, they searched Clausen’s “rather modest” home, “I’m not even sure if he owns it.”

There were no drugs, no money, no purse, Lance said.

“It seems a bit random who is accused of this operation.”

Perhaps someone associated with the name Comancheros will be charged, he suggested.

Lance took aim at the alleged drug dealer who he overheard talking to Sha in a microphone conversation saying he was probably trying to scam the latter.

“That’s why I was so distraught when the supposed pseudoephedrine didn’t come,” he said.

“It’s full of garbage. It’s a bignoter.

“I invite you to treat what he says with extreme caution.

“He is not a credible or trustworthy person.”

Earlier today, Crown Prosecutor David Johnstone said that the evidence shown to the jury about the alleged drug conspiracy included some “pretty remarkable things.”

He suggested that it was not often that police captured on video “a drug deal that was so close to completion.”

Johnstone said it was “no accident” that Clausen was there.

The Crown alleges that Clausen was supposed to hand over the money, inspect the pseudoephedrine, and take it to the president of the Comancheros.

Johnstone also told the jury that the woman at trial, who has name suppression, must have had suspicions about where the money she was depositing came from.

She faces a representative laundering charge of $ 292,496 between July and August 2018.

“It’s a strange job, isn’t it? Getting paid for depositing money,” Johnstone said.

Her defense attorney Paul Heaslip argued that she believed what she was doing was legal, as her friend (the main money manager involved) had received legal advice from Andrew Simpson.

“He [the money handler] I believed that depositing the money was fair and legal. “

He even later apologized to the woman for involving her, Heaslip said.

She was unlucky and had been offered a good pay at the time, she said.

Defense attorney Ron Mansfield is expected to close the defense case on Monday.

Represents Naufahu, who is also charged with two counts of money laundering, one regarding a Ford Ranger and the other regarding a $ 102,075 Bentley.