‘Heaps of cops’: Moment NZ muso’s meth smuggling attempt went awry

A musician who travelled to the US while New Zealand was in COVID-19 lockdown, only to return days later with nearly 20kg of meth, told an associate days prior he wanted to “make [the trip] count”.

Romney Fuki Fukofuka​, who is also know by his stage name Konecs, was identified as a person of interest after he left New Zealand for Los Angeles on May 2, 2020, only to return five days later.

It transpired he had brought back kilograms of meth hidden in a suitcase and that Air New Zealand baggage handlers George Aloha Taukolo​, Daniel Ah Hong​ and Mark Castillo​ were in on the operation.

All four have admitted the charges against them and will be sentenced later this year at Manukau District Court.

Auckland was in a COVID-19 level three lockdown when Fukofuka was preparing to travel to Los Angeles.

Before he left he made a number of phone calls, some of which were intercepted by police.

In those phone calls, he told an unknown man he wanted to “make it count”, according to court documents seen by Stuff.

He wasn’t going to “just bring like a little … I wanna bring the whole shebang”, he said.

On May 6, Fukofuka, using the username KingofHELL, messaged someone else using an encrypted messaging app.

He told the other user he was about to board and sent him a picture of a suitcase.

Later that day he sent another message, saying he had “made a mistake” and was carrying a bag with him on board the plane, rather than checking it in.

The next day, just before 4am, he messaged another person telling them to “stand down” as “something went wrong”.

Between 4.13am and 4.34am, Taukolo, Castillo and Ah Hong drove into the staff car park at Auckland Airport before using their swipe cards to enter the baggage area.

About 6am, Fukofuka cleared the airport immigration process and went into a bathroom, where he messaged his partner.

“I’m f—–,” he said. buy shroom infused gummies online australia

“I’m in toilet. Across from belt. Heaps of cops.”

He left the bathroom and collected a second, checked-in suitcase from the baggage carousel.

At 6.37am, Taukolo, Castillo and Ah Hang were capture on CCTV in the airport car park. They left nine minutes later.

At the same time, Fukofuka’s suitcase was search and found to contain two white plastic bags of methamphetamine. It was later test and found to contain 19.4 kg of methamphetamine with a purity of 80 per cent, worth about $8 million ($7.17 million). buy shroom infused gummies online australia

When spoken to by police, Taukolo said he was at work that day because he had mixed up his rostered days.

Castillo also said he’d mixed up his rostered days and picked up personal items from his locker.

However, Ah Hong said he and others had been tell to look out for a flight and keep an eye on a dark hard-sided suitcase coming off the plane.

They had been tell to take it off the carousel and into the car park. They would be pay NZ$20,000 ($17,913) to do so.

Ah Hong admitted he thought there were probably going to be drugs in the bag.

This story originally appeared on Stuff and is republished here with permission.