Insight into the NZ underworld

Gangster’s Paradise by Jared Savage, HarperCollins, $39.99

When Jared Savage published his debut book Gangland, the Corrections Department banned it from prisons.

There was a subsequent U-turn but one can’t help but wonder what the reaction will be to Savage’s sequel Gangster’s Paradise.

Here the long time New Zealand Herald crime reporter lifts the lid on the escalation of gangs in New Zealand, in particular the Comancheros and the Mongols.

Both are imports. Their leaders, and a good slice of their members, have come into the country as “501-ers” — deportees from the Australian prison system.

They have rapidly established themselves as kingpins in the global drug market.

Homegrown gangs like the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, Head Hunters et al have been elbowed out. Some, generally younger, members have “patched over”, joining the more criminally sophisticated newcomers.

With this sophistication and global underworld connections has come violence on a scale Aotearoa New Zealand has not previously encountered.

Turf wars between the gangs have escalated and become increasingly lethal. In gangland, firearms, like drugs, are common currency.

Corruption has gained a foothold in the country’s key entry points. Money talks as the gangs find increasingly innovative ways for their illicit imports to bypass border control.

As soon as police officers crack one case, another, then another, takes its place.

These are the facts as Savage exposes them in this unparalleled insight into the modus operandi of gangsters and the upsurge in the criminal trade they practise.

Thisaward-winning crime and investigative journalist has again produced a full-frontal account that tells it like it is.

He leaves readers in no doubt that New Zealanders can no longer be complacent that our piece of paradise offers an escape from the realities of international lawlessness. It is real, it is here.