NZ police officer gives evidence

A COVERT surveillance by New Zealand police witnessed Joshua Rahman and his father, Tallat Rahman, leaving a hotel in Auckland with a black bag containing cash from the sale of methamphetamine.

This, according to a senior sergeant in the NZ police force, Damian Espinosa, who gave evidence via Skype yesterday before judge Justice Daniel Goundar.

He said Tallat met an individual named Mr Timu on December 22 2018 at the hotel and later that evening, both Tallat and Joshua were seen leaving the hotel with the black bag which had contained cash from the sale of methamphetamine from the first consignment of drugs which had arrived into New Zealand from the United States on December 9 2018.

He said Tallat later handed the bag to an individual known as Hui Wang.

Both Timu and Wang had pleaded guilty to the crime of importing methamphetamine.

He said there was a second consignment of drugs which arrived into New Zealand and Tallat pleaded guilty to this.

He told the court that when Tallat left New Zealand, he left an unregistered phone which was used by Joshua.

He also said during investigations, the New Zealand Police had asked its Fijian counterparts to extract information from the phone of another person of interest, Samuel Veisovaraki, who was later identified to go by the name “white”.

Analysis by New Zealand Police of Veisovaraki’s phone found another person of interest, Guiseppe Mangolini, known as “karate”.

He also revealed that the unregistered phone belonging to Tallat and which had been used by Joshua in New Zealand, had been seized from another member of the drug syndicate.

Tallat had pleaded guilty to certain offences in New Zealand which consisted of four charges of importing methamphetamine purely to New Zealand.

Mr Rahman will give evidence today.

He is accused of possessing cocaine worth more than $30 million in February 2019 in Caubati.

The trial continues today.