Maple syrup meth bust: Three defendants found guilty for part in one of NZ’s biggest raids

Monday, 30 June 2025

Hide methamphetamine in maple syrup bottles, send them to New Zealand, and sell a record-breaking amount of the Class A drug.

That would have been a great plan, but it failed after Customs investigators noticed something sticky about the shipment. What they found, among hundreds of maple syrup bottles, was crystals of methamphetamine hidden in the bottom - 713kg, in fact, worth about $250 million.

Now, three people have been found guilty for their roles in New Zealand’s biggest meth bust.

Wenfu Zhang was found guilty of importing the Class A drug but not guilty of attempting to possess it for supply.

Tayzel Tini and Liam Prasad were also found guilty of possessing methamphetamine for supply.

Robert Talati was found not guilty. Justice Simon Mount discharged Talati while convicting the other three on the charges they were found guilty of.

The trio were remanded to be sentenced on September 5.

The maple syrup

On January 14, 2023, a container with 18 pallets of maple syrup from Canada arrived at the Ports of Auckland.

A senior Customs officer was working that day and had been tasked with putting the pallets through an X-ray. While some of the pallets contained legitimate bottles of maple syrup, she noticed anomalies with a number of the bottles.

Taking a closer look, she noticed some bottles were dirty and had been tampered with. The bottoms of those bottles were cut open and inside the officer found stones and a bag containing 1kg of white crystals. A narcotics test would later reveal those white crystals were methamphetamine.

In total, 713kg of methamphetamine was found inside the tampered bottles.

In a joint investigation between Customs and Police, codenamed Operation Regis, two controlled deliveries were planned.

Pallets 1 to 10 were to delivered to “Bruce Hu” at a Dominion Rd address. The Crown said this was Wenfu Zhang’s alias.

Meanwhile, the remainder of the pallets were to be delivered to a Helensville address, to “Tom”, an alias for Andy Tuumaga. Tuumaga is currently serving a lengthy jail sentence after admitting his part in importing and possessing the Class A drug.

Tuumaga had arrived in New Zealand only the day before the methamphetamine shipment arrived and was set to make $600,000 for his role.

On February 7, Patrick Chand - who has also admitted his part in the bust - went to the Helensville property to carry out reconnaissance.

The next day, he arrived with Talati, Prasad and Tini.

Lawyers for the trio said they weren’t aware they were going to be unboxing bottles of maple syrup containing methamphetamine.

But the prosecution said each of the men either knew about the methamphetamine, were reckless or wilfully blind.

Talati told police he’d been asked to help a mate move some rubbish and Prasad said he’d been asked to help work on cars.

What they didn’t know was that police were watching and listening.

At 12.15pm, a truck dropped off the pallets, with one of the men using a forklift.

Soon after, the men began opening the boxes of maple syrup.

“Now it’s game time, boys,” said one.

Some more rustling can be heard.

“It could be any of these, eh… oh, not all of them have it,” one defendant said.

Then, “We’re on… cracked it.”

Police then swooped in and arrested the four, finding an assortment of tools spread out.

The next day, Wenfu Zhang was arrested at Dominion Rd, where he’d been waiting for what the Crown said was his share of the pallets.

Zhang, who had been going by the name Bruce Hu, had contacted the broker.

Hu told police when he was arrested that he was to be paid $2000 for receiving and storing the consignment, but he denied he knew it was methamphetamine.

But Zhang’s lawyer, Graeme Newell, told the jury his client did not, in any way, cause the drugs to be introduced into the country.

“Any role he did play in relation to that shipment of maple syrup… he did without the knowledge it contained drugs… let alone 118kg of methamphetamine.”

Newell said Zhang had previously imported uncustomed cigarettes and fake designer bags, but not methamphetamine.

Newell said when police arrested Zhang they took him to Burger King, where he volunteered information and showed them emails.

The Crown said evidence confirmed Zhang’s knowledge of the importation, including photos of a white crystal substance on his phone, a hand holding stacks of cash and someone weighing a bag of methamphetamine.

“Mr Zhang was knowingly assisted with the importation of pallets,” prosecutor Kristy Li said.

Shane Tait, who acted on behalf of Tini, told the jury in closing that his client was naive and it was Chand’s venture.

Talati’s lawyer, Kat Hamblin, said her client turned up for a cash job to remove rubbish and he wasn’t lying to police when he said that.

Talati turned up wearing high-vis work gear.

“Finding the brightest clothing possible to wear to collect meth from pallets is not something someone would do… not what you would wear to a stealth operation,” Hamblin said.

Prasad’s lawyer, Oscar Hintze, echoed what the other lawyers said, and went on to say it was Chand who was the one deeply entrenched in the drug world and had set them up.

“Mr Prasad is so naive… he turns up with five different forms of ID… if you’re going to unload half-a-tonne of meth, would you take all this with you?”

All the lawyers said their clients did not have any control of the methamphetamine, but the Crown disagreed.

The prosecutor said the case was straightforward and the jury could conclude, based on the evidence, that each of the defendants were knowingly involved.

“No one is saying they are the masterminds of the large international operation but each defendant is guilty for the charges they face,” she said.