A jeweller has pleaded guilty to receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stolen jewellery after an international heist.
The woman and her daughter - a qualified gemologist - appeared at the Auckland District Court today.
The pair flew to New Zealand from the US but cannot be named because their lawyer has filed an application for name suppression in the High Court at Auckland.
The jeweller has pleaded guilty to one count of receiving stolen property. She is due to be sentenced at the Waitakere District Court in August. Her daughter faces the same charge.
The charges come after two aggravated robberies in Auckland by a gang of thieves.
More than $770,000 worth of jewellery was stolen in the heists after robbers travelled on false passports, bought new cellphones and hired rental cars to covertly tail jewellers with the sole aim of committing the heists.
The mother and daughter were not involved in the robberies but police later found the jewellery hidden in the mother's luggage.
Those responsible for the robberies were jailed in February. Cesar Orlando Romero, 43, Javier Espinosa Agreda, 27, Jose Roberto Jimenez-Perez, 27, and Juan Carlos Leal Casillas, 27, were each sentenced in the Auckland District Court to three years and six months in jail after pleading guilty to two charges of aggravated robbery.
A 38-year-old woman, Maria Teresa Martinez, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison after pleading guilty to one aggravated robbery charge.
A summary of the police case shows the Colombian nationals travelled to New Zealand on Mexican and United States passports in April last year.
The court documents show they hired and bought several cars and used them to tail jewellers visiting from overseas. As they did so, they used cellphones to communicate their locations and where the targets were, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Their first target was John Wertheim, of J.S. Landau Diamonds in Sydney, on May 2.
Mr Wertheim had just visited potential buyers in Parnell and was sitting in his parked car. He put a black bag containing 700 pieces of jewellery in the footwell of the passenger seat.
Two men approached the car. One smashed the driver's side window and tried to grab the keys in the ignition. While Mr Wertheim wrestled with him, the other man smashed the passenger's side window and grabbed the jewellery, worth $110,000.
Two weeks later, Chin Fung Ng and Aska Lo from Jewel Arts Ltd in Hong Kong came to Auckland to visit potential customers.
About 8.45pm on May 17, they parked their rental car outside the lobby of the city centre Rydges Hotel where they were staying.
As they got backpacks containing $660,000 in jewellery from the rear of their car, a white vehicle pulled up beside them.
Four men pushed them over and ripped the packs from their grasp.
Almost all the jewellery stolen in the two heists has been recovered.
