By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter of 
Photo: 123RF
- Police seized $224,000 in cash in a recent case under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.
- The High Court found the cash was probably the proceeds of drug-dealing, allegedly by Luke Needham and Terry Weston.
- The case was one of more than 300 in the last five years, which have led to the seizure of more than $500 million in 'tainted' assets from criminals.
A convicted murderer. A car being driven at more than 145km/h. A shoe box containing $164,000 in cash.
These are some of the ingredients of a lawsuit recently settled in the High Court at Napier - one of many in the ongoing police campaign to seize hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, assets and property from criminals.
The driver of the speeding Holden Commodore pursued by Hawke's Bay police, and eventually stopped with road spikes, was Terry Anthony Weston, a man with a history of drug dealing and a criminal record more than 14 pages long.
An associate of his also cited by police in their Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act case against Weston was Luke Emmett Needham, who is on life parole for murder after gunning down a rival gang member in central Napier in 1993.
The person who links the two men is Weston's former partner, and Needham's girlfriend at the time, when police came calling at her house in March 2021.
Two men have extensive criminal histories
Both Needham and Weston are now in their late 50s. Both have extensive criminal and prison histories.
Weston was living at his ex's property, in the garage, not the house. Needham was standing next to a car in the driveway when the police with a search warrant turned up.
In the woman's bedroom, officers found a shoe box containing $164,080 in cash.
The bulk of it was divided into five bundles of $30,000 each, vacuum sealed. The rest was in two snap lock bags.
Weston was later to say that the money in the shoe box belonged to him and represented what he had managed to accumulate from "legitimate activity over 53 years [his age at the time]", according to a recent High Court decision.
These activities, he said, included forestry work, gib-stopping, ACC payouts, money-lending, successful gambling, car dealing and selling a customised Harley Davidson motorcycle at a profit.
He said the shoe box of money was in his former partner's bedroom because he maintained a good relationship with her and trusted her.
While the police were at the property, they also searched Needham's vehicle, uncovering electronic scales, a cannabis grinder, two small plastic bags each containing about a gram of methamphetamine, about 1g of cannabis, two glass pipes, $9110 bundled up with rubber bands, and a white iPhone.
The next day, they searched Needham's home and found 15.4g of cannabis head, two meth pipes soaking in cleaning solution, unused gelatine capsules, plastic bags, several hard drives and financial documents.
Needham's home was rigged with CCTV cameras. When police viewed the footage, it showed scenes which suggested drug activity.
The incident with the speeding car came later.
Speeding Holden Commodore spiked
Court documents said that on September 25, 2021, Weston was seen driving at speeds "in excess of 145km/h" in an area of Hawke's Bay.
He was pursued by a patrol car with flashing red and blue lights, and eventually was brought to a stop by spikes which police deployed across the road.
At the time of his arrest, he had a glass pipe up his sleeve containing what police said was fresh, unused methamphetamine.
Police found scales, a cellphone and $24,550 in the vehicle.
In March 2022, police made an application to the High Court at Napier for restraining orders over the money found at the woman's house in March 2021 and the cash discovered in Weston's car six months later.
Needham and the woman were named as respondents in the March 2022 civil action filed under the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery) Act 2009. Weston was cited as an "interested party".
By then, Needham and Weston faced drug possession charges, which they subsequently admitted, but not drug-dealing.
This fact was used by Needham's counsel to argue that the police case had not met the standard required to grant the seizure application.
"I do not accept this," Justice Francis Cooke said in a judgment which granted the restraining orders.
"It may be that the prosecution decided not to charge them with the more serious offending because they would be unable to prove such charges beyond reasonable doubt," Justice Cooke said.
"But the relevant standard for obtaining forfeiture orders involves establishing the allegations on the balance of probabilities."
In other words, criminal cases and the civil court actions that seek confiscation of criminals' ill-gotten gains are heard under different rules.
For criminal cases, the time-honoured standard of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" is required. For civil cases, the case is determined on a lower standard of proof - a "balance of probabilities" that something is true.
It is on these "balance of probabilities" civil court cases that police have been pursuing dozens of criminals each year in an attempt to strip them of the assets they have gained through illegal activity.
According to figures from the Official Assignee, a government official who takes custody of restrained property, there have been an average of 76 cases a year in the last five years.
Police seize $500m assets from criminals
The total for the five years to 2024 was 381 cases, involving $511 million in cash, assets and property.
Typically, the police go after the large amounts of bundled cash which are often used to make untraceable transactions in the drug-dealing world and which are regularly found during police searches.
But they have also confiscated jewellery, motor vehicles and real estate.
First, police apply to the High Court for restraining orders, sometimes "without notice" so that the criminals can't offload or hide the assets being targeted.
Typically these are followed, often months or years later, by High Court applications for forfeiture orders, under which the assets are handed over permanently to the Crown.
The amounts ending up in Crown coffers may be less than those cited in restraining orders, once mortgages over properties are discharged, vehicles depreciate, or forfeiture applications are declined.
By the time the case involving Weston and Needham came back for the forfeiture question to be determined, in February 2025, some things had changed.
The woman's name had disappeared from the lawsuit. Weston was no longer an "interested party" but a full respondent, along with Needham.
And another amount of cash - $36,000 - had been added to the tally to be forfeited.
It had been seized from Weston's Holden Commodore on June 18, 2022. The circumstances of this seizure were not outlined in the publicly-available court documents.
In total, the police were now looking to confiscate $224,630 from the two men named on the court application - the money found in the shoe box and the two amounts of cash found in Weston's car on the separate occasions when it was searched by police.
Another judge, Justice Peter Churchman, set out to decide on the "balance of probabilities" whether the money had been "tainted" by being acquired through criminal activity.
Justice Churchman said that neither Needham nor Weston had any known source of legitimate income that could possibly explain how they had that amount of cash in their possession.
He also noted their guilty pleas to the associated drug-related criminal charges.
"I am satisfied to the standard of the balance of probabilities that the inevitable inference to be drawn from these facts is that the three amounts of cash ... are likely to be the proceeds of methamphetamine dealing or cannabis dealing, or both, by the first and second respondents [Needham and Weston]."
He concluded that all the money was "tainted" and made the forfeiture orders sought by police.
The search of the property where Weston was living, the car chase and the first finding of tens of thousands of dollars in his vehicle all came within a year and four days after Weston's release from prison on parole for meth dealing.
Before then, he had a "considerable" offending history, according to the Parole Board, involving drugs, violence, burglaries, and disqualified or drink driving.
Despite this, he was described as a "role model" in custody, a trusted worker and a "respectful and calming influence" in his prison wing.
He was also described as having a "high level of remorse" for his earlier offending.
His parole conditions included not to possess or use alcohol or controlled drugs.
Lifer recalled to prison
In Needham's case, the police searches in March 2021 and the resulting charges had an immediate effect - he was recalled to prison under the terms of his life parole for murder.
In 1993, Needham was an Outlaws Motorcycle Club member, and one of two people involved in the shooting of a Black Power leader, Robert Te Rure, in Tennyson St, in the Napier CBD.
Te Rure had just left a night club.
A jury found Needham guilty of murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment the following year.
The other man was convicted of manslaughter.
Needham was released in December 2004 but recalled to prison in 2012 for drug offending. He was subsequently imprisoned for three years and three months for that crime.
New prison term added
He was released again in July 2015, but recalled again following the police searches of his car and his Taradale house in March 2021 which found the small amounts of drugs and paraphernalia.
He was convicted of possessing methamphetamine and cannabis in June 2021 and sentenced to a further two months in prison.
He was released again following a Parole Board hearing in August 2021.
When he appeared before the board in 2021, Needham denied any involvement with methamphetamine, despite pleading guilty to possessing it.
He said he had left his car at another address and believed it was used by someone who was involved with meth.
"He has explained through his counsel that he pleaded guilty to the meth-related offence simply to have the matter dealt with," his Parole Board report said.
"We accept that he was not the target of the police search and was not charged in relation to any aspect of drug dealing."
-This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
