Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang move organised crime, cocaine network to New Zealand
Australia’s Comanchero bikies have set up their organised crime and cocaine network abroad, joining forces to combat local chapters of Rebels and Bandidos.
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Deported Australian gangsters have brought an “unprecedented” level of criminality to New Zealand, using our Tasman neighbour as a new base to co-ordinate transnational organised crime.
And the Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang have been nominated as the most threatening element to public order in New Zealand, using their Aussie network to traffic cocaine and meth, launder cash and “cop shop” to bribe police into corruption.
“The Comanchero, I can assure you, are the devil,” New Zealand Police officers were recently told in an internal address looking at the impact of “Aussie 501s”, so-called after the section of the immigration act under which they were booted out of Australia.
At least 1000 criminals have been deported to NZ from Australia between 2015-2020 with police intelligence flagging “the cost of criminal offending” by some deportees arriving in NZ to be more than $100 million.
An estimated 55 per cent of those sent back had committed crimes within two years of arrival, a lack of support networks cited as exacerbating the issue.
NZ Customs Investigations manager Bruce Berry said some of the criminals being deported had extensive established networks from Australia which they were now just transplanting in NZ.
These include up to 20 patched Comanchero members recently deported from Australia, now joining forces with local Mongrel Mob and combating Australian chapters of Rebels and Bandidos already well established in New Zealand.
“The sophistication and commission they bring with the connectivity from groups like the Comanchero and a lot of the other gangs that copy their growth and success is all about money,” Mr Berry said.
“Comanchero have an established overseas network, international control of supply lines from Europe and the Americas, established allegiances in pursuit of further business and putting aside gang rivalries, so it is a concern.”
He said NZ authorities use to say they were five years behind Australia in terms of criminal activity and 10 years behind the US but they were now on an equal footing, with repatriation of serious criminals expanding their networks.
“The 501s have certainly changed the criminal landscape here, they have changed the risk environment for law enforcement and they’ve made us become more adaptable to how we handle the sophistication that they bring to their operations. They are a slick business unit, they are all about money, they are all about the look and all about the lifestyle.”
Former Sydney Comanchero now deportee Pasilika Naufahu told TVNZ he had spent 27 years in Australia and didn’t want to be back in NZ.
He was caught up in a bar brawl within 24 hours of arriving in NZ and warned other deportees a lack of support may force some into crime.
Last year New Zealand police with help from the Australian Federal Police made the biggest cocaine bust in their history, with $20 million worth found in the Port of Tauranga which was to be used as a jump point for further drug shipments to Australia.
Two Australians Matthew Scott and Benjamin Northway as well as Croatian Mario Habulin, Serbian national Deni Cavallo were sentenced to between 14 and 27 years for the importation of the class A narcotic.
About $2 million from the operation was also laundered through NZ banks, about $1.29 million of which a court heard, Australia-based Vietnamese beauty salon owner Thi Lieu Le who made several trips to Auckland from Sydney where she was arrested in 2017. She was jailed for three years for money laundering.
Late last year NZ Police ran Operation Nova against the Comanchero chapter in NZ with more than 80 officers involved in raids, seizing $4m of assets including several luxury cars and gold-plated Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
* Watch Australia’s Cocaine Crisis Sunday 7.30pm on Sky News.
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Originally published as Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang move organised crime, cocaine network to New Zealand
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