By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter for 
Cash seized by New Zealand Police in 2023.
Photo: Supplied / NZ Police
- Collins Ezeala wants back the $32,530 that New Zealand police took from his car in 2010.
- The High Court ruled that it is too late for Ezeala to recover the money.
- Ezeala, deported to Nigeria seven years ago, said he needed the money to pay for life-saving cancer treatment.
Nigerian drug courier Collins Ezeala has served his prison sentence and was deported years ago, but he can’t stop thinking about the $32,500 stolen from his car by New Zealand police in 2010.
He still wants it back. He says he needs it to pay for life-saving medical treatments now that he has cancer.
However, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is too late, even though a judge previously decided that the money could not have been earned from Ezeala’s criminal activities.
Ezeala has been trying to get the money back through the courts for years – even before he was sent back to Nigeria in 2017.
There are several things standing in his way. Back in his home country, he was unemployed and faced with economic problems.
Then came the Covid pandemic, which made matters even more difficult, and in later years he was unable to raise the money he had to pay to a New Zealand court as security for the costs he would face if the things would not go his way.
In January this year he was diagnosed with cancer, in addition to chronic diabetes.
As Ezeala said in an affidavit filed in the Auckland High Court last month, he kept thinking about the money he was robbed of in New Zealand 14 years ago, and how much he needed it.
‘Only chance of survival’
Especially now he needed it for his medical bills. He claimed the $32,530 represented his “only chance of survival.”
Ezeala’s case dates back to 2010, when he was arrested and charged with importing methamphetamine into New Zealand and possession of methamphetamine for supply.
Ezeala, his house and his car were all searched by police.
He appeared to have $1,528 on him. Police found $14,000 in his home. From his car they took the $32,530.
Following a jury trial in 2012, Ezeala was found guilty of both charges and sentenced to eleven years in prison.
Significantly, his convictions were for importing and possessing the methamphetamine, not selling it. On this basis, Judge Garry Harrison concluded in 2015 that the money could not be said to have been obtained through Ezeala’s offending.
The $14,000 found in Ezeala’s home and the $1,528 he had on him were returned to him. However, he made the mistake of not asking about the money found in the car at that time.
He made that request in late 2016, filing a petition in district court for the “full and final restitution” of the $32,530 found in his car.
paroled, deported
However, around this time he was released on parole and deported in March 2017. The money was declared forfeited.
Ezeala appealed Nigeria’s forfeiture order in 2017, but the appeal was deemed withdrawn in September that year when he failed to post a security for costs.
It was only on August 19 this year that Ezeala filed another application to have the forfeiture order quashed by the High Court. He did not hire a New Zealand lawyer for this. He submitted the application himself.
The forfeiture order was issued under the Summary Proceedings Act (SPA), and not under the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery) Act 2009, under which forfeiture orders are usually issued in respect of assets obtained through criminal activity.
The relevant articles of the SPA have since been repealed, but remained applicable to Ezeala’s case.
The appeal period specified in the SPA was 28 days, well short of the years it took Ezeala to file his application. So the first hurdle Ezeala encountered was that he wanted to appeal the decision way too late.
He pointed out that Judge Harrison had found that the money did not arise from his unlawful activities.
He said the only reason Judge Harrison ordered the money seized from the car to be forfeited was because he – Ezeala – had not claimed it at the time. If he had done so, he argued, he would have been entitled to it.
Ezeala said his current position was that he was “merely reserving his right to claim the money seized from his car” while he did not push for it in 2017. He still claimed full ownership of it even in 2024.
Ezeala said Judge Harrison erred when he failed to order the return of the money in 2017, causing Ezeala to suffer a miscarriage of justice.
Ezeala’s case was heard before Judge Christine Gordon at the High Court in Auckland.
There, counsel for the police argued that Ezeala’s latest application was an “abuse of process” as he had already filed and abandoned an appeal in 2017 when he failed to post a security for costs.
He was also unable to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why his latest application had taken so long.
Judge Gordon noted that it had taken seven years – “a very significant delay”. Ezeala had contacted five lawyers before filing his proceedings on his own behalf and receiving a waiver of costs.
“Mr. Ezeala could have done that a long time ago,” she said.
“Mr Ezeala now says the money seized from the car was a loan from his co-accused and he also says this was money he had saved.
“In any appeal, the police would obviously want to respond to these claims. Prejudice would arise as the police investigate and obtain evidence more than a decade later.”
Judge Gordon said that when police applied for orders and they were issued in court, there was a public interest in those orders being complied with.
“I believe there is a general prejudice if the forfeiture orders are to be overturned many years later,” she said.
Judge Gordon also said Ezeala had not provided any evidence that his cancer could not be treated through Nigeria’s public health system.
“In short, none of the grounds for appeal have any merit.”
– This story originally appeared in the New Zealand herald.
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