The $10m man: How a man on a boat moored in Whangaroa Harbour was in talks with one of the world’s most feared Mexican drug cartels

They are one of the world’s most feared criminal organisations, using extreme violence to become, according to the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) “one of the highest-priority transnational organised crime threats we face”.

They are Mexico’s Cartel De Jalisco Nueva​ Generation (CJNG), and from a yacht berthed in Whangaroa Harbour, Tangaroa Demant​ was negotiating with them to bring 200kg of cocaine into New Zealand via the Port of Tauranga.

Now, thanks to an interview with the officer in charge of Operation Tarpon, and reams of court documents relating to the nine men arrested for their roles in the plot, Stuff can reveal how a cartel led by a man with a $10m reward for his capture attempted to land what would have been, if intercepted, the second largest cocaine haul in New Zealand history.

For Detective Inspector Albie​ Alexander, field crime manager of the National Organised Crime Group, it began with a tip off from New Zealand Police liaison officers overseas.

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They had “received information on intercepted drug importations from Mexico via the USA and Australia”.

That directed them to Whangaroa Harbour, and the yacht “Good Times”.

It was from there between December 2020 and April 2021 that Demant was using encrypted communications devices to negotiate with CJNG.

Not that his whānau knew.

According to court documents relating to one of Demant’s co-conspirators, Angel Gabriel Gavito Alverado, Demant “created a fictional story about being overseas sailing for an extended period to mislead his family and friends as to his whereabouts”.

Court documents described Alverado as “the New Zealand based representative of the Mexican drug suppliers”, and Alexander said he was “the interface between Mexico and the New Zealand based groups”.

“He arranged the shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine and sent money back to Mexico.”

It was for sending $20,000 from his Westpac account to a Cartel-linked bank account in Mexico, plus charges of possession of methamphetamine for supply and conspiracy to import methamphetamine, that he was jailed for three years and eight months in November last year.

Alexander said Alverado arrived in New Zealand in February 2019 on a work visa, coming to the attention of Operation Tarpon in January 2021.

He said it remains unclear whether his arrival in New Zealand was “with the express intention of being the Mexican drug suppliers representative in New Zealand or if this situation developed over time”.

Alverado was jailed for three years and eight months back in November 2022, and will be deported on his release.

Alexander said that while he was indeed the cartel’s man on the ground, Demant had other ways of contacting the CJNG.

“The initial contact appears to have been through Demant’s associates who had existing connections with Mexican drug suppliers,” he said.

“Demant then commenced communicating with the Mexican drug suppliers using encrypted applications.”

Alexander said that almost all drug dealing and exporting in Mexico is facilitated, or sanctioned, by the cartels.

“Intelligence suggests the Mexican group was linked to the Cartel De Jalisco Nueva Generation [CJNG].”

According to the DEA, CJNG was formed in 2011 and has become “one of the fastest growing transnational criminal organisations in Mexico, and among the most prolific methamphetamine producers in the world”.

Its boss, Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, or ‘El Mencho​’, currently has a $10m reward for information leading to his arrest.

The DEA said CJNG rose to power thanks to its “disciplined command and control, sophisticated money laundering techniques, efficient drug transportation routes, and extreme violence”.

“The cartel has also expanded globally, with significant presence and illicit business not only throughout the United States and Mexico, but also Europe, Asia and Australia.”

Mexico Today’s Vanda Felbab-Brown outlined CJNG’s modus operandi as “to be more ostentatiously violent than anyone else around”.

“CJNG’s penchant for brazenness also manifests itself in its showcase public executions and frequent displays of its firepower and sophisticated weaponry: Its heavy assault weapons mostly outmatch the arms and equipment that Mexican police and National Guard have.”

She also said that they were looking beyond the Americas to both Europe “and the Asia-Pacific region”.

Remarkably given their fearsome reputation Demant, and one co-conspirator Tama Waitai​, discussed ripping them off.

According to court documents, “in multiple calls between the defendants Waitai and Demant, the pair discussed their intention that once they received a large importation of controlled drugs from the Mexican OCG [organised criminal group], they would take the drugs and then not make the required payment for them to the Mexican OCG”.

As well as a direct line to the CJNG, Demant and Waitai also had another trump card – a man inside the Port of Tauranga.

That was stevedore Maurice Swinton, perhaps the only cocaine plotter in the world to call a caravan park in Te Puke home.

He was recruited on the promise of a $250,000 payment, plus one kilogram of cocaine, and in intercepted communications unwittingly revealed to police how he saw his role in the plot playing out.

“Pick up, go smoko, go home”.

“Your role would be to retrieve the drugs from the vessel when it arrived,” said Justice Graham Lang, who sentenced him to two years and nine months imprisonment on February 11.

While the group did manage to smuggle in smaller quantities of both cocaine and methamphetamine into New Zealand, sent by post to suburban properties in Rotorua and Auckland, March 27, 2021 was the key date.

“Intercepted communications suggested that the group expected the shipment to arrive on March 27, 2021, but they were thwarted by their Mexican OCG deciding to delay the delivery,” court documents said.

In a bugged phone call made on March 23, 2021, between Demant and Waitai, Demant said he had been having problems with his “other phone” and as a result “told them to hold off”.

He then told Waitai to inform Swinton to “stand down”.

“Despite conspiring to import 200kg of cocaine, on March 23, 2021, the defendant Demant communicated to the defendant Waitai that everyone should ‘stand down’ and that he was “not going to make it happen”.

The police summary of facts for Swinton notes that after March 27, 2021, “there appeared to be no further attempts to import cocaine via ship into Tauranga Harbour,” but that Waitai “was still communicating with Mexican suppliers”.

Just under a month later on April 29, 2021, it was all over as police announced the arrest of eight people and the disruption of plans to “import hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into the country from Mexico”.

The arrests involved more than 100 police and Customs staff, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad, Dog Section, Specialist Search Group, the Police Clandestine Laboratory Team and Bay of Plenty and Northland district staff.

Alexander said the decision to swoop in on the men was simple.

“There was sufficient evidence to the existence of a conspiracy, and to prevent importing entering New Zealand.”

Demant has entered guilty pleas to a raft of charges including conspiracy to import cocaine, importing cocaine, possession of methamphetamine for supply and conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine.

However, no sentencing date has been set as he is appealing against an earlier, declined decision to adjourn sentencing to allow him to attend the Puwhakamua drug rehabilitation programme.

Waitai was jailed for five years and six months on February 10.