GOLDEN HOUR
Comanchero, Mongrel Mob figures allegedly used Anom platform
‘If you believe you can do something . . . the world is your oyster.’ — Emma Twigg, after winning gold in women’s single sculls
As the working week edged towards an end yesterday, New Zealanders wolfed down lunch before settling in to watch Emma Twigg start the single sculls final at 12.25pm.
An hour later they had something more pleasant to digest: two gold medals and a silver.
In one of the most extraordinary hours in the country’s sporting history, Twigg distanced her rivals in the single, then sat back and watched the women’s eight claim second before the men’s crew put the ultimate exclamation mark on a magnificent Olympic regatta.
In scenes reminiscent of the sepia-toned days of 1972, the men’s eight powered away at the halfway mark of their race and held off the fast-finishing Germans and Great Britain. They did so without the benefit of rest, having been forced into a repechage when they finished behind the Netherlands in their heat.
The prevailing thought was that they would be fighting for the minor medals.
“Waking up this morning I thought we could get first; I thought we could get last,” said Hamish Bond, who cemented his status on the Mt Rushmore of New Zealand Olympians.
Do not bet against Bond, no matter how big or small the boat. Driving the team on from the second seat, he crossed the line first for the third time in an Olympic final, the first New Zealander to win gold in three successive Olympics.
The 35-year-old Otagoite promptly paid tribute to the crew who raced immediately before them.
“The women’s eight, they’ve been our benchmark for the whole year. We’ve been comparing ourselves to that crew for 12 months,” Bond said. “If we could get up to that benchmark, we’d be in with a show.”
That eight, who included newly minted doubles gold medallists Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler, finished second, just falling short of overhauling the Canadian crew in an epic battle.
Even Bond would concede, however, that the eights weren’t even the best story of the day.
That would belong to Twigg, so long the brilliant but luckless face of the sport. A five-time world championship medallist, dating back to Lake Karapiro in 2010, and a world champion in 2014, Twigg’s Olympic odyssey has been a hard-luck chronicle.
Sixth as a neophyte in 2008, she had high hopes of a medal in London but got caught in the wrong lane in a final buffeted by crosswinds. Four years later she capped off a disrupted, fractious campaign by again finishing fourth, this time just .35s off the dais.
Twigg promptly retired from the sport, lamenting: “It’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life that I won’t be an Olympic champion, which is a dream I’ve had since I was a young girl”.
Even in retirement, as she worked for the International Olympic Committee, a small part of that dream refused to die.
Twigg, 34, came back to the sport two years ago with a new, more balanced philosophy on life and sport that she credits to her “beautiful wife” Charlotte.
Just a few hundred metres down Tokyo’s Sea Forest Waterway it became apparent the next chapter of her story would be an uplifting one.
She blitzed Russia’s Hanna Prakatsen and Magdalena Lobnig with boat lengths to spare but having become so used to crushing disappointment, Twigg looked like she could not process the moment. There was no outside show of elation, just bone-deep exhaustion and gratitude to those who helped her there.
“She came into the squad at the same time as me,” Bond noted. “To see her overcome adversity, to have the perseverance to come back and win a gold medal, I’m so pleased for her.”
The final word on one of the greatest New Zealand hours of sport has to go to Twigg.
“I would say to anyone that has had a little bit of failure, keep at it.”
Wise words indeed — be like Emma. As if the day couldn’t get any better, superstar-in-the-making David Nyika guaranteed himself a medal by winning his heavyweight boxing quarterfinal and the doubles pair of Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell won bronze in the tennis.
Yes, tennis. It was that sort of day.
The identities of the senior Comanchero and Waikato Mongrel Mob gang members alleged to be running the New Zealand branch of an international drug smuggling syndicate can now be revealed.
Junior Heart and Josef Armani Heart, both 32, were arrested in June as part of the so-called “sting of the century”. Operation Trojan Shield, a global investigation led by the FBI and the Australian Federal Police, led to hundreds of arrests around the world.
Name suppression lapsed yesterday for the two men, who each face more than 100 charges including importing and distributing methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA.
In Operation Trojan Shield, law enforcement agencies tricked alleged organised figures around the world into using Anom, an encrypted communication platform, on which they believed they could talk to each other freely.
In reality, Anom had been built by the FBI and AFP, and investigators were watching as every word was typed.
The intelligence was shared with a dozen countries, including New Zealand, and dovetailed with an ongoing police investigation into large-scale drug smuggling allegedly linked to the Comancheros motorcycle gang.
This morphed into two other parallel inquiries in which police targeted a group of Head Hunters in Auckland and an alleged alliance between the Comancheros and the Waikato Mongrel Mob.
The leader of the Waikato Mongrel Mob, Sonny Fatupaito, says his chapter is staunchly against drugs and strenuously denied any alliance with with the Comancheros.
There are however, family links between individuals in the two gangs.
On top of the serious drug and money laundering charges, Junior and Josef Heart are alleged to have participated in an organised criminal group with several others including Dwight Percival Fatu, 50, who is Junior Heart’s father.
Dwight Fatu has also been charged with possession of methamphetamine to supply and other drug charges.
The allegations are unproven and the trio have pleaded not guilty.
Dwight Fatu is Sonny Fatupaito’s brother, and his son Junior Heart used to be called Sonny Fatu Junior, in honour of his uncle. But he changed his name after defecting from the Waikato Mongrel Mob to the Comancheros along with his father about two years ago.
Junior Heart is now the president of the Waikato chapter of the Comancheros. His close friend is Josef Heart, who recently changed his name from Joe Edmonds, and a member of the Waikato Mongrel Mob.
He was raised as a son by Sonny Fatupaito, who was married to Heart’s mother.
“This is painful, it cuts deep, it hurts because it’s more than just people I know of, it is also family like all families, it’s for better or worse, no matter what we all might hope for,” Fatupaito said of the allegations against his relatives.
“The lapsing of name suppression will be seen as validation to accusations to simply reinforce what many hoped for, accusations which scapegoat a far wider problem that is being ignored by politicians to society’s ultimate peril.
Fatupaito said he could not comment further as the matter was before the court.
The police in Operation Equinox, the New Zealand police investigation that dovetailed with the FBI’s sting, allege that Junior and Josef Heart were the senior partners at the top of a local drug empire with global links.
The “Heart brothers” have been charged with participating in an organised criminal group with several others, including Duax and Shane Ngakuru, both of whom live overseas.
Duax Ngakuru is a New Zealand citizen who left Australia in 2010 to live in Turkey where he has allegedly conspired to import large quantities of methamphetamine and MDMA into New Zealand.
He is a close friend of Hakan Ayik, a high priority target of the Australian Federal Police in Operation Trojan Shield.
Undercover agents gave Ayik the encrypted Anom app, marketed as an uncrackable way of communicating, and he walked into the trap set by the AFP and FBI.
Ayik shared the Anom app with his alleged criminal network, allowing law enforcement around the world to monitor every conversation and collect alleged evidence of international drug deals.
One of those alleged to have spread the Anom word on Ayik’s behalf was another New Zealander, Shane Ngakuru.
A cousin of Duax Ngakuru, Shane Ngakuru is believed to be living in Thailand and is wanted by the FBI as an alleged distributor of the Anom devices.
He allegedly received payments for the $2000 six-month subscription fees and was able to remotely delete and reset devices, as well as communicate with the administrators of the encrypted platform.
Anom was marketed as “designed by criminals for criminals” with, according to the FBI, the purpose of facilitating global drug trafficking and money laundering without being detected by law enforcement.
By allegedly playing such an important role in distribution and technical support, Shane Ngakuru has been charged as part of the so-called “ANoM Enterprise” under the US antiracketeering legislation.
The FBI considers Shane Ngakuru a “fugitive”. If arrested and convicted in the United States he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
If he was ever arrested, Ngakuru, 41, would face charges in New Zealand of importing methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA into the country.
He also faces charges of drug conspiracy, money laundering and participating in an organised criminal group.
A well-known entertainer, who has name suppression, has been charged with conspiracy to money launder $6 million on behalf of the Ngakurus.