Low profile of gangs good for business

[~lostgurl~]

Low profile of gangs good for business

15 July 2006

Is the peace that has broken out between some gangs a calculated move on the part of organised criminals to lower their profile? Or are gang members simply growing up and going straight? Ruth Hill reports.

A few years ago, the streets of Hastings were frequently the setting for gang warfare, as patched gang members faced off outside the town's bars.
Detective David Sutherland, a gang intelligence officer in Hastings, says the town is "quieter" these days. Gangs that were once locked in bitter turf disputes are now cooperating. Senior Black Power members even attended a Hawke's Bay Mongrel Mob "leadership forum" in March.

But Mr Sutherland is sceptical of claims gangs are moving away from crime.
"They have a saying `TCB' – `taking care of business' – and their business is crime."

Police Association president Greg O'Connor says methamphetamine has changed the landscape of the underworld. These days, gang bosses move in the best society circles, and "foot soldiers" are under orders to avoid unseemly street brawls, which are likely to attract the attention of the authorities.

Until recent years, New Zealand had avoided large-scale organised crime, which was entrenched in most Western countries, including Australia.
"Gangs always had a share of the cannabis trade, but were never been able to corner it completely. Methamphetamine requires a bit more sophistication, particularly importation and distribution." Some are forging links with organised crime networks overseas, Mr O'Connor says. "Even if meth disappeared tomorrow, we'd still be left with the legacy of organised crime."

Some gangs also ran successful legitimate businesses, which allowed them to launder money from criminal enterprises. "You have parallel industries developing, with lawyers and accountants coming in to help them. Organised crime means just that: being organised."

Senior police and politicians missed their chance a decade ago to crack down on methamphetamine (known colloquially as "P" for "pure") by ignoring overseas trends – and the union's warnings, he says. "There was a complete failure in the 1990s to firstly recognise the extent of the problem, and secondly a failure to fund the fight against it. . ."Now it will be a hugely expensive process to uproot organised crime."

He admits there have been big improvements lately: in the past two years, police have made a series of multi-city raids to break up major rings.
Veteran Black Power leader Abraham Wharewaka's drug empire brought in up to $5 million a year before it was busted.

A massive police operation, code-named Operation Soprano, uncovered a sophisticated industry, centred on an Otahuhu tinny house known as "the marae", which was part of a housing complex that Wharewaka developed in the late 1970s with government grants. In the High Court at Auckland in March last year, the 62-year-old president of the Sindi chapter – once feted by prime minister Rob Muldoon and senior police for his role in setting up work schemes – was sentenced to eight years for manufacturing methamphetamine, cultivating cannabis, and belonging to an organised criminal group. His brother and vice-president, Timothy Jake Wharewaka, 52, 38-year-old son, Abraham Wharewaka, and 24-year-old lover, Rania Mohsen Niazi (Remuera-reared and private-schooled), were also convicted of related charges.

In March, South Auckland police busted another crime syndicate run by Black Power members, which was turning over about $1 million in drugs and stolen property a year.

The following month, 18 men and women were arrested in a simultaneous dawn raid on 18 addresses in Pukekohe, Papakura and Manurewa. But police say these busts have only exposed the size of the P problem and the extent of co-operation between gangs.

In Auckland, police are discovering P labs at a rate of about one a week.

Mr O'Connor says the lack of a national approach has handicapped police efforts, with gangs centralising as police become more decentralised.
Another continuing problem is the way in which police funding is always "tagged", giving little flexibility. "Criminals are never, never ring-fenced: they move very quickly from one commodity to another." After the Fisheries Ministry started cracking down on paua and cray poachers in the past five years, gangs moved on to less-policed areas, such as drug dealing.

In recent years, police have successfully focused on cutting "volume crime", such as burglaries. This type of crime is "measurable" – while drug-related crime tends to slip under the radar, Mr O'Connor says. "Gangs have thrived in an environment in which police, like many other government departments, have become obsessed with counting and statistics." Mr O'Connor says that some districts have purposely reduced their emphasis on organised crime and drugs "because it messes up their statistics" – though he declines to say which ones.

It is "inevitable" that gangs will infiltrate government departments, local bodies and even the police eventually, he says. This year a civilian police worker was convicted of helping a member of the Head Hunters gang escape police – and of possession of a methamphetamine pipe.

Organised crime relies on "spheres of intimidation", Mr O'Connor says.
When criminals are merely terrorising their own associates, that's not such a big deal. But as that sphere widens – through drug debts, blackmail, or straight intimidation – the power of gangs grows.

And P has given gangs leverage in places they never had it before. "Many P users are middle New Zealanders: they're businesspeople, professionals, students, housewives – everyone has influence somewhere."

However, Canterbury University PhD student Jarrod Gilbert, who is writing a history of gangs in New Zealand, says the vast majority of gang members do not fit the profile of "organised criminals".

"There's no doubt that gangs are a lot quieter today than they've been in the past. . . police say it's to do with organised activity, but I think a more probable explanation is that gang members have got older and calmed down a lot," he says.

The Police Association estimates there are 6000 patched members with 60,000 "associates" – outnumbering the nation's 7627 sworn police officers nine-to-one.

But Mr Gilbert, who has spent the past three years hanging out with gangs as part of his research, says membership of the traditional patched gangs is aging and contracting. Though there is a criminal fraternity that reaches deep into gangs, most gang members come from working-class backgrounds and remain working-class their entire lives, he says. "You don't see the shows of ostentatious wealth that you would expect if they were into significant organised crime." Most gangs have realised that if they act criminally as a group, "it's only going to take one significant bust and the entire gang is history – and they don't want that". He says police over-estimate gangs' involvement in drug dealing. "In the 1980s, before the Proceeds of Crime Act, certain chapters of certain gangs did operate as organised criminal groups. But even then, it was a rare thing, and that angle can certainly be over-blown."

Gangs see themselves as social clubs. "Society might regard them as anti-social clubs, but they just enjoy each other's company. Some of these motorcycle gangs would have more in common with a Rotary club than a youth gang down in South Auckland."

Some members undoubtedly need law-enforcement measures occasionally, but traditional policing methods are more than adequate for the task, Mr Gilbert says.

However, though old-school ethnic and motorcycle gangs are mainly about socialising, Asian gangs are introducing a culture of organised crime, he says. Last month, a cooperative investigation between Ports of Auckland and police resulted in a bust that netted a record $135 million worth of methamphetamine – all destined for the New Zealand market.

Three Chinese men, a Hong Kong national and two New Zealand residents of Chinese descent, are facing drugs and firearms charges. "Overseas, they are far more into organised activity, so that culture would come with them," Mr Gilbert says.

Ex-Black Power member turned social worker Denis O'Reilly says the focus is on "street level distribution" of methamphetamine – whereas it would be more effective to set our sights higher. "It's the flood of the product coming into New Zealand that we urgently need to stem, and I don't believe that this is being primarily carried here by local street gangs," he said. "It's as if the prevailing paradigm is so fixed that we can't see what's before our eyes."

Last year seizures of meth at the borders went up by a factor of eight. Customs estimate they intercept about 20 per cent of flow.

Christchurch Black Power president Shane Turner says mainly Asian organised crime syndicates are behind the upsurge in methamphetamine, and they have little to do with traditional gangs.

NZPA

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