Authorities are making legal moves to confiscate the Mongrel Mob’s gang pad in Mataura, Southland, the scene of a number of “prolonged and tortuous” beatings.
Crown lawyers have applied for a forfeiture order covering the gang headquarters and a next-door section in Albion St, with a combined rateable value of $347,000.
The gang pad was the scene of several beatings between January and November 2022.
Police have told the court that on each of these occasions, victims were assaulted at the pad, or at their homes before being kidnapped and taken back to the property.
Once inside, the gates were locked behind them, and they were “symbolically dumped” under the Mongrel Mob insignia on the wall before “being seriously assaulted in a prolonged and tortuous manner”.
The violence related to an internal gang feud which prompted a spree of violent crimes in 2022, including drive-by shootings and violent assaults that left people critically injured.
Operation Pakari, the police action in response to the violence, resulted in the prosecution of six gang members, who received jail terms ranging from three years and four months to six years.
One of those charged was Turoirangi Atarea Harmer-Elers, the “captain” or chapter president of the Mataura Mongrel Mob.
Harmer-Elers is now serving a prison term of three years and four months for kidnapping and assault with intent to injure, relating to the vicious beating of a gang member at the pad on August 9, 2022.
Harmer-Elers was not present at the pad at the time of the assault, but was prosecuted on the grounds that he ordered it.
Justice Christine Gordon, who sentenced Harmer-Elers, said the assault happened “in the context of Mongrel Mob internal gang discipline”.
The victim was abducted from his Invercargill home and taken to the Mataura property, where he was thrown head-first onto the concrete and beaten.
The man was then taken to Harmer-Elers’ home, to show that his orders had been carried out, before being dropped off at Gore Hospital.
His injuries included a collapsed lung, a fractured eye socket and broken ribs.
The ordeal, from the time of his abduction to being delivered to the hospital, lasted two hours.
The Albion St properties are registered in the name of Bill Elers, Harmer-Elers’ father and a past president of the Mob chapter.
A restraining order was first made against them in March, under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, which allows authorities to confiscate assets accumulated through significant criminal activity.
About the same time, a restraining order was issued against another property in Mataura belonging to Harmer-Elers, and two classic 1950s Ford Customline cars.
The follow-on application for a forfeiture order against the gang headquarters was made under the Sentencing Act, on the eve of Harmer-Elers’ sentencing appearance in the High Court at Invercargill in September this year.
Because of its late filing, the forfeiture application was not dealt with on the day that Harmer-Elers was sent to prison, and the judge asked for submissions on the application to be heard in the future.
Harmer-Elers’ counsel, Ron Mansfield KC, subsequently filed submissions arguing that as the sentencing process was now complete, the court no longer had jurisdiction to hear the forfeiture application under the Sentencing Act.
Crown counsel Sarah McKenzie, however, submitted that the court still had jurisdiction to deal with the forfeiture matter, and Justice Gordon agreed with her.
The forfeiture application will be decided at a later date.
In their earlier application for a restraining order against the property, police said the gang pad was “symbolic of the gang’s status and perceived power in Southland, and is used to enable its members to plan and facilitate the commission of serious criminal offending”.
Because it was used in the “facilitation and concealment of criminal offending”, it was subject to forfeiture.
The Albion St property was described as “a well-established, fortified gang pad intended to prevent the public and police from observing activities within the property”.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.