The cup, the capStain and the cocaine
After retiring from topflight rugby, Alamoni Liava’a became an international drug smuggler – at the forefront of an axis of crime and corruption in Tonga. Tony Wall, Blair Ensor and photographer David White tracked him to a ramshackle home in a forgotten
TO find Alamoni Liava’a you have to drive to the remote western tip of Tongatapu, Tonga’s main island.
Near the small village of Fahefa, a hidden track leads into the bush. A nun from a nearby monastery gives directions to ‘‘Moni’s’’ place – it involves driving over a rutted taro field and past a cemetery with a lone grave.
On top of a small hillock, surrounded by palm trees and fields of crops, there’s a modest hut made from timber offcuts and sheets of corrugated iron.
A man wearing spectacles lies on a bed reading an Elmore Leonard crime novel. He’s wearing a tatty singlet that shows off his physique.
Unlike some of his contemporaries from the 1987 Rugby World Cup, Epalahame Liava’a, commonly known as Alamoni or simply Moni, shows no signs of middle-age spread.
We tracked Liava’a down as part of an investigation into drug smuggling, passport fraud and corruption in Tonga.
He’s 58 and has quite a story to tell, but he’s never told it. He’s writing an autobiography, which may or may not have a life beyond the Tongan jungle. ‘‘I’m up to 83,’’ he says. ‘‘Page 83?’’ ‘‘No, 1983.’’ That would mean he’s almost up to the bit where he was made captain of the Tongan rugby team.
Liava’a was from a highly respected family – his older brother Sione was chairman of Tonga’s Public Service Commission until his death in October – and was educated at Auckland Grammar.
He was accomplished at league, volleyball and boxing, but made his mark in rugby, playing for Tonga throughout the 1980s.
As the first World Cup approached, some of the older guys came out of retirement, so Liava’a was demoted to vicecaptain. Tonga had the oldest (38) and youngest (18) players at the tournament.
‘‘We didn’t have a good team. If you watch the World Cup, the first game against Canada we got shoved back like little kids.’’
Liava’a played one more season after the World Cup, then retired. Unlike today’s professional players, who can leverage their fame to build lucrative post-rugby careers, men of Liava’a’s era often struggled when they hung up their boots.
He washed up at a petrol station in South Auckland.
In 1993, his life changed forever when he got involved with some old Tongan school friends who’d become cocaine traffickers in Hawaii.
At first, he brought the cocaine to New Zealand strapped to his body, then he came up with the idea of stuffing it inside yams.
Tonga wasn’t on the radar as a gateway for drugs at the time.
‘‘We put ounces of cocaine in plastic tubes and carved out the inside of the yams and stuck them in there and put them back together,’’ says Liava’a matter-offactly as he sucks on a cigarette made from home-grown tobacco.
‘‘If I was richer I would have bribed a pilot or an air hostess or something.’’
News reports from the time say Liava’a brought 4.5kg of cocaine with a street value of $5 million into New Zealand.
He admits it was easy money, but scoffs at the suggestion he got rich. ‘‘You gotta be in drugs at least a year and a half, two to make any kind of big bucks.’’
He made four shipments before New Zealand police got wind of the operation through phone taps.
A drug squad sergeant who’d played rugby with Liava’a recognised the nickname ‘‘Ali’’ mentioned in phone conversations and Liava’a was put under surveillance.
‘‘He followed me for six months from Auckland, Hawaii, Tonga – he said after I was caught, ‘I was at the back of the plane all the time, reading my newspaper, watching you’.’’
He received 12 years’ jail and served about a third of the sentence before being deported back to Tonga.
‘‘I went to prison when my daughter was three and my son was one. There is one thing I regret – not having the time to walk my kids to school.’’
His ex-wife and children remain in New Zealand, and he sees them when they make the occasional trip to Tonga.
‘‘I send them food, they send me some things, clothes and things, we talk, text. I miss them.’’
His life now is about as basic as it gets. He has no electricity or running water – cooking over an open fire and washing in rainwater he collects in a drum.
He grows food and if he’s having a party with friends, he might throw one of his dogs on the umu. ‘‘It’s better than pork.’’
Every couple of weeks, when he wants to go to Nuku’alofa to have some beers with his mates, he’ll walk a few miles to catch the bus.
‘‘I like it here,’’ he says. ‘‘I just want peace and quiet. It’s not expensive, I don’t pay rent, it’s family land. It’s much better than Mt Eden prison.’’
He has no desire to go back to Auckland.
‘‘I’ve got no skills for a job – I’d probably end up doorman at a nightclub and get back into drugs again – I don’t wanna do that.’’