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A man accused of conspiring in the execution of a Sydney gang chief in Vietnam says he will fight the charges after defeating allegations he lied to police about knowing the hitmen and trying to bribe his way out of Samoa.
New Zealand national James Atua, 31, was charged alongside Fred Oliva Junior Papalii, 33, in Samoa last week.
Both were charged with conspiracy to murder Lorenzo Lemalu, leader of the Coconut Cartel who was living in Ho Chi Minh city until he was shot in May.
His execution was captured on camera and shared on social media at the height of the latest gang war between his foot soldiers – the Alameddine and Badger crime networks.
Two Samoan men, Joseph Vaa and Steve Tafia, were arrested days later in Vietnam and allegedly admitted to tracking and killing the Coconut Cartel gangsters.
Police followed Vaa and Tafia back to Samoa, where they had worked at a car rental company owned by Atua’s mother.
Atua spoke with police in late May but allegedly lied about his relationship to the hitmen.
The Herald can reveal Atua then allegedly went to the airport and tried to bribe an immigration official with 500 Samoan tala ($255) to get back to New Zealand.
He was charged with corruption and misleading police and spent weeks in prison.
Australian Federal Police and authorities in both Vietnam and Samoa executed search warrants and concluded that Atua and Papalii had conspired with the alleged hitmen to carry out the shooting.
The international investigation moved to charge Atua and Papalii with conspiracy to murder on September 10.
Atua decided to bring in outside help and flew Sydney solicitor Abbas Soukie in to represent him in the Samoan court.
“The allegations against Atua are completely baseless,” Soukie told the Herald.
“He categorically rejects them and will vehemently defend them in due course.”
Atua’s lawyer had lobbied Samoa’s attorney-general, saying the bribery case was weak. The attorney-general agreed and withdrew the charge.
The misleading police charge was dismissed in court due to a lack of evidence.
But Atua still faces charges on conspiracy to murder and money-laundering, which will be formally laid on September 28.
Lemalu, also of Samoan heritage, was 24 years old when he was shot dead in Vietnam.
He was once so loyal to an Alameddine street gang, Proper 60, that he tattooed it across his stomach.
One photograph showed him, in 2023, posing with the Alameddine’s exiled boss Rafat Alameddine in Lebanon.
But Lemalu was one of an influential group of Pasifika men falling out with the Alameddines who went from loyal enforcers to feared nemeses.
Lemalu and fellow Coconut Cartel figures Anthony Pele and Iziah Utai fled overseas after they allegedly botched underworld shootings and killed innocents or missed their targets entirely.
Some police theorise Lemalu’s death-writ was signed by the Badger crime network after the cartel was raided in April and $120 million worth of methamphetamine was seized.
Vaa and Tafia allegedly flew in to Ho Chi Minh City and shadowed the Coconut boss for a week before pulling the trigger.
Even Lemalu’s funeral, back in Sydney, was marred by conflict. Police raids from Strike Force Golporta rounded up alleged cartel associates in Sydney.
Teenage mercenaries then drove past a Punchbowl funeral home, which they mistakenly believed was hosting Lemalu’s grieving family, and opened fire with an SKS assault rifle.
More than 30 rounds punctured the glass facade, injuring no one, but leading to a further wave of arrests.
Lemalu was finally laid to rest at Forest Lawn after a funeral at Lakemba Mosque under heavy police presence.
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