Police find homemade taser, weapons, cash during gang operation

Police found $100,000 in cash during a raid on a gang property on April 6. Photo / NZ Police

Police have found a homemade taser and three homemade pistols at a rural property near Hastings during an operation targeting gang activities.

Police have been conducting Operation Bloodhound since March 21 to "investigate and disrupt" gang activities in the Eastern Police District.

That operation led to raids on two gang properties in Napier and Tamatea on April 6, netting $100,000 in cash from one of them.

Detective Inspector David de Lange said in a statement following those raids that police had also searched a rural property on March 29, finding several homemade pistols, other firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, cannabis plants and drug utensils.

The police description of the March 29 haul and the person arrested, along with the date, matched details on a number of charging documents filed in the Hastings District Court in the same week.

According to those documents, a 54-year-old man was allegedly in possession of a number of homemade or modified weapons, including three homemade pistols, a homemade "torch gun" and a homemade taser.

The man was also allegedly in possession of more than 200 rounds of varied ammunition, including 120 shotgun cartridges, along with other firearms, a cannabis plant and meth pipes.

He is due to appear again in the Hastings District Court next month.

De Lange said last week that police had received intelligence that a Hawke's Bay man had been allegedly making firearms and other weapons.

He said Operation Bloodhound was being conducted across the Hawke's Bay and Gisborne Tairāwhiti areas, targeting members and associates of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

In one traffic stop, police found about $14,000 in cash, weapons and drug utensils in the vehicle.

So far, more than 30 people have been charged and 30 firearms seized.