Trend · every sourced term, placed

The sentence shift

50 of the 51 source-supported terms in this file, plotted against the chapter they belong to. Red is imprisonment, amber is home detention, the pale line marks the middle of each chapter's prison terms. A dot's height is nothing — only its position on the axis.

What this shows

This is a record of what courts did in the cases this file could source, not a sentencing survey. The chapters are uneven — the smallest carries 1 reported term, the largest 16 — so the shape of a row says as much about how much was reported as about how hard the sentence was.

Two Whoosh courier terms are left out of the plot because two reports disagree on each of them; the chapter shows both figures and prefers neither. Rong-Jun Sui, 9 years 4 months is left out because the cited article does not pin the year of the sentencing. Home detention sits on the same axis as imprisonment but is prison's alternative, not its equal. And a dot is a sentence, not a verdict: the 13 months term at the bottom of the Avon row is a cocaine possession sentence — the man it belongs to was acquitted on 25 other charges, and the chapter prints that acquittal in full.

Term by chapter

oldest at the top

03Diablo3 terms

04Tsunami1 term

05Granite8 terms · 1 HD

3y 10m

06Larch Place1 term

3y 11m

07Maddale3 terms

08The 2020 Ring4 terms

4y 3m

09Italian Sky11 terms · 2 HD

5y 9m

10Avon16 terms · 2 HD

5y 2m

11Whoosh3 terms · 1 HD

Years

02y4y6y8y10y12y

median

What moved

computed from the plotted terms

12 yearsthe longest term in the 2023—26 cases

The ceiling in the 2004—09 cases was 8 years, for the woman convicted over the Tsunami conspiracy. In 2023—26 the top term is 12 years — the head of the Whoosh import ring. The register files 7 hundred-month-plus terms in the 2023—26 group and 2 before it.

5y 9mmedian prison term, 2023—26

The middle of the range sat at 3y 6m and 3y 10m through 2013, stepped up to 5y 9m in 2019—20, and has held near there at 5y 9m in 2023—26. Most people sentenced in these operations were never at the top of the pyramid.

5 of 30terms that were home detention, 2023—26

Home detention is now a routine bottom-tier outcome: 5 of the 30 plotted terms in 2023—26, against 1 of 9 in 2010—13. The floor of the record got softer while the ceiling rose.

The four eras

prison terms only

Era	Chapters	Terms	Median	Shortest	Longest
2004—09	Diablo · Tsunami	4	3y 6m	21 months	8 years
2010—13	Granite · Larch Place	9	3y 10m	3 years	5 years 5 months
2019—20	Maddale · The 2020 Ring	7	5y 9m	2 years 2 months	11 years
2023—26	Italian Sky · Avon · Whoosh	30	5y 9m	13 months	12 years

Shortest and longest are prison terms. Home detention is counted in the Terms column but excluded from the median so that a soft outcome cannot flatter a hard one, or the reverse.

Every plotted term

50 rows · longest first within each chapter

Ch	Person	Term	Source
03	James Samson	5y	18
03	Rota Beattie	2y	44
03	Simon Peter Musselwhite	1y 9m	45
04	Deborah Jan Gordon-Smith	8y	47
05	Adam John Miles	5y 5m	40
05	Michael Roy Harris	4y	41
05	Michael Leslie Smith	3y 10m	39
05	John Douglas McKenzie	3y 10m	48
05	Terry Raymond Black	3y 9m	43
05	Rongjun Situ	3y 2m	38
05	Rory Edward Manuel	3y	49
05	Philip Wayne Aitken	8m HD	42
06	Peter John Gason	3y 11m	56
07	Jalal Asmatullah Safi	11y	34
07	Charlie Tuatini Tereora	6y	28
07	Farshad Esefehani-Bahadori	5y 6m	34
08	Mark Powhiro	6y 3m	19
08	Andrew Michael Smith	5y 9m	19
08	Connie Elizabeth Ross	2y 9m	19
08	Joshua Rangi Fahey	2y 2m	19
09	Andrew Michael Smith	9y 3m	32
09	Michael Joseph Aaron Erikson	8y 4m	32
09	Ricky Michael Te Rangi Poa	7y 7m	32
09	Jaxxon Erikson	6y 3m	32
09	Blake Michael James Harpur	5y 9m	32
09	Jordan Rapana	5y 6m	32
09	Matthew John Linto	3y 1m	32
09	Tramayne Rauhihi	2y 10m	32
09	Dylan Rudd Stuart	1y 9m	32
09	Caleb Anthony Pasione Caffery	10m HD	32
09	Sherryn Elizabeth Erikson	9m HD	32
10	Larenz Smith	10y	8
10	Lucane Michael Bolstad	8y 8m	6
10	Walter Porima	8y 6m	11
10	Ponifasio Joshua Sua	8y 3m	7
10	Lawrence Mervyn Olliver	6y 6m	31
10	Kelvin James Wikaira	6y	30
10	Nalesoni Heneli Taulongo	5y 4m	9
10	Falaniko Taulongo	5y 1m	9
10	Karl Stewart Muir	4y 6m	10
10	Anthony Peter Connor	3y 8m	8
10	Petelo Sili	3y 2m	11
10	Dementry Higgins	3y 2m	29
10	Wiremukingi Matakatea	2y 9m	11
10	Vetekina Naufahu	1y 1m	11
10	Tema Tevao	1y HD	11
10	Kayden Kelvin Wikaira	9m HD	29
11	Jamie Vincent Hadyn Mannion	12y	27
11	Thomas James Harrison	6y	27
11	Jordan Bailey Grose	1y HD	27

What this cannot tell you

It cannot tell you whether sentences got harsher, because the cases are not comparable. A 2004 charge of running a portable lab in a suburban house and a 2026 charge of running an import ring through a dark-web shop are different offences with different maxima, different volumes and different roles. What the record shows is what was imposed in each case, in the order the cases appear.

It cannot tell you about the sentences that were never reported. 24 case records in this file carry a conviction, a plea or a charge without a recovered term — Norwich Street in 1990 has three guilty pleas and no reported sentence at all. Those gaps are not zeros and they are not acquittals.

One name appears more than once in this table — Andrew Michael Smith (2 rows). Those are different people, not one man sentenced twice — the chapter numbers differ, and the register carries a note on each name trap.

And it cannot tell you the sentence that was later reduced on appeal. Where an appeal outcome is in the register — Maddale, Tsunami, Whoosh — the chapter says so; the plot shows the term as reported at the point the source describes it.