The New Zealand drug syndicate leader in talks with one of Mexico’s most violent and feared cartels to smuggle 200kg of cocaine through the Port of Tauranga has been jailed for seven years and two months.

Tangaroa Demant​, 58, received the sentence on Wednesday at the High Court in Hamilton, after earlier pleading guilty to a raft of charges including conspiracy to import cocaine, importing cocaine, possession of methamphetamine for supply and conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine.

However, due to time served on remand, his lawyer Matthew Jenkins said he will likely be eligible for parole in a few months time.

Sentencing Demant, Justice Mark Woolford told him “the restoration of your mana will be a long journey”.

He also said Demant’s offending was not motivated by any addiction issues.

“Monetary gain was the motivation.”

Demant is the last of nine syndicate members to be sentenced for their role in the plot, which included their inside man at the Port of Tauranga Maurice Swinton, a cocaine addicted former “adult industry entertainment” worker turned prison guard and an Auckland restaurateur known as ‘Mr Taco’.

Demant’s jailing also brings to an end a process that began almost exactly three years ago in September 2020 when police launched Operation Tarpon, which according to court documents, began with intercepted communications that established “a group of individuals led by the defendant Demant had reached an agreement to import a large quantity of cocaine into New Zealand, concealed inside a shipping container”.

Detective Inspector Albie​ Alexander, field crime manager of the National Organised Crime Group, and officer in charge of Operation Tarpon, earlier told Stuff that Demant was communicating with the feared Mexican Cartel De Jalisco Nueva​ Generation (CJNG) via encrypted devices from his yacht ‘Good Times’ in Whangaroa Harbour.

Maurice Swinton, the syndicate’s inside man at the Port of Tauranga. He was promised $250,000 and one kilogram of cocaine for his role in the smuggling plot. Photo: Benn Bathgate/Stuff.

They also had a CJNG man amongst their syndicate, Angel Gavito Alverado, who was jailed for three years and eight months back in November 2022.

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”.

Some of the cocaine the syndicate arranged to have posted to New Zealand. Photo: Supplied.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, author of ‘Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops and Corruption’ 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.”

As well as a direct line to the CJNG, Demant and syndicate member Tama Waitai also had another trump card – Port of Tauranga stevedore Maurice Swinton.

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”.

Tangaroa Demant's yacht 'Good Times', from where he used encrypted communications devices to negotiate with the Mexican Cartel De Jalisco Nueva Generation. Photo: Supplied.

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 Organised Criminal Group [CJNG] 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”.

Angel Gavito Alverado, who was jailed for three years and eight months back in November 2022, was described as the Mexican cartel’s man on the ground in New Zealand. Photo: Benn Bathgate/Stuff.

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.”

- Benn Bathgate/Stuff.