The secretary of the New Zealand chapter of the Comancheros motorcycle gang has been jailed for four and a half years.
Comancheros secretary Jarome Fonua was jailed for four and a half years in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
Jarome Fonua, 26, was among a dozen people arrested after a series of gang raids last April that seized $4 million worth of assets.
He pleaded guilty to participating in an organised crime group, money laundering and possession of methamphetamine two weeks out from his trial earlier this year.
Fonua was the secretary for the Comancheros; entrusted to handle large sums of cash and receiving a top of the line Range Rover valued at nearly $250,000.
At his sentencing yesterday, Justice Lang said the Australian citizen had moved to New Zealand in November 2017 to be closer to his wife and her family.
Within a short period of time he had become an active member of the Comancheros and was acting secretary for the organisation by mid 2018.
The Comancheros ran a large-scale money laundering operation in 2018 and 2019 that involved disgraced lawyer Andrew Simpson depositing sums of less than $10,000 into a trust.
Justice Lang said Fonua was involved in a $60,000 transaction in August 2018 that helped Comancheros president Pasilika Naufahu buy a house at Bucklands Beach.
Fonua also received a top of the line Range Rover valued at $239,000, bankrolled by money laundered by the organised crime group.
Justice Lang, who sat on Pasilika Naufahu and Connor Clausen's trial in October, said it was likely the money had come from drug offending as no one charged held down steady jobs.
The judge said Fonua was clearly a senior, trusted member of the Comancheros' inner circle and he had been found with 5.9 grams of methamphetamine and a money counting machine.
He jailed Fonua for four and a half years.
He will be deported to Australia when released from prison.
Comacheros vice-president Tyson Daniels was jailed for four years and eight months and Andrew Simpson jailed for two years and nine months in February.
Pasilika Naufahu and Connor Clausen will be sentenced by Justice Lang in December.