Romani Katoa, a member of the World Aquatics Bureau and Vice President of Oceania Aquatics, is facing charges in the Cook Islands after allegedly being seen on CCTV footage breaking into a property at 2AM on Boxing Day, 2024.
Katoa, the first Pacific Islander to hold Oceania’s lone seat on the World Aquatics Bureau, is facing a charge of willful damage after Cook Islands businesswoman Natasha Wright shared video on social media of two individuals entering a property she owns armed with knives, according to Cook Island News.
He is being charged alongside a 28-year-old co-defendant, fisherman Poe Poila, who has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol at more than three times the legal limit and crashing his car.
Both men were released on bail.
Wright contacted Cook Island News with concerns that no action had been taken by police after two weeks in spite of saying that she knew who the individuals were.
Police say that Katoa was arrested and found with the knife that was allegedly used in the incident, adding that “further charges are likely to arise from these related incidents.”
Among the immediate fallout was the resignation of Katoa as the acting president of the Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee. Simiona Teiotu has replaced him in that role on an interim basis and said that Romani “volunteered to step down” from his previous role of senior vice-president.
Katoa is still listed as a member of the World Aquatics Bureau and Vice-President of Oceania Aquatics (formerly the Oceania Swimming Association). SwimSwam has reached out to World Aquatics about his status with the organization but has not yet heard back.
Other fallout is that Katoa’s contract as project manager with the Cook Islands Investment Corporation (CIIC) for a Arutanga Harbour project has been terminated. The project involves dredging the harbor entry to accommodate more ships, yachts, and cruise ship tenders. CIIC is a state-owned company that manages’ the Cook Islands’ government assets.
This is not Katoa’s first legal issue in recent years. In 2022, he pleaded guilty to charges of assault and carrying offensive weapons after an August 2020 incident.
He approached a group of young people at 2:30 AM who were drinking, smoking marijuana, and being disorderly with a shovel and a machete. According to CookIslandsNews, he “banged the machete’s flat side against the buttocks of three women.”
Charges were ultimately dropped after he donated $1,500 NZD ($860 USD) to the Cook Islands Women’s Counselling Center, which offers support to women who have been victims of violence. The judge took into account a clean record and his status on the island in dismissing the charges in that 2020 incident.
The Cook Islands are a group of 15 major islands spread out across 850,000 miles of ocean in the South Pacific, about 2,000 miles northeast of New Zealand. They have a combined population of about 15,000 people as of the 2021 census and have been competing in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988. They sent their smallest delegation ever (tied) in 2024 of two athletes: Alex Beddoes, who was entered in the men’s 800 run on the track but scratched; and Lanihei Connolly, who finished 32nd in the women’s 100 breaststroke in 1:10.45.
Connolly was raised in New Zealand and won gold in the 50 breaststroke and silver in the 100 breaststroke at the 2023 Pacific Games. Swimmers have represented the country at the Olympics in each edition dating back to 2008.
World Aquatics has not responded to a request for comment.
Jeah!
Embarrassment for World Aquatics along with their many other cronies like Zhou Jihong and Tamas Gyarfas
Each time there is an article about WA or Diving, you start crying and complaining about Zhou.
Did she refuse to respond to your DMs ?
He sounds dangerous!
Appalling. This is the quality of people who sit on World Aquatics’ Bureau. They’re either cheats or crims.