Comanchero gang member ‘Eneasi Tangi Taumoefolau to spend rest of life in Tongan prison for drug importing
'Eneasi Taumoefolau started a chapter of the Comancheros motorcycle gang in Tonga after being deported from Australia in 2022. Photo / Supplied
A senior Comanchero who tried to establish a foothold for the outlaw motorcycle gang in Tonga will spend the rest of his life in prison for drug dealing.
‘Eneasi Tangi Taumoefolau had lived in Australia for most of his life but had his visa revoked in 2022 on “good character” grounds and was sent to Tonga as a so-called “501″ deportee.
He soon moved into the penthouse suite of a hotel in Nuku’alofa and drove around the small Pacific island kingdom in expensive cars, while splashing his wealth across his social media channels.
Previously, influential members of the Comancheros deported as “501s” to New Zealand radically changed the local criminal underworld through their connections to global drug traffickers.
Taumoefolau tried to do the same in Tonga, which was already in the grip of a methamphetamine crisis.
The drastic increase of illicit drugs led the police to focus on people with connections to the United States, which was believed to be the source country for most of the meth in Tonga.
According to court documents, a senior police officer cultivated a criminal informant who went on to ingratiate himself with a local businessman suspected of being a drug importer.
Over time, the informant was trusted to handle cash and drugs on behalf of the smuggler. Now fully immersed in the drug world, the informant was introduced to Taumoefolau in June 2024.
The Comanchero gave him $49,000 in Tongan currency, or $NZ34,000, and instructed him to keep it safe until given further instructions.
The cash was then counted by the informant’s police handler.
Later, covert surveillance by the Tongan police followed a suspected parcel of drugs to Taumoefolau’s home.
Drone footage recorded the senior Comanchero placing a red bag into the vehicle of an associate which, when the police swooped in shortly afterwards, contained 2.2kg of methamphetamine.
Taumoefolau was among 17 people arrested in August 2024 for drug or money laundering offences.
The Tongan drug squad also seized eight vehicles, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, cash, 16 mobile phones, Comanchero patches and 90 T-shirts branded with the gang’s insignia.
“There is no place in the Kingdom of Tonga for gangs, and those who wish to associate with these types of gangs and their illegal activities,” the police said in a statement at the time of the arrests.
Taumoefolau pleaded not guilty to importing methamphetamine but was convicted after a trial late last year.
As well as the drone footage of the Comanchero holding the bag with 2.2kg bag of meth inside, encrypted messages on Taumoefolau’s phone – extracted with the help of New Zealand police – were also incriminating.
The messages showed that he had paid $120,000 in Tongan currency, or $NZ85,000, to the drug supplier in the United States.
“There is abundant evidence that this defendant acted as the financier to the whole operation, or at least was a conduit in transferring money to the controlling mind in the United States,” Lord Chief Justice Malcolm Bishop KC said.
In sentencing the 44-year-old to life imprisonment last month, the judge said that increasing consumption of methamphetamine was an “existential threat to life” in Tonga.
“It breaks up families, it deals a serious, perhaps mortal blow to community cohesion. It ruins the life of participants and is, in many cases, the reason for the proliferation of crime,” Justice Bishop said.
“In a small country like ours where most people do not live an affluent life, the devastation caused by drugs is apt to deal a fatal blow to life here. Of course, the misuse of illicit drugs is not confined to Tonga.
“It is a regional, even global phenomenon but the difference between the effect on society here and that in a larger more affluent country such as New Zealand or Australia is striking.”
Tongan Police Commissioner Geoff Turner did not respond to a Herald request for an interview.
But the threat of organised crime in the Pacific was discussed in a detailed report by a group of experts advising Cabinet Minister Casey Costello last year.
Drug cartels from the Americas, gangs from New Zealand and Australia, as well as Asian criminal networks are all increasing their involvement in the Pacific, according to the report released in June.
This disturbing development had been accelerated by the arrival of deportees from Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
The problem was expected to become significantly worse because the United States planned to deport another 1000 individuals, half of those to Fiji alone.
This “Pacific tsunami” of criminality into small populations would always create problems, the experts wrote, but the low-wage economies in the Pacific Islands also made the countries more vulnerable to “nefarious actors with deep pockets”.
“While the direct consequences for Pacific nations of organised crime is already appearing – the influx of drugs, for example – there is a real risk the nurturing corruption environment will lead to organised crime groups becoming entrenched and dominating all aspects of society to the point where it becomes impossible to stop a series of narco-states benign established on New Zealand’s doorstep,” the advisory group told Costello.
“New Zealand, therefore, not only has a moral obligation to assist its Pacific neighbours, but a very practical reason to do so.”
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster’s Paradise and Underworld.