A car covered in bullet holes parked at a Haukore St, Tauranga, home in January 2020. Photo / Sandra Conchie
A car covered in bullet holes parked at a Haukore St, Tauranga, home in January 2020. Photo / Sandra Conchie
A near three-month-long trial involving nine Mongol gang members will kick off on Thursday.
The gang's president Jim David Thacker, 32, faces more than 70 charges while the vice-president, Hone Ronaki, 45, is defending more than 50 in the High Court at Hamilton and all revolve around drugs, firearms, money-laundering, and perverting the course of justice.
Others charged are the gang's sergeant-at-arms Leon "The Wolf" Huritu, 39, along with 46-year-old Jason Ross, Kelly Petrowski, 28, Matthew Ramsden, 45, Kane Ronaki, 24, and Te Reneti Tarau, 26, and a 28-year-old man with interim name suppression.
The accused have been spread out into the public gallery, each flanked by two Corrections officers, while security has also been beefed up with extra staff over from the Bay of Plenty, as well as police officers outside court.
There's a total of 118 charges being denied, although Thacker did enter two guilty pleas during today's arraignment - two charges of driving while disqualified in Mt Maunganui and Te Puke in May and June 2020 respectively.
The remaining charges vary from unlawful possession of firearms, including those that are prohibited, ammunition, explosives, and discharging a firearm with reckless disregard.
Five home-made molotov cocktails seized by police in June 2020. Photo / NZ Police
The reckless discharge of a firearm relates to an incident in Haukore St, Tauranga, on January 28, 2020, where 96 rounds of ammunition were fired into the lounge of a house linked to the Mongrel Mob.
There's also numerous drug charges, including supplying and conspiring to supply methamphetamine, 25I-NBome, MDMA, cocaine, cannabis as well as money-laundering, aggravated robbery and wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The aggravated robbery charge relates to the theft of a hooded sweatshirt off a rival gang - Greazy Dogs - member at Mt Maunganui in May 2020.
The offending is alleged to have happened between January 1, 2019, and June 24, 2020, around Tauranga, Te Puke, Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch.
A variety of weapons were confiscated, including AK47s, AR15s, pistol-grip pump action shotgun, bushmaster and panther rifles, sawn-off and long-barrelled shotguns, five molotov cocktails fashioned out of Waikato beer bottles, a home-made bomb, and smaller weapons; revolvers, Rugers and a magnum.
A motorcycle confiscated by police during Operation Silk. Photo / NZ Police
The fate of each of the group is now in the hands of a jury of seven men and five women who were finalised yesterday.
Tauranga-based Anna Pollett and Justine Sutton are leading the prosecution on behalf of the Crown.
All of the lawyers, and even the judge, are surrounded by ring binders on their desks, while there are boxes of files stacked, and lined up along the length of the dock.
During her opening address to the jury, Justice Harland reminded them they were the judges of the facts of the evidence heard in the courtroom and directed them not to search for anything on the internet or discuss it with others.
Sutton will reveal the crown case this morning, before counsel opts whether to briefly outline their client's defence.
The trial is expected to wrap up near the end of October.
