A methamphetamine importer who bought and sold drugs on the dark web using Bitcoin has had his house confiscated by the Crown.

Police say Mark Andrew Wright’s illegal activities were “sophisticated”, involving the use of false names, bogus addresses, fake courier redelivery requests and multiple phones running encrypted communications apps.

Wright, 54, has a “significant criminal history”, according to court documents.

Between June and September 2017, he imported three packages from California, addressed to fictitious people and containing methamphetamine hidden among documents.

The three packages, all intercepted by Customs, contained 111.7 grams, 146.4g and 138.3g of the drug.

The total amount of 396.4g had an estimated street value of $268,800.

A jury found Wright guilty of three counts of importing meth in 2019 and the following year he was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison.

Police then went after his assets under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, which is aimed at confiscating criminals’ ill-gotten gains.

They targeted his 114-year-old two-bedroom house in Sydenham, Christchurch.

The police application to the High Court for the forfeiture of the property claimed it was “tainted”, being partly paid for by the importation and supply of methamphetamine.

The police application valued the house at $300,000. The 2022 ratable valuation of the property, however, was $450,000.

Wright had a mortgage on it of only $25,000.

Although Wright was not convicted of supplying methamphetamine, High Court Justice Rachel Dunningham said he had historical convictions for cultivating cannabis, importing ephedrine, possessing meth, and importing the restricted drug gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) from Thailand.

Police told the High Court that the “totality of evidence” pointed to Wright having been involved in the commercial supply of meth, as well as importing it.

“In my view, the totality of the evidence suggests that, at least in 2017, Mr Wright had established a pattern of purchasing methamphetamine on the dark web using bitcoin and selling it, albeit generally through encrypted communications,” Justice Dunningham said.

“While he has no prior criminal convictions for importing methamphetamine, he has two convictions for importing other drugs, so cannot claim to have no experience in such activities.”

Police searched the Sydenham house in November 2017 and found two glass meth pipes, nine cell phones and several SIM cards.

The number of one of the phones had been given as the contact number for one of the packages from California, which had been redirected to a Kiwibank Post Shop for collection.

Another of the phone numbers was used to call the courier service FedEx in connection with the parcels.

Also found at Wright’s house was a document which contained a guide on how to use the dark web to import drugs using Bitcoin.

Customs investigators found that Wright had used encrypted applications on his phones, including messages inviting a contact to use the confidential messaging app Wickr.

“When the phones were analysed, there were also text messages, one of which suggested that Mr Wright was dealing in drugs and others which showed that he was buying bitcoin,” Justice Dunningham said.

“At his trial, it was the Crown’s case that Mr Wright was using bitcoin as a means to purchase methamphetamine for supply.”

Justice Dunningham said the mortgage for the Sydenham house was paid from the same bank account that a “significant amount” of suspicious cash was paid into.

Wright tried to explain the suspicious cash movements by saying they were withdrawals from a crypto trading account, Xapo, from vehicle sales on TradeMe and income from boarders.

But his transaction history with Xapo did not disclose any transactions leading to cash withdrawals.

Justice Dunningham said there was no evidence that the cash came from vehicle trading or TradeMe sales.

His only paying boarder was his girlfriend.

Wright’s declared income during the years before his convictions was “always modest”, reaching a high point of $47,935 in 2014-15 and less than $23,000 in 2016-17, police told the court.

Despite this, between March and October 2017, Wright received $51,400 in cash deposits into his bank accounts.

Wright was not working and on benefits from 2017 onwards, but was still able to meet his mortgage payments and increase his equity in the property, Justice Dunningham said.

She ordered the ownership of the property to be transferred to the Crown.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.