NZ News
Queenstown bouncers guilty of selling drugs while on the job
A group of Queenstown bouncers have pleaded guilty to drug charges after they were busted selling Class A drugs while on the job.
Apex Protection provides pub and club security in the heart of Queenstown.
The former owner of Apex, John Connell, was described in a police summary of facts as a “street dealer” who arranged for people to purchase cocaine from him while he was working at bars in the tourist town.
After initially pleading not guilty to the charges in May, the 23-year-old has since pleaded guilty to two charges of selling and supplying cocaine, one charge of selling and supplying ketamine, and one charge of failing to carry out obligations in relation to a computer search.
Cory Waller and Nikera Cherrington, who worked as doormen at clubs and bars in Queenstown for another company, pleaded guilty to one charge each of possession for supply of Class A drug – cocaine.
All three appeared in the Queenstown District Court and will be sentenced in December.
The prosecution followed an investigation into the supply of controlled drugs, namely cocaine and ketamine, in the Queenstown area started by police in June 2025.
Five bouncers were among the eight arrested, after police seized more than 60g of cocaine and smaller amounts of ketamine, MDA and GBL, as well as $120,000 in cash.
The summary of facts states police obtained a production order for Connell and an analysis of his telecommunications data.
These showed that between 1 June 2025 and 2 January 2026, not only was he a regular user of cocaine and ketamine, but he was supplying it to others.
In a text exchange on New Year’s Eve, he asked an associate if they had any more cocaine because he had sold out, saying he had sold 30g the night before.
His associate had also sold out.
“Yo but now I’m just losing sales haha should’ve gotten way more just wasn’t too sure hey,” Connell said in a message.
The summary of facts said the street price of 1g of cocaine in Queenstown is between $350 and $400.
123RF
Therefore, the 30g of cocaine would have made Connell up to $12,000.
The telecommunications data also showed Connell was selling ketamine, but less frequently and in lesser amounts.
Bank statements show large profit
A police analysis of Connell’s bank statements for the same period showed third-party deposits of $21,275 and ATM deposits of $2540.
The police say at least half of those deposits would be from the sale of cocaine, and overall the defendant had sold at least 50g of cocaine in the period investigated.
Connell was also charged with failing to carry out obligations in relation to a computer search as he failed to give police his mobile phone passcode when they executed their search warrant.
He initially pleaded not guilty in May, electing for trial by jury, but has since pleaded guilty.
Police seize cash and cocaine in bouncer’s homes
In May 2026, investigations began into Waller and Cherrington, who both worked as security officers.
On 11 June, a search warrant was executed where they lived in the Fernhill area of Queenstown. It is not disclosed if the pair live together.
According to the summary of facts, Waller admitted having cocaine in the home and led officers to a rubbish bin in an ensuite bathroom where there were five point bags, each containing 1g of cocaine.
The 44-year-old also handed a police officer a small plastic cylinder from his pocket. Inside was one point bag containing 1g of cocaine.
There was $800 cash located in the bedroom, which he admitted was from the sale of cocaine.
Waller also admitted the cocaine belonged to him.
He stated there were originally 10 point bags of cocaine, but he had used some and sold three bags for between $250 and $300 each.
In a spare bedroom, police discovered 24 point bags, each containing 1g of cocaine, and $4200 in cash.
Waller admitted knowing about the cocaine but said it belonged to someone else.
In total, 30g of cocaine was located with an estimated street value of $9000.
Meanwhile, Cherrington was found with 23 point bags, each containing 1g of cocaine, in his bedside drawer, as well as $400 in cash.
According to the summary of facts, the 23-year-old admitted it was cocaine, and it belonged to him, but declined to comment on what he intended to do with the drug.
He told police the money came from playing the pokies.
Another man had previously appeared in court relating to the investigation and is due to appear again in September.
Apex Protection has since had its licence suspended, and ownership has been transferred.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
Source: RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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