Inside police war on Head Hunters
Raids show extent of gang’s grip over nation’s P scourge
Freezing $6 million of property from Head Hunters’ boss Wayne Doyle is seen as the pinnacle of a sustained police war on the motorcycle gang. No criminal charges have been laid against Doyle, 62, who has kept out of courtrooms for nearly 20 years.
Now the police will allege his wealth was “criminally derived” and Doyle, the president of the East Chapter, will need to prove he paid for the property legitimately.
However, the raid on the gang’s Ellerslie headquarters on Monday should not be viewed in isolation.
Over the past three years, the Auckland-based Head Hunters have been specifically targeted in at least 12 police investigations across the country.
Guns, drugs, cars, cash — even stolen Star Wars figures — have been seized in Northland, Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Wairarapa, Wellington, Nelson and as far south as Christchurch.
This has been a deliberate nationwide strategy to tackle the gang, which has aggressively expanded in numbers and geographic locations in recent years.
“The gang were seen as controlling the methamphetamine market and getting stronger,” said Chris Cahill, president of the Police Association.
“There has definitely been [a targeted] attack on the Head Hunters.”
Operation Genoa
The first of these was Operation Genoa in May 2014. A senior member of the East Chapter, David Gerrard O’Carroll, was arrested after a covert investigation into methamphetamine manufacturing.
Millions of dollars of assets were seized including $2m cash, luxury cars including a Ferrari, Porsche and Maserati, and gold and silver bars.
Detectives also found a machine to forge driver licences and dozens of fake IDs. The aliases were used to rent storage facilities to hide the cash and cars, set up bank accounts and Head Hunters gang member Wayne Doyle has stayed out of court for almost 20 years but will now have to prove $6 million of property seized by police this week was legitimately paid for. Among the items seized during Operation Genoa were $2m cash, luxury cars, and gold and silver bars. safety deposit boxes, obtain a false passport and purchase property.
“It’s one way of trying to get around the asset forfeiture laws,” Detective Inspector Bruce Good told the Herald in 2014.
Despite his lengthy criminal history — including prior convictions for methamphetamine manufacture — O’Carroll was released on bail to a different address. Six months later, police found another $1m cash at the second address.
Detectives also returned to the other property where he was first arrested. There, a cache of 14 stolen firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition were discovered in a secret bunker under the kitchen.
A dozen of the weapons, mainly shotguns, were traced to a burglary of a gun collector in Bucklands Beach a few months earlier.
O’Carroll is now serving 16 years and five months in prison after being found guilty of cooking about 2kg of the Class A drug.
Operation Easter
Following Genoa, was Operation Easter. Police were told members of the Head Hunters’ East Chapter in Auckland were running a P lab in Northland.
Investigating the tip in Waiotira, in rural Northland, without tipping off the targets, posed unique challenges.
“It’s a small rural community, everybody knows everybody,” said Detective Senior Sergeant Lloyd Schmid earlier this year.
Nearly every day, over the course of the five-month inquiry, Schmid said there was a strict routine.
The P cooks would arrive around 7am and work until lunchtime, have a short break, then keep working until around 6pm.
The entire house was stripped bare to house the chemicals and lab equipment need to cook massive amounts of the Class-A drug.
The word “factory” was used deliberately by Justice Simon Moore when sentencing the ringleader, patched Head Hunter Brownie Harding, in April.
He was sentenced to 28 and a half years in prison and will serve at least 10 years before being eligible for parole.
While Harding was the undisputed “boss” of the Northland operation, said Justice Moore, there was evidence he answered to someone higher up the chain in Auckland.
In one unforgettable conversation bugged by police, Harding was “incandescent with rage” after some of the drugs leaked out of the manufacturing apparatus.
He talked about having to explain a $200,000 loss “down in Auckland”.
“Bird” Hines
In a late twist in Operation Easter, police were listening in when Brownie Harding rang the gang pad in Ellerslie wanting to talk to “Bird”.
“Bird” is William Hines, one of the most senior Head Hunters in the East Chapter.
The 64-year-old Hines was jailed this year for 18 and a half years for manufacturing P after a third, separate investigation, Operation Sylvester.
“Bird” has a long and colourful criminal history, including a stint in prison for the Head Hunters’ first foray into cooking P in the late 1990s.
But he kept out of trouble until the start of 2015, when the police started a covert investigation targeting Hines and his underlings. Hines was in charge of the methamphetamine ring, giving orders but leaving the others to do his “dirty work”.
On just one “cook”, the group obtained 20 “sets” of pseudoephedrine — enough to produce more than 1kg of methamphetamine.
At one point during the covert surveillance, police raided a storage unit linked to the group.
They found a van, with an internal cage and heavy-duty locks. Inside detectives found 9kg of iodine and 33L of hypophosphorous acid — used in the cooking process — as well as 150g of P separated into ounces. These are commonly sold for $12,000 each.
Alongside the drugs was a cache of high-powered military-style rifles and a Smith & Wesson revolver.
“Sinister” was how the sentencing judge described the discovery.
Three separate investigations, three senior members of the East Chapter of the Head Hunters serving long jail sentences.
“These operations show the Head Hunters are at the very heart of methamphetamine manufacture in this country,” said Detective Superintendent Greg Williams, the head of the National Organised Crime Group.
“[We will] continue to target them and other gangs — in order to stop them from harming the community.”