Andrew Rule: The Aussie rapist brothers who appalled New Zealand

The Jaz brothers seemed a success story in a shattered Christchurch rebuilding after the 2011 earthquake. But beneath the slick, smooth-talking exterior was a pair of predators.

Danny Jaz (centre) and his brother Roberto Jaz (right) drinking at their Christchurch bar Mama Hooch. Picture supplied

Australia and New Zealand share more than Anzac, racehorses, rock bands and rugby rivalry. Like their more law-abiding countrymen, Kiwi criminals punch above their weight in the wider world.

For decades, Kiwi crooks have joined the exodus of migrants to Australia, especially to Sydney and the Gold Coast. But the traffic now goes both ways.

A bunch of gang members born in New Zealand but raised in Australia are being forcibly repatriated under a controversial section of the Migration Act.

Since 2015, about 2500 “jail birds” have been sent “home” across the Tasman, among them members of Australian chapters of American biker gangs, a list that runs from Angels, Bandidos and Comancheros through to Mongols, Outlaws and Rebels.

One high-profile deportee was Shane Martin, father of champion Richmond footballer “Dusty” Martin, a Rebels bikie and New Zealand citizen.

Martin sen. was punted from Australia in 2016 for “bad character” and met an outlaw’s death in the land of his birth. He punched, choked and abused a woman while in a steroid-induced rage not long before dying on his kitchen floor in 2021.

Shane Martin was deported from Australia back to New Zealand, his place of birth. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The arrival of people like Martin upset the Kiwi public, politicians and police because they incite gang wars involving homegrown mobs like the Headhunters, the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

The result is gang gun fights around Auckland that echo the murderous violence in Sydney and Melbourne.

But not all “Aussie” crime in New Zealand involves patched gangs, guns and turf wars.

The most notorious case of recent times centres on a family of restaurateurs.

This week, it was confirmed that two brothers in that family have been moved from prison in Christchurch to a regional jail for their own safety.

This is why.

The story of Mama Hooch and the Jaz brothers goes back at least five years — to 2018, when Christchurch police acted on sinister stories about two venues run by a Macedonian migrant with an Australian passport.

His name is Michael Mendo Jaz, whose surname when he left Macedonia is thought to have been Jazevski. It is his sons Roberto and Danny who have just started long prison sentences for drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of young women over several years.

Many of the victims were barely 18, young and naive enough to think the offer of “free drinks” at the hottest bar in town would have no strings attached.

In the excitement of being treated like VIPs invited to jump the queue, they didn’t suspect their smooth-talking hosts of spiking drinks with the date-rape drug rohypnol.

The brothers brazenly referred to the drug by its street name, “roofie,” in group conversations and messages full of brutish sexual references that would eventually trap them.

In one exchange, Roberto Jaz said he had “roofied” a woman’s drink. To which a friend responded “Did you buy her a Roofiecolada?”

Mama Hooch was one of the hottest bars in Christchurch. Picture: David Walker

In another message, Roberto asked a friend if there were any women at a party. Told the women were “inactive”, he replied with one word: “rape”. That didn’t win him any favours from a judge and jury, who decided that his actions matched his words.

Rohypnol is the date-rape drug of choice for predators, perverts and rapists because (to use the legal-medical term) it “stupefies” victims, leaving them virtually unable to move — and blanking out the memory for details that a witness needs.

Given that most victims could not remember much except that something bad happened, it took a while for rumours about the brothers to reach Christchurch police.

On the surface, the Macedonian Australian family seemed to be a success story in a shattered city rebuilding after the 2011 earthquake.

Michael Jaz, from Mogila in northern Macedonia, migrated to Australia as a young married man. His three sons were born here and moved with them to New Zealand around 2001 — first to Auckland, then Christchurch.

Jaz’s first Christchurch restaurant was Portofino. After the earthquake, he opened Venuti then the slick bar Mama Hooch.

Oldest son Danny, all designer stubble and hair slicked into a bun, worked front of house at Mama Hooch. Tall, dark Roberto was a chef. Younger brother Davide also worked in the family business.

Michael was licensee of both venues and responsible for licensing breaches exposed during the police investigation of the sex assaults.

When licensing officers interviewed him about breaches, he was belligerent, accusing them of corruptly persecuting the business with the drink-spiking and sex allegations.

Asked about Danny’s role (following Roberto’s arrest) Michael said his son had been “removed as manager” of Mama Hooch but was still working at the bar to show others the ropes.

Asked exactly what Danny did, he said “He enjoyed himself”.

Jaz couldn’t help disparaging the police and the young women who had alleged the sexual assaults.

“These girls, they throw themselves at my boys,” he said.

“Danny never had to force a girl to do anything. Why do the police force these girls to make up these lies about my sons?”

Danny Jaz behind the bar at Mama Hooch with former Prime Minister Sir John Key. Picture: Facebook

Michael Jaz, the father of Danny and Roberto.

One reason he lost his liquor licences was that police reviewed videos depicting sexual assaults committed by his two sons. There was also footage of people in the bar after hours, serving themselves alcohol, taking drugs and using the premises for sex.

Among the videos was one of Danny Jaz assaulting a man in the Mama Hooch toilets, and of Michael Jaz punching a patron.

In the second incident, Danny and Roberto chase the man after their father punches him in the face. They knock him down and punch, knee and kick him in the head.

“Michael Jaz and his family almost appear to think they are above the law,” police reported to the licensing committee.

The committee said the evidence was “overwhelming” and “the worst we’ve ever seen”.

Leading New Zealand crime reporter Anna Leask has covered the case since it broke. She says the brothers were “fixated on sex — how they could get it and who with”.

They deliberately selected “a type” — young, inexperienced and attractive — from the queue of those wanting to get into Mama Hooch on busy nights. Preying on the girls’ naivete, they’d offer them free cocktails or party drugs like MDMA.

Sometimes, the brothers would steer a drugged victim into the toilets to assault them. Or lure them from the bar late at night to the nearby restaurant, Venuti, which would be empty by then.

It was Roberto’s calculating assault of a young woman in the empty restaurant in 2018 that helped bring them undone.

Roberto persuaded the intended victim and her friend to snort a white powder. He assured them it was MDMA, but it was something that virtually paralysed them — almost certainly rohypnol.

It seems the victim was not quite defenceless. She and her friend remembered enough of the incident to tell police how Roberto had forced her down on a leather banquette.

The victim also fought back, scratching Roberto’s neck and shoulder and leaving marks that would become photographic evidence of a violent episode he pretended not to recall when a detective later interrogated him about it.

Danny and Roberto Jaz being sentenced in the Christchurch District Court last month. Picture: New Zealand Herald/George Heard

For all his feigned innocence, and false claim that his own drink might have been spiked, Roberto had been desperate not to be in a police interview room once the alarm went up in August, 2018.

The day after police went public, calling for anyone with a Mama Hooch drink-spiking story, Roberto was arrested at the airport trying to fly to Australia. From then on, the news for him and his brother got steadily worse.

When police raided Roberto’s home, they found drugs. And when they checked the brothers’ phones they found a group chat of messages proving they’d often targeted young women who worked for them — or wanted to work for them.

The group chats included screenshots of young women taken from the Mama Hooch security cameras.

Roberto Jaz’s phone included a collection of sex videos in a hidden folder. Some are of unknown women that police have never been able to identify.

Earlier this year, the brothers were convicted of 69 charges between them, including rape, sexual violation, indecent assault, stupefying, disabling, making intimate recordings of women without their knowledge or consent and supplying illicit drugs.

Their younger brother came to court but their father Michael had returned to Australia in 2020. Their mother, whose name is permanently suppressed, is believed to still live close enough to make prison visits.

Roberto Jaz, 38, received 17 years. Danny Jaz, 40, got six months less. Both will have to serve at least half those terms before applying for parole.

It could be a long nine years.

As soon as the long-term suppression orders were lifted in May, Roberto was attacked in Christchurch Prison. When the pair came to court to be sentenced last month, Danny had a black eye.

Last Monday, authorities confirmed the brothers had been moved from mainstream prison to the Otago Corrections Centre in rural Milton. If they’re lucky, both might survive.

Thousands of words have been reported about the case, which Judge Paul Mabey KC described as the worst of its kind in New Zealand.

But the victim impact statement of Sophie Brown, who waived her right to suppress her name, stands out.

At one point, she turned to Danny Jaz in a crowded court and reminded him of his own young daughter.

“She’ll be 19 one day, and you’ve made sure that she continues to live in a world where women are exploited,” she said.

“Don’t assume you’re anything more than worthless.”