One of the men involved in a Mexican cartel-linked plot to smuggle 200kg of cocaine into New Zealand worked as a guard at Auckland Prison while addicted to the Class A drug.

Allison Dos Santos' former employment was revealed at the High Court in Rotorua on Friday, where he was jailed for four years after earlier pleading guilty to one charge of importing cocaine and two charges of possessing cocaine for supply.

It was also revealed by Justice Graham Lang that Dos Santos had also been employed 'in the adult entertainment industry”, though he did not elaborate.

Dos Santos is one of a group of offenders that Stuff exclusively revealed had been involved in a plot with the Mexican De Jalisco Nueva​ Generation (CJNG) cartel to smuggle what would have been the second-largest importation of cocaine into New Zealand.

According to the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), CJNG is 'one of the highest-priority transnational organised crime threats we face”.

A joint DEA/Europol analysis in 2022 described the Sinaloa Cartel, and CJNG, as 'the most violent and powerful Mexican criminal organisations”.

Court documents reveal that Dos Santos, a Brazilian citizen who came to New Zealand in 2009, became involved 'with a network of persons who planed to import quantities of cocaine into New Zealand from South America”.

He allowed his home address to be used to import two packages containing 310g and 300g respectively of cocaine.

The documents also reveal bugged conversations where Dos Santos arranged to acquire ten cocaine purity testing kits.

He was also recorded telling an associate in the wake of the cocaine arriving he was having 'the best day of his life”.

Crown prosecutor Duncan McWilliam​ told the court Dos Santos had failed to recognise his offending, claiming not to be a drug dealer and that the cocaine was for his personal use.

Defence lawyer Maria Mortimer told the court that the sentencing, coming a day after his 30th birthday, was 'not the best birthday present”.

She also said he did feel genuine remorse for offending she said was driven by his own addiction.

'He had to have a chat with his young son, what dad had done, and he'd be going to prison,” she said.

She also said that as a former prison officer, and now prisoner, 'he did find that very difficult”.

She said he is being held in segregation and spends 23 hours a day in his cell, and that 'he is in danger”.

Mortimer said he worked for two years as a prison officer, but 'got to a point where he couldn't carry on [with] the drug use at the time”.

Sentencing Dos Santos, Justice Lang said he had been a user of cocaine since he was 14 in his native Brazil, and his continued drug use meant he had been 'breaking the law since you arrived [in New Zealand]”.

He also acknowledged Dos Santos will spend time in the prison he formerly worked at, and that he would 'undoubtedly face issues in prison as you were a former Corrections Officer”.

'It is going to be difficult for you to endure the isolation this will present in the months and years to come,” he said.

-Benn Bathgate/Stuff.