Payback time as police hit gang

By PATRICK GOWER

Armed police crashed an all-night drinking session at the headquarters of the Outcasts motorcycle gang, retaliating after intimidation that had left officers fearing for their safety.

Seventy police stormed the gang's Te Awamutu headquarters and several other houses during yesterday's dawn raids, seizing amphetamines, cannabis, firearms and other weapons.

"There was a retaliatory component to this," said Detective Sergeant Arthur Harper. "There have been threats of violence against our staff, and we are not going to stand for it."

The Outcasts were hosting two members of Blenheim's Lone Legion motorcycle gang in their bar when the armed offenders unit burst in at 6.15 am.

The Herald understands that there has been talk of internal retribution against some gang members because of the ease with which the police gained entry to the fortress-like headquarters, which includes a steel-plated lookout post and video surveillance.

A bayonet and two imported hand-crafted walking sticks that concealed 20cm daggers were part of the police haul, which included pump-action shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Nine of the firearms were seized at one property. Five men were arrested on a variety of drugs and other charges and will appear in the Hamilton and Te Awamutu District Courts in the next week.

Detective Sergeant Harper said Operation Tar was the culmination of months of surveillance that identified a strong link between the supply of drugs and the use of firearms by the gang.

It was also used to crack down on the Outcasts after general disorder and numerous threats of violence by gang members to police at routine traffic stops in recent months.

"If they want to try and build themselves up like that, then we will up the ante as well."

Since its formation in 1969, the white-supremacist-linked gang has become a big player in Waikato's criminal underworld, with strong connections to a network of other motorcycle gangs around New Zealand.

Although there are only about two dozen patched members and fewer than 10 prospects, Detective Sergeant Harper said, at least a hundred others regularly associated with the gang, which has another headquarters in Hamilton and an increasingly strong presence in Whitianga.

The Hamilton base is of similar design to the Paterangi Rd property raided by police yesterday - surrounded by a reinforced corrugated-iron fence, floodlit, with reinforced steel pillars behind the entrance gate and usually a number of guard dogs.

Detective Sergeant Harper said the public could be assured that the Outcasts warranted police attention on this scale as the gang's increasingly confrontational behaviour meant there were genuine concerns for the safety of police.

But Te Awamutu neighbours of the Outcasts are not troubled by the gang.

"They're no worries to us," said one. "They keep to themselves and we keep to ourselves.

"It's hard to say whether they deserve the cops on their doorstep like this."

The gang leaders could not be contacted.

Detective Sergeant Harper said Te Awamutu residents should not be lulled into a false sense of security because the Outcasts tried to keep a low public profile.

"They might have motorcycles, but they are not a club. They are an organised criminal gang, and people need to know that."