A truce has been called between rival gangs the Killer Beez and Tribesmen after a three-week blitz of shootings and suspicious fires. Video / NZ Herald
Senior Killer Beez member Haupapa Snowy Paul has been sentenced for conspiring to murder a rival.
Paul’s plan was thwarted by his own gang, and recorded prison calls revealed the scheme.
He received six years, two months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to murder and related charges.
Senior Killer Beez member Haupapa Snowy Paul wasn’t yet ready to give up the fight as a protracted, violent gang war with the Tribesmen finally reached a fragile truce.
So, he continued from his jail cell to scheme the murder of a rival known as “Sweet”, whom he suspectedof having shot at his home during the weeks of Auckland-wide aggression.
But there were kinks in the plan, a High Court at Auckland judge noted last week as the 28-year-old was sentenced again to prison.
Others in the Killer Beez were not so keen to reignite the war, which had brought heat down on both gangs as the sustained violence sparked action in Parliament..
“The conspiracy came to an end because members of the hierarchy in your gang found out what you were doing and put a stop to it,” Justice Graham Lang noted.
The other problem: all of Paul’s prison calls, in which he laid out the plans in terms that were sometimes coded and other times explicit, were recorded.
Thwarted by own gang
“He has to be smoked, eh,” Paul told a lower-ranking Killer Beez member during a call on June 19, 2022, after the other man said he’d “do that thing” and “get that whacked out thing tonight”.
Paul instructed the other man, who was sentenced in December for conspiracy to murder but continues to have interim name suppression, to keep the plan quiet and to not “spray it” – a reference, it appears, to a generic drive-by shooting in which the aim is fear rather than murder.
Paul, who goes by the nicknames GlassMask and Gun Smoke Killer, then called his partner, asking her to pass along a message to another associate.
“Tell him I talked to [the co-defendant] today and he said he’s got a location for Sweet,” Paul told her. “The bro wants to smoke him – like not sprayed up. He wants to pull up there and, like, try to be all good and once he catches him he wants to smoke him.”
Killer Beez gang member Haupapa Snowy Paul appears in the High Court at Auckland to be sentenced for conspiracy to murder and other charges. Photo / Jason Dorday
He called her again about 15 minutes later, asking her to finalise plans because he was about to enter “lock up”. Recordings show she tried to talk him out of it, pointing out that their own home had already been targeted because of the tit-for-tat violence.
“It’s gonna f*** things up, though,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You get greedy when it comes to that stuff.”
Paul responded that this time it would be different.
“It’s not even spraying, ow, you pull up for the kill,” he said. “Kill that c**t, f*** him.”
His partner described it as “a waste”. He told her to shut up and that it was none of her business anyway.
“Are you sure because our family house got done,” she replied, to which Paul said: “Ow, why you gotta bring that up, for f***?”
Paul always said it had nothing to do with her but she often had to bear the consequences, his partner pointed out.
“Whatever you do, I am you, you are me,” she said. “So f***, you gotta watch out what you do, that’s all.”
But the following afternoon, the co-defendant called back and told Paul that he had just been “jumped” by other Killer Beez members and admitted that he had been working with Paul on a task. The plan was over, thwarted by their own gang hierarchy.
Night of chaos
Paul faced up to 10 years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiracy to murder. He also admitted to unlawfully getting into a stolen vehicle and discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for the safety of others – both in relation to a May 24, 2022, shooting in which another Tribesmen member’s home was targeted.
According to court documents, he carpooled to the Flat Bush home in a stolen Mitsubishi Colt with co-defendants Desmond “Pacer” Hiko, Vincent “Violent” Toby and Joshua “Little Smoke” Baker around 6.50pm that day.
The group opened fire with at least three guns, resulting in a shootout with a patched Tribesmen member who was inside. As a result, neighbours’ homes and vehicles in the South Auckland suburb were also shot.
The defendants then fled in the stolen car and abandoned it, with the motor still running, about 750m away.
Four and a half hours later, another shooting occurred at a Henderson address where “Sweet” – the Tribesmen member who would later be targeted for murder – was thought to live. He no longer lived there, but his ex-partner still did along with their infant and 8-year-old son.
Paul denied taking part in that shooting but was found guilty following a short judge-alone trial in February.
Authorities said Paul, Hiko and Baker drove a stolen Subaru Legacy down the long driveway and then revved the engine until the children’s mother woke up and looked out the window to investigate.
“Multiple shots were then fired,” police alleged in court documents for a co-defendant. “One projectile entered the window where [the mother] was standing, smashing the glass and becoming embedded in the bedroom wall opposite the window. The projectile passed closely by [her] head, causing her to fall to the ground.”
The Killer Beez and Tribesmen had been long-time rivals but had co-existed in relative peace for several years when tensions started to heat up in March 2022 after Killer Beez members were believed to have shot at an address where Tribesmen were celebrating after a patching ceremony.
Tensions increased the following month after Killer Beez members were mocked by the other gang online after a filmed Auckland motorway crash involving several motorbikes.
Then all hell seemed to break loose on May 24. In addition to the Henderson and Flat Bush shootings, the night of chaos included shootings in Papatoetoe, Ōtara, Papakura, Te Atatū and Mt Albert.
In all, there were 21 shootings and nine arsons that authorities attributed to the wider gang conflict, which lasted from May 2 that year until June 10. By the time a peace deal was brokered, Labour Police Minister Poto Williams was sacked for having “lost focus”.
‘Recruited into a life of violence’
Paul came to court last week with letters of apology to the two Tribesmen who were targeted and their families.
“In the context of this offending, it is of some significance,” defence lawyer David Stevens said, describing his client as having newfound “insight” into his lifestyle after nearly three years behind bars – with little connection to his young son – while awaiting trial and sentencing.
Paul also provided 11 certificates of completion for voluntary prison programmes and expressed interest in drug rehabilitation once released.
But the real issue, Justice Lang noted, was his gang affiliation.
“That’s what’s going to make or break Mr Paul from here on,” he said. “If he breaks away, that’s going to be hard, but it’s the only real path to rehabilitation.”
Stevens acknowledged it was a difficult issue for his client, who turned to gang life as a replacement family during his difficult adolescence. But he’s taking positive steps, he said, including investigating the possibility of removing his extensive gang tattoos.
Justice Graham Lang presides over an unrelated hearing in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
The Henderson shooting, where the children were inside the home, was characterised by the judge as the most serious of Paul’s charges.
“This could easily have had tragic consequences,” he said.
Justice Lang ordered a five-year starting point for the Henderson shooting, with a 20-month uplift for the Flat Bush shooting and 12 additional months for the failed murder conspiracy. The sentence was increased by another four months for Paul’s history of violence and firearms convictions.
But he then applied reductions for Paul’s partial guilty pleas, his troubled background and remorse.
“It is clear from the reports that you were born into a family facing challenging circumstances,” he said. “Drug-related issues were prominent for your mother, and your father was entirely absent during your upbringing.”
Paul went to live in a rural setting with his grandmother, but she died when he was 12 and he was returned to his mother in Auckland.
“You then became exposed to strong gang influences by your stepfather,” Lang said. “Your environment during this stage was described by one report writer as being ‘saturated with drugs, alcohol, violence and gang involvement’.
“I accept your counsel’s submission that you were essentially recruited into a life of violence by others in and around that environment. Inevitably, you became immersed in gang life.
A war between the Killer Beez and Tribesmen gangs led to at least 23 drive-by shootings in Auckland in 2022. Photo / Brett Phibbs
“Unsurprisingly, this resulted in you spending a large part of your adolescence and teenage years residing in youth justice facilities. This ensured your closest friends and associates were gang members who, like you, viewed and valued violence as a means of control, expression and survival.”
The judge said he believed Paul’s remorse was genuine but not yet worth a reduction of more than 5% until he took more concrete steps to remove himself from the gang.
He ordered an end sentence of six years and two months’ imprisonment but declined Crown prosecutor Katie Karpik’s suggestion of a minimum term of imprisonment to reflect Paul’s seniority in the gang.
Paul had been described in court proceedings for some of his co-defendants as a leader or architect of the shootings. It’s clear he was a senior member who felt comfortable giving orders, Lang said.
But the way in which the murder conspiracy was quickly snuffed out by fellow Killer Beez members suggests there were others above him calling the shots, the judge said.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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