Drug mule spent more on airfares than he earned

It cost a novice drug mule more in airfares to courier methamphetamine between Auckland and Nelson than what he earned from doing the job.

Natia Tupai shed tears as events leading up to his offending were shared in court, including that he had been trying to raise money to pay for a headstone for his mother who died last year, and for whom he still deeply grieved.

Tupai appeared via video link for sentencing in the Nelson District Court on Tuesday, from where he was being held in custody.

“It would be difficult to conceive of a more vulnerable drug mule,” his lawyer Michael Vesty said.

Tupai, 39, was sentenced to 20 months in prison on a representative charge of possessing methamphetamine for supply after he was stopped by police and searched on arrival at Nelson Airport last year.

On two occasions in August and October Tupai boarded a flight from Auckland to Nelson, but it was on the October 26 late-night journey that he was found with a kilogram of meth in his luggage.

He was stopped as part of a wider police investigation into the supply of methamphetamine into the South Island.

The methamphetamine was hidden in clothing in a small bag, within a sports bag.

Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber described Tupai’s offending as having carried “significant risk with little reward”.

However, it remained a “significant piece of offending” that warranted a term of imprisonment.

Defence lawyer Michael Vesty said Tupai found himself in the “absurd” situation of not getting paid for the first time he transported meth, and then just $500 the second time.

He said the cost of the airfares for the flights exceeded what he was paid.

Vesty said Tupai’s situation and the circumstances that led to the offending were nothing short of tragic.

He said Tupai had been trying to raise money to pay for the headstone for the woman he had long considered his mother, having discovered shortly before she died last year that she was not his biological mother.

Judge Jo Rielly said in sentencing Tupai that he suffered not only from grief but also a “persistent social disadvantage” that had led to impaired life choices.

Tupai was given credit for his early guilty pleas, his remorse and his personal circumstances, leading to his final sentence of one year and eight months in prison.

He was granted leave to apply for home detention if a suitable address was found.

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