Bucket-list traveller accused of drug import
A young Hong Kong man who arrived in the country with a list of tourist activities to fulfil, including a visit to Hobbiton and bungy jumping, was later arrested for allegedly importing nearly 20kg of meth disguised beneath boxes of hot pink spatulas.
Ho Hin Wan, 24, also known by his English name Gabriel, faces one charge of importing a class A drug. He is standing trial in the High Court at Auckland before a jury and Justice Sally Fitzgerald.
Wan entered a not guilty plea yesterday via his Cantonese translator, who will be required to translate all the submissions and evidence as Wan sits in the dock.
It is alleged that Wan imported the drugs between July 9 and July 27 last year.
In her opening address, Crown prosecutor Jessica Blythe said Wan arrived at Auckland Airport last May and told immigration officials he was a tourist.
“He told them his plans,” she said. “He wanted to visit Hobbiton and go bungy jumping . . . He had a printout of things he wanted to do.”
However, instead of visiting the Lord of the Rings attraction Wan started “hunting for an office”, Blythe said.
He quickly found one on Kitchener St in Auckland’s CBD, she said, then Wan waited for instructions.
“He didn’t go to Hobbiton, he didn’t go bungy jumping . . . so what did he do? He messaged four people.”
Four men in Hong Kong were chatting over various social media apps about a “mysterious package” which was to be delivered to Wan, Blythe said.
“All five of them were very concerned about this very important package . . . Strange behaviour for a tourist you might think?”
When the package arrived it was addressed to a New Zealand kitchen supplies company and contained boxes of pink spatulas. But Blythe said Customs officers found 19.1kg of methamphetamine hidden inside.
“It’s worth a lot of money,” she said, adding that the drugs could have been worth more than $12m.
The Crown alleges Wan knew what was in the boxes and he was to collect and distribute the drugs.
She said an unnamed company in Hong Kong had paid for Wan’s flights and his living expenses.
Wan also set up a fake Facebook profile and an email address under an alias, she said. He also had two phones, one used exclusively to communicate with his Hong Kong contacts, she added.
Wan’s lawyer, Jonathan Krebs, who is assisted by Wan’s Hong Kong counsel Kim McCoy, gave a brief opening statement.
He borrowed an earlier analogy from Justice Fitzgerald — that evidence in a trial was like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
“What you’ve just heard from Ms Blythe is a beautiful painting, like the picture on the front of a jigsaw box,” he told the jury.
“It’s accepted that someone caused methamphetamine to be imported into New Zealand from Hong Kong,” he said, but added the issue was to decide how much his client knew of the package’s contents.