• Paula Aroha Toleafoa was convicted of laundering over $430,000, spending $73,000 on ‘lifestyle’ expenses. 
• She served 10 months on home detention but denied knowing about her husband’s drug activities. 
• The Court of Appeal has dismissed her appeal against her convictions, citing ample evidence of her knowledge of her husband’s drug dealing. 

A woman convicted of laundering more than $430,000 in drug money spent tens of thousands on “lifestyle” expenses, including overseas holidays, hotel stays, jewellery, furniture, handbags, botox treatment and cake. 

A breakdown of Paula Aroha Toleafoa’s banking and spending has been attached to a Court of Appeal decision dismissing her bid to have her convictions quashed. 

The schedule detailed 500 transactions between April 2015 and August 2018 that formed the basis of 59 money-laundering charges for which she was found guilty in 2021. 

Most of the money — $366,400 — involved cash deposits into 14 bank accounts controlled by Toleafoa and her drug-dealing husband, Luther Toleafoa. 

But she also spent $23,800 on holidays in Fiji, Samoa and Thailand. There were numerous payments for stays at Rydges and Regal Palms hotels while visiting Rotorua from Auckland. 

Other individual cash transactions included $419.90 for a pair of Versace sunglasses, $661.30 at a Caci Clinic, which provides beauty treatment, $541.80 at Strandbags, and $450 to a cake baker. 

As well as luxury item purchases, the transactions also “were all qualifying acts of concealment” of money laundering, the Court of Appeal said in dismissing Toleafoa’s argument her convictions were unreasonable. 

$73,000 spent on luxuries 

The amount she spent on “lifestyle” expenses totalled $73,000. 

Luther Toleafoa was jailed for 11 years in December 2021 after he was found guilty of drug dealing and money laundering. 

The Crown said the total amount of spending and cash deposits made into bank accounts by the couple over three years totalled $770,740. Of this, $537,740 had “no known source”. 

The Toleafoas owned two companies, but her First Class Property Management Ltd and his Mr Housewash and Paint Ltd had only limited legitimate earnings. 

Paula Toleafoa served 10 months on home detention two years ago for her part in the money laundering, but then belatedly appealed her convictions, claiming they were unreasonable. 

The former Work and Income fraud investigator also asked the Court of Appeal to examine whether some of the transactions qualified as money laundering, and the correctness of some of the directions given to the jury at her trial. 

Luther Toleafoa appeared via audio visual link during his sentencing in 2021. Photo / Andrew Warner 

Her case was heard in the Court of Appeal before Justices Matthew Palmer, Christian Whata and Mathew Downs. It was allowed to proceed despite being outside the appeal period. 

The 50-year-old has always denied she knew Luther Toleafoa, a patched Head Hunters gang member, was a drug dealer, or that the money he was giving her was the profits from the sale of methamphetamine. 

She told the trial jury she thought the thousands she was spending was money he had legitimately earned from his house-washing business or from buying and selling cars. 

Couple were living apart 

Paula Toleafoa also gave evidence that she was the victim of family violence, had tried to extricate herself from the relationship, and that she and Luther were living apart at the time of his drug offending. 

Her defence also argued that in 156 calls between the couple during the charge period, there was not a single reference to drug dealing or any plan to launder money. 

She was in Auckland and he lived and undertook his drug-dealing in Rotorua; only Luther was ever found with any drugs; they operated separate bank accounts in their individual names, she said. 

Bundles of cash were found in Luther Toleafoa's Rotorua home. Photo / Supplied 

She also made payments and bank deposits openly, without any attempt to conceal her identity and sometimes signed her name on documents. 

The appeal judges, however, said in their view there was “ample evidence” Toleafoa had knowledge of her husband’s methamphetamine dealing. 

“Accordingly, we do not consider that the jury ought to have entertained reasonable doubt as to Ms Toleafoa’s guilt.” 

The appeal judges accepted Toleafoa was subjected to violence from her husband, that they lived separately for much of the time, and that the inference could be drawn that she had tried to leave him. 

“But, given the evidence of her ongoing connection to him (including that of their continuing communication and trips overseas), and the scale and nature of her involvement in managing Mr Toleafoa’s cash ... it was clearly available to the jury to find that she was aware of his drug dealing,” the decision said. 

The judges dismissed her appeal. 

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.