The drug-dealing ‘ninja’ – how Anthony Netzler went from bodyguard to the stars to a prison cell

Anthony Netzler​ educated in Japan below a well-known ninjutsu grandmaster, however the 2011 tsunami upended his life. He headed house, the place he labored as a bodyguard for stars, similar to Phil Rudd of AC/DC, earlier than police busted him for a significant medication importation. Tony Wall studies.

By any measure, Anthony Charles Netzler has lived an uncommon life.

Auckland raised and of German-Samoan descent, he moved to Japan as a teen and have become a grasp of ninjutsu​, the methods and ways of the legendary ninja, even showing on Japanese selection exhibits.

He labored as a bodyguard for the wealthy and well-known world wide, survived the devastating tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 and returned house a decade in the past to proceed his safety profession and martial arts instructing.

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Now at 53, he sits in a New Zealand jail cell, considering a few years of incarceration for importing one of many greatest ever shipments of methamphetamine into his house nation.

It’s an enormous fall from grace for a household man who was extremely revered in two international locations.

Netzler moved to Japan in 1986 when he was simply 18 and stayed there for 25 years. He grew to become fluent in Japanese and married a neighborhood lady, with whom he had two kids.

He studied within the Bujinkan​ college of ninjutsu below the grand grasp Masaaki Hatsumi​, the 89-year-old founding father of the organisation, finally attaining the best rank of fifteenth dan, bestowed by Hatsumi himself.

In line with his CV, he was the all-Japan Shooto​ (blended martial artwork) beginner heavyweight champion in 1997, the all-Japan Fight Wrestling champion in 1999 and the one non-Japanese to characterize Japan within the heavyweight division on the Submission Wrestling world championships in Abu Dhabi.

Within the 2000s, he took up MMA preventing, reaching third on this planet with the Pancrase​ organisation.

A former shut good friend and enterprise companion, Darrell Putt of Taupō, says Netzler labored exhausting to make a hit of himself.

“They’re not so open with foreigners coming in and doing properly of their nation. You’ve acquired to combat for it daily to get into a very good place, and he’d accomplished that.

“He was doing safety work. He’d accomplished some big jobs – labored for some very unique businessmen and dignitaries – he acquired himself fairly a fame for being a very good operator.

“He was much less Kiwi and extra Japanese by that point.”

Netzler additionally grew to become a contact for New Zealanders heading to Japan to additional their martial arts coaching.

However his life was upended by the earthquakes and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, inflicting widespread destruction and killing at the very least 15,000 folks.

He informed the New Zealand Herald he was having lunch with a good friend in Tokyo when the quake struck.

“I regarded up and actually, there have been 20-storey buildings simply smacking into one another.”

He walked 15km house and managed to get in contact together with his spouse and kids, who had been secure, he informed the Herald.

“Our house is on the eighth ground. You might nonetheless dwell in it, nevertheless it was only a wreck.

“A lady who lives on a decrease ground has nowhere to go. Her house is totally destroyed,” he stated.

Coincidentally, Putt was serious about establishing a enterprise offering bodyguard companies to VIPs world wide, and he considered Netzler.

Additionally a ninjutsu practitioner, together with his personal dojo in Taupō, Putt had recognized Netzler for 30 years and knew he needed to return house at some stage.

Putt had simply gained a contract to offer safety companies to Phil Rudd, the AC/DC drummer who’d settled in Tauranga.

“I wasn’t about to up my household and shift out of city… to go and take care of some rock star, however I may see a chance to uplift Anthony, who had gone by way of the tsunami and had his life worn out.”

Putt travelled to Japan, and located his outdated good friend in dire straits.

“There was a time period the place his household had been residing in a neighborhood shelter. He stated to me I’d saved his life.”

Again in New Zealand, the chums began an organization, Straight Arrow, offering safety to purchasers world wide.

The Rudd contract grew to become a full-time gig for Netzler, and he arrange his life in Mount Maunganui, opening a dojo there and coaching college students. He doesn’t seem to have purchased any property in New Zealand, residing in modest leases.

In 2015, he marketed a three-day camp that included firearms coaching, “nocturnal ways” and evasion and ambush strategies.

Putt says firearms are “completely not a part of Bujinkan curriculum – something he was doing in relation to that was off his personal [bat]”.

The safety enterprise went properly for some time, Putt says, however issues began to unravel.

“I couldn’t see a future shifting ahead with the way in which our personalities had been clashing. You should not go into enterprise with mates, mainly.

“After I closed the enterprise down, he was fairly sore about it. We stayed away from one another after that.”

Netzler’s work with Rudd completed round 2014, and it’s understood he started associating with some unsavoury sorts.

By December 2018, he was hatching plans for a medication operation, travelling to Bangkok, Thailand, to rearrange an enormous cargo of methamphetamine.

In line with a report within the Bay of A lot Occasions in March, the medication got here into the nation off the Bay of A lot coast in April 2019 on a catamaran.

The load – 500kg of meth with an estimated road worth of $150m – was second solely in dimension to the 501kg introduced ashore at 90 Mile Seaside in 2016.

An affiliate, Charles Scott Care, the owner-operator of Charlie’s Fishing Charters, agreed that his vessel Kyla J could possibly be used to gather the medication, the Occasions reported.

Netzler, Care and a 3rd man sailed about 185km from Whakatāne to an space generally known as The Rumbles, the place they met the catamaran and offloaded the medication, the paper stated.

After a tip-off, police launched surveillance operations and recovered 410kg of the meth in Auckland and Hamilton.

When police searched Netzler’s handle after his arrest in February final 12 months they discovered 5 bundles of money – about $20,000 in NZ notes and almost $30,000 in Australian {dollars}, the Occasions reported.

Care, who acquired between $600,000 and $700,000 from Netzler for his position, pleaded responsible final 12 months to a cost of importing methamphetamine and was sentenced to 12 years and 9 months’ imprisonment.

Netzler pleaded responsible in March to fees together with importing methamphetamine for provide and will likely be sentenced on the finish of April.

Putt says Netzler’s drug fees shocked members of the Bujinkan neighborhood worldwide, and introduced disgrace on the college.

“The varsity does not condone any prison exercise. There is a huge quantity of shame concerned in what’s gone on… we have got mud on our face, it’s not a pleasant state of affairs to be in.”

He was stunned by the size of the operation.

“I don’t know how he may have presumably managed what he did. There is no-one in our joint community of mates that I do know that might have helped him with what he acquired concerned in – it was fairly big.”

Putt says it’s probably Netzler would have made contacts in Thailand by way of martial arts.

“While you apply martial arts and journey the world… you meet lots of people. All martial artists from all backgrounds just like the Thai [boxing] – all of them bounce on a aircraft and go right into a camp at some stage… and look to additional their skill as a stand-up fighter.”

He may solely assume his outdated good friend had been motivated by cash and greed.

“He’s not a foul man, he’s simply flawed. He’s clearly acquired some points.

“If somebody stated to you ‘I can get you a s… load of meth, do you need to do it’, would you? I would not. However I suppose anyone had that dialog with him, and he thought ‘f… it, I would like cash, I need to be sitting fairly… and I don’t need to work very exhausting for it.”