20/01/2022
An Auckland woman will spend three years behind bars for her role in New Zealand’s biggest illegal cigarette smuggling operation after bringing in more than 19 million cigarettes into the country with her husband.
Hua Yi Zhu was sentenced at the Auckland District Court by Judge Evangelos Thomas on Thursday for defrauding Customs of more than $18.7 million in tobacco revenue.
Zhu and her husband Yi Zhi Hu can also be named for the first time.
According to court documents previously released to Stuff, Customs launched Operation Whitehorn after being tipped off by an anonymous caller to Crimestoppers.
The caller identified a Chinese man who had a large amount of cigarettes for sale.
Customs investigators tracked the man and set up a surveillance operation.
Yi Zhi Hu was sentenced in 2020 to five years and three months imprisonment after admitting smuggling cigarettes in shipping containers from China, using their legitimate furniture business as cover.
Eventually Customs officers followed Hu to a suburban street in Auckland where he was seen picking up boxes of cigarettes from his supplier, the businessman.
Investigators learned the businessman had rented storage facilities at Kennards in Three Kings and Safestore in Onehunga, Auckland.
Armed with a search warrant, customs officers searched the Kennards storage unit. Inside they found steel office cupboards. Some were full of cigarettes and others were partially full.
When investigators pulled the CCTV footage from the storage facility, they found the supplier had removed more than 330 boxes of cigarettes over a four-month period in 2018.
Customs records show that the man’s company imported 133 shipping containers since August 2015. They claimed the containers contained office furniture. None of the Customs consignment documents mentioned cigarettes.
Customs investigations manager Cam Moore said Operation Whitehorn has been the largest ever cigarette smuggling operation in New Zealand.
“This is the latest conviction in a string of successful Customs investigations into large-scale illicit tobacco and money laundering.
“This final sentencing shows that Customs will take every effort to disrupt the illicit trade in cigarettes and seize criminal proceeds. We are fully focused on disrupting and dismantling criminal networks in the tobacco black market.”
The police’s Asset Recovery Unit has also seized more than $5.5m in cash, bank accounts, property and vehicles.