Gang in unholy drug alliance

The Mongrel Mob and Black Power have joined rival motorcycle gangs in a sinister new alliance to make and sell the lucrative drug speed.

Details of an organised crime co-operative called "The Top Table", set up to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, were revealed during a court sentencing yesterday.

Members are said to include ethnic gangs and once-bitter enemies Black Power and the Mongrel Mob, as well as criminals from motorcycle gangs across the country.

The High Court at Auckland was told that the use of speed had reached "epidemic" proportions in Auckland.

It was being peddled by a well-organised group prepared to use weapons and enforcers to secure the payment of debts.

The police National Drug Intelligence Bureau says the trade holds vast profits for manufacturers and suppliers, with those involved using chemicals worth a few hundred dollars to make profits of $200,000 in just a few days. On the street, speed sells for about $100 a gram.

Outside the court yesterday, inquiry head Detective Sergeant Richard Middleton said that while police knew gangs had been working with each other in the trade, he was surprised by the co-operation his investigation had uncovered.

"We found those involved with the Table encompassed the entire gang spectrum. This a worrying and sinister development showing these gangs are now on a commercial scale."

Police inquiries revealed that membership stretched from Northland to Wellington and included "White Power" gangs as well as ethnic ones.

Mr Middleton said they were unified by the profitability of speed, with the market having grown exponentially in a few years.

"A Black Power member told an officer working on the investigation: 'When there is money involved, the colours go out the window'."

During yesterday's hearing, Justice Susan Glazebrook sentenced a patched Tribesmen gang member and senior delegate to the Top Table, Reuben Brian Shannon, to four years' jail, and speed cook Michael Gregory Rupapera to six years.

The court heard how Rupapera was a successful manufacturer in his own right, but had been co-opted to "bake" for the group by Shannon.

Thirty-year-old Rupapera had earlier admitted charges of conspiracy to manufacture and supply speed, firearms offences and money laundering.

When he was arrested, more than $173,000 in cash was found in his vehicle with a loaded pistol and instructions on baking methamphetamine downloaded from the internet.

After being given bail, he was found with a mobile laboratory in the back of his vehicle.

Rupapera was said to enjoy the high life, living in luxury hotels and apartments in central Auckland.

Shannon was found guilty by a jury of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine.

Outside the court, Mr Middleton said the arrest of the cook Rupapera was merely a setback for the Table.

"It has slowed them down, but they will not have stopped."

He said the investigation involved surveillance of a downtown Auckland building called "the Fort", which police believed was the Table's meeting place.

Members of the West Auckland-based Headhunters, Tribesmen from Auckland and Northland, the Waikato-based Outcasts - which originated as a white power gang and had previously clashed with the Mongrel Mob - and Satan's Slaves from Wellington, as well as Black Power and Mongrel Mob members from across the North Island, were all seen at the address.

Mr Middleton said the term Top Table was heard in bugged conversations recorded during the investigation between August and November 2000.

Police busted 41 laboratories and seized 10.1kg of speed last year. In 1996, they found only one laboratory.