A person watching TV in the comfort of their suburban lounge narrowly avoided being shot in the head during a drug-related drive-by shooting.
The shooting happened in September 2024 when four men with links to the King Cobras headed to a quiet street in Nelson intent on settling a historic drug debt – the gang was owed $40,000 for 10 ounces of meth.
Today, the Nelson District Court court heard Josaia Qalovaki, Cypress Warren, Tiori Edwards and Francois Teaurima arrived at the address in a black Volkswagen Polo. They were armed with three loaded firearms, all fitted with suppressors, and 51 rounds of ammunition.
Four shots from two of the weapons were fired at the house from their vehicle, three of which hit the house and one went through the rear window of a vehicle parked in the driveway.
Prosecutor Sophie O’Donoghue said there were four innocent people inside the home who were all at risk of death or serious injury as a result of the men’s actions.
Victims ‘terrified’
A victim impact statement described occupants as having been “terrified”.
“One of them could have easily been killed with the indiscriminate shooting that was carried out,” O’Donoghue said.
All suffered extreme distress and fear, with some leaving the house immediately and unable to return for some time through fear of ongoing harm, Judge Tony Snell said.
According to a summary of facts, one bullet struck an aluminium window frame in the lounge, another hit the metal fascia of the roof above the lounge and one bullet went through the window into the lounge.
The bullet passed 30cm above the head of the person watching TV. Three others who lived at the address were in their bedroom, including a 16-year-old.
Now the four men involved have been sent to prison on charges of unlawfully possessing firearms and explosives, committing a crime with a firearm plus taking part in organised crime and threatening a dwelling, following guilty pleas.
O’Donoghue said the men were all members of the gang, or associated with it.
Edwards was sentenced on further representative charges of unlawfully possessing a firearm and explosives, plus another charge of possessing methamphetamine.
Judge Snell said during the six-hour sentencing that it was never established who carried out the midnight shooting on September 25, 2024, but all were willing participants and all were involved in what could have been a catastrophic outcome.
“They were civilians in the house and you knew that from your inquiries the day before,” he told Warren while sentencing him.
Pathway to shooting
Edwards and Teaurima travelled to Nelson by car and ferry from Wellington on the afternoon of September 20, 2024.
Police said all four acted under the umbrella of the King Cobras gang.
Despite claims by Edwards he was not a member of the gang, O’Donoghue said he was seen in photos wearing a gang patch.
Police said on the same ferry crossing, travelling as foot passengers, was another gang associate, David Te’o and his partner.
In the following days, Qalovaki and Warren also made their way to Nelson from Wellington, for what the police believed was to settle the historic drug deal between Te’o and other King Cobras members while in Wellington.
Qalovaki was deported as a 501 from Australia for offending between 2013 and 2017, which resulted in him being imprisoned for a total of 10 years.
Judge Snell said Qalovaki had a long period of gang involvement in Australia, and after his deportation to New Zealand he relapsed into crime after a “long period of abstinence”.
Police said Edwards and Teaurima tried to find Te’o, who they believed was with his partner at her mother’s Nelson address.
They visited twice on September 24 and were told the pair “did not live there, were unlikely to visit, and were not welcome”.
The police summary of facts included a long list of text messages among all six, plus others, which contained warnings to Te’o’s partner.
Checked into motel, unloaded bag of guns
On the evening of September 25, 2024, Qalovaki, Warren, Edwards and Teaurima gathered in Nelson and paid cash for a single room at a respectable motel often used by business travellers.
They were captured on CCTV unloading a bag from the vehicle that was later found to contain the three firearms used in the shooting, police said.
Later that same evening the four loaded the black Volkswagen with the firearms and drove to a bar in Richmond, where they had arranged to meet with Te’o but he didn’t show.
They left and drove around Nelson looking for him before heading to the house in Stoke where Te’o’s partner’s mother lived.
About 11.39pm they drove their black Volkswagen Polo into the quiet street with their firearms loaded and ready to scare Te’o and his partner.
Police said they wanted to “demonstrate their capacity for violence” and prompt a response from the pair.
They drove past the address, did a U-turn and returned a minute later, stopping outside and opening fire.
Police said their actions were caught on CCTV.
They left immediately afterwards and drove back to their motel, and were seen again on CCTV entering their room.
The next morning Qalovaki took photos of the firearms used in the shooting, laid out on the bed.
Two days later, police found him driving the black Volkswagen in Lower Moutere. Inside the vehicle they found the three firearms and ammunition.
On November 28, during a search of all four defendants’ homes around Porirua, police found two shotguns at Edwards’ address, one of which was concealed under the couch in the living area and the other in his bedroom.
Police also found 103 rounds of .22 ammunition, six 12-gauge shotgun rounds and a small ziplock bag containing 4g of methamphetamine inside a shoebox in his bedroom.
O’Donoghue said the shooting was sanctioned by a gang, because of a $40,000 drug debt.
“That was the motive and they were in the gun for it. They were highly reckless as we can see from where and how they shot,” she said.
Qalovaki, who was considered at high risk of reoffending and of causing harm to others, was sentenced to just under four years in prison.
Warren, who was sentenced to three years and one month in prison for the Nelson offending, was sentenced to a further 14 months on charges related to violence offences committed in Wellington last September.
He was on bail on a charge of grievous bodily harm for king-hitting a man in central Wellington when he arrived in Nelson and took part in the drive-by shooting, in which he was merely a “foot soldier”, his lawyer Luke Acland said.
Teaurima’s involvement was said to be “very much out of character” but driven by his loyalty to the group. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
Edwards was also sentenced to three years in prison, from a five-year, 10-month starting point.
Judge Snell credited him with being one among the four to have shown remorse and contrition.
“You had mana and were someone others looked up to,” he said.
However, his offending had also been driven by loyalty to the group.
“You seem to have let yourself down badly with this expedition,” Judge Snell said.
