Bikies cause Kiwi chaos

Deported violent criminals wreak havoc in NZ

BIKIES banished from Australia are escalating violence to extreme levels after being sent back to New Zealand.

Police say Australia’s unwanted exports are reshaping NZ’s gang scene as they aggressively move to wrench drug market share from the traditional Kiwi outfits.

Ex-Aussie members of the Comancheros, in particular, have become a huge problem for law enforcement in NZ, committing widespread violence and aligning themselves with Mexican drug cartels.

The deportees are known as 501’s because that is the number of the strict character provisions under which many have been returned across the Tasman Sea.

Gold Coast bikie figures are among deportees in the past two years including some involved in the infamous Broadbeach brawl in 2013.

They are among more than 200 deported from Australia in the past two years.

NZ Police Association president Chris Cahill said some Australian deportees had brought a new level of violence to the OMCG world.

Some had spent almost all their lives in Australia and were, essentially, not New Zealanders, he added.

“The only links they’ve got (here) are straight back into gangs. The public are now seeing the problems they’re causing,” he said.

But Mr Cahill said he understood why Australian authorities would use whatever means were available to get rid of them.

“We don’t want them here for our members to have to deal with.”

Mr Cahill said ex-Australians also had a presence with the Rebels and Bandidos and there were concerns about the Mongols making a move.

Senior New Zealand OMCG cop Ray Sunkel last year told a conference that after an execution-style street shooting, the local gangs’ attitude was: “Don’t look at us, mate, that’s the Aussies, that’s not what we do, you know that.”

Detective Sgt Sunkel told the conference the Comancheros were the worst of the imports. “The Comancheros, I can assure you, are the devil,” he said.

This year, NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern accused Australia of using unfair policies to deport “your people and your problems”.

NZ chapter president and Australian deportee Pasilika Naufahu, vice-president Tyson Daniels, Jarome Fonua and Connor Michael Tamati Clausen were arrested after almost $4 million in luxury cars, motorcycles, property and cash was seized in raids across Auckland last year.