Members of the Comancheros and Mongols were convicted of home invasion where a retired couple were mistakenly targeted in a gang taxing. Photo / NZME
Members of the Comancheros and Mongols were convicted of home invasion where a retired couple were mistakenly targeted in a gang taxing. Photo / NZME
A retired couple were threatened at gunpoint in a terrifying home invasion which police say is a case of innocent people caught in the often invisible practice of "taxing" in the criminal underworld.
The husband and wife, in the mid 60s, were woken by the sound of the front doorof their Mount Maunganui home being smashed with a sledgehammer around 4am in July 2018.
At least four men, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, pointed firearms and threatened to kill the couple - and their dog - unless they handed over drugs and cash.
"We're 65 years old, do we really look like we do drugs?" the wife told the masked men, according to her evidence in court, "and then I said: 'And who uses cash nowadays anyway'."
They had targeted the wrong house. The pensioners suspected their neighbours were drug dealers, but kept quiet for fear of what might happen to the young children who lived there.
Seeing his fearful wife screaming on the floor of their bedroom, the husband tried to distract their assailants by offering to open up a locked safe.
"I thought: 'This could end really badly, or there might be a way that it doesn't end badly,' the husband said, according to his evidence in court, "but I knew to confront them, or to remonstrate with them was not going to pay any dividends."
But under the stress of the situation, he could not remember the combination code to unlock the safe, which only held passports, watches and a few trinkets.
Instead, he gave them all the cash from his wife's purse - $40 to pay for her next yoga class.
Their ordeal was interrupted by a scream. A senior detective and his wife, who lived next door, had heard the commotion and called 111 for help.
Carrying only tasers and pepper spray, police officers quickly arrived at the property to confront the armed intruders. A heavy object was thrown at one officer, striking her in the head, prompting the scream heard by the victims inside.
The balaclava-clad men fled the Valley Rd address to their getaway vehicle parked in a nearby street, and the police chased them through central Mount Maunganui and Blake Park.
A loaded shotgun was thrown from the escape vehicle, which the intruders swapped for another which they then abandoned.
They escaped through the grounds of the Mount Maunganui golf course and Tauranga Airport, where police dog trackers and the Armed Offenders Squad lost them.
Later that morning, one of the men was trying to hitchhike out of Tauranga back to Auckland.
The car that stopped to pick him up was driven by an off-duty police officer, who reported his suspicions.
The hitchhiker, William Matiu Court-Clausen, was arrested as the first of four men charged in connection with the bungled home invasion.
Court-Clausen and Junior Moke pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and are serving prison sentences of 7 years 6 months and 6 years 2 months, respectively.
While the physical violence against the victims was considered "moderate", Judge Thomas Ingram said they were a vulnerable couple held at gunpoint in their own home who feared for their safety.
The home invasion, said Judge Ingram, was "easily the most carefully planned and professionally executed aggravated robbery of its type I'm aware of in New Zealand".
Two of their co-accused denied the charges but were found guilty of aggravated robbery and burglary at a second trial in January. Their first trial ended with a hung jury.
At the hearing in the Tauranga District Court last month, Maninoa Vincent Felise was handed a prison term of 7 years and 8 months.
The fourth defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, received a prison sentence of 8 years and 2 months.
Maninoa Felise, right, is a member of the Comancheros while his co-accused, who cannot be named yet, joined the Mongols. Photo / George Novak
The Herald can reveal that all four men were deported from Australia as so-called '501s' and are now members of notorious motorcycle gangs.
At the time of the home invasion, the police believed they were linked to the Bandidos gang.
Court-Clausen, Moke and Felise have since joined the Comancheros, while the fourth man is now a member of the Mongols.
Both motorcycle gangs have established chapters in New Zealand in recent years after members were deported from Australia, using the 'good character' grounds in section 501 of the Migration Act to revoke their visas.
The Herald on Sunday understands that covert police investigations have established close friendships between members of the Comancheros and the Mongols in New Zealand, traditionally staunch enemies in Australia, because they grew up together before being deported.
Although these gang members comprise a relatively small proportion of the thousands of so-called "501s" deportees, police believe these new gangs have a disproportionate influence on the New Zealand criminal landscape because of their international connections, sophisticated counter-surveillance tactics, and aggressive use of firearms.
Members of the Comancheros and Mongols were convicted of home invasion where a retired couple were mistakenly targeted in a gang taxing. Photo / NZME
This has coincided with what police say is an escalation in the underworld practice of "taxing", where criminals extort cash, drugs or valuables from other criminals in fear of violence or intimidation.
"Taxing" is reported to police on rare occasions, as the victims are in fear of further retribution or exposing their own criminal behaviour.
More often, police learn about "taxing" by talking to confidential informants or through hospital admissions as a favoured tactic in recent years is to shoot someone in the leg. The injury will leave the victim maimed, but alive.
In the July issue of the Police Association magazine, the Mount Maunganui home invasion was highlighted as an example of taxing which spilled into the public only because innocent parties were hurt.
"A major concern for police," Detective Sergeant Ray Sunkel, of the Motorcycle Gang Unit, told the magazine, "is that further instances like this will take place as 'taxings' become more commonplace, and the outcomes could be considerably worse."
He said other innocent bystanders, such as family members getting beaten up on the way to the intended target, can find themselves in harm's way.
It's not just beatings and gunshot wounds. Sunkel said victims get stabbed, have their kneecaps broken with baseball bats, or in one horrific case, a blow torch was used as a torture device.
