Operation Girder and the money behind the shipment - part 1

On 12 September 2024, Huan “Lily” Li allegedly met an associate in an Auckland carpark and accepted $17,100 in cash. He asked her to arrange a payment of $16,288.22 into the bank account of John Giles Ltd to cover duty and tax on a shipment of steel beams from the United States.

Police say she made the payment through a shell company established by a man who had left New Zealand earlier that year. Concealed inside the shipment was 515kg of methamphetamine.

The exchange, described in a police summary obtained by BusinessDesk, would become part of an investigation into an alleged laundering operation that had been running in Auckland for four years. It connected the arrangements for bringing the shipment into the country with a service police say Li provided to people wanting to conceal or obtain cash.

The discovery

During September 2024, Customs investigated the steel shipment and identified inconsistencies in some of the beams. Officers at its Sea Cargo Inspections Facility X-rayed and examined the consignment, discovering the methamphetamine concealed inside. They let it go through in the hopes of catching the organisers.

The shipment was tracked to a rural Waikato address, where a raid led to five men initially appearing in the Auckland District Court on drug import and supply charges. Seven people were eventually charged over the importation, including John Giles, whose company police identify as the recipient of the payment arranged by Li. He pleaded not guilty and said he would vigorously defend the charge.

Operation Girder became public in October 2024. At the time, the haul was New Zealand’s second-largest methamphetamine importation seizure.

Alongside the investigation into the drugs, police were examining the financial arrangements associated with the shipment. The payment of its border charges brought them to the alleged carpark handover and the company account Li had used.

The company between the cash and the importer

According to the police summary, Li and her associates used the shell company to layer transactions and make the money harder to trace. In the September exchange, the company’s payment separated the person who supplied the cash from the account receiving the money.

A bank record would show a company paying John Giles Ltd. It would not, on its own, identify the person who had handed Li the banknotes or explain that person’s connection to the shipment.

Police allege that Li arranged transactions in response to requests received through WeChat. Depending on the arrangement, money moved through bank transfers, cryptocurrency or digital wallets such as WeChat Pay and Alipay. Accounts belonging to Zirui Wu were allegedly used on 29 occasions to layer cash she had received.

The reported arrangements required investigators to connect cash exchanges with payments made elsewhere. The person supplying money and the account delivering it were not necessarily the same, while the instructions explaining the relationship could sit in a private message.

The import payment illustrates how that separation could obscure a transaction without making its immediate purpose unusual. Duty and tax were payable on a real shipment, and the requested amount corresponded to that expense. Establishing why the bill needed paying would not have explained why the money came through Li and an unrelated company.

For an AML team reviewing such a payment, the unresolved issue would be the relationship between the parties: whether the company making the transfer had a commercial reason to pay the importer, and how it had obtained the funds.

The wider investigation

In August 2026, police announced that a parallel investigation into steel-beam imports had restrained approximately $10 million in assets, including properties and luxury performance vehicles. Investigators said they had undertaken extensive analysis of banking transactions and company records, together with the property holdings and other financial interests of those allegedly involved.

The restraint did not establish guilt, but it showed the extent of the financial investigation following the seizure.

BusinessDesk’s account of the alleged laundering operation also described a transaction well after Operation Girder had become public. On 3 March 2026, police say, Li directed an Auckland businessman to meet Wu at an address on New North Road, where he was given $76,000 to launder.

The businessman, Qin “Kevin” Ding, reportedly told police that the money was part of a currency exchange. He said he had deposited it into his bank accounts and used it for legitimate payments.

Ding was associated with the Yoyoso/Miniso retail group, which had entered liquidation less than three months earlier. Two companies involved in a property investment scheme he co-led would enter liquidation later that year.

Police do not allege that Ding was involved in importing the methamphetamine. His charge concerns the separate March transaction, allegedly arranged by the same woman who had organised the payment for the steel shipment’s border charges.

Li was believed to be overseas and could not be located.

Part 2 examines Ding’s alleged transaction and the chronology of the business failures surrounding it. The money-laundering allegations remain to be tested in court.