Next Gen Gym on Stanley Street where gang members (inset) go for their workouts. Photo / Dean Purcell
Members of an upmarket Auckland gym are angry that members of the notorious Comanchero gang have been allowed to join.
Next Gen Auckland Domain Club members were horrified to realise that three of four Comanchero associates who were regulars at the Parnell gym were involved in a vicious attack on a rival Head Hunters gang member in Glen Eden.
“We recognised their faces on the news for the machete attack. Why are they letting them in?” one gym member said. One of the Comanchero gym members was jailed last month, with another associate, but gym members fear more will come.
They say they feel intimidated by the sight of the gang members, some wearing ankle bracelets which they tried to disguise using socks and bandages. One wore a hoodie in the gym with the words “Violence is the answer” on it, they said.
Gang members were easily identifiable by their Comanchero and ‘501′ tattoos, revealed in the gym’s sauna and pools.
“One of them had a [Comanchero] tattoo on his calf the size of my head,” a parent told the Herald.
Last month Comanchero associate and Next Gen member Tarat Bakhshi was jailed for the brutal attack, involving a machete and a large hunting knife, on the Head Hunters gang member. Two other men, Bakhshi’s brother Tawaab and Mohammed Yusuf Bagni-Vohra, both regulars at the gym, pleaded guilty to being accessories after the fact and were both sentenced to 200 hours of community work.
Body builder and high-ranking Comanchero gang member Khalid Naser Slaimankhel also worked out at Next Gen gym until last year when he was jailed for six years for money laundering and for his part in a major methamphetamine distribution operation.
As Tarat Bakhshi, 23, was led away to start his three-and-a-half-year sentence he yelled “I’ll be back” to his supporters.
That’s what worries Next Gen gym members, knowing that the “Comos” are growing in numbers and influence. They fear Comancheros will “take over” the gym, creating an intimidating and unsafe atmosphere.
One worried about sharing a basement carpark with Comancheros members, and those who accompanied them on guest passes, fearing they might have weapons concealed in their boots.
In 2018, a former president of the Comancheros in Australia, Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi, was shot in the face while sitting in his 4WD in the carpark of a Sydney gym, an attack rumoured to be a revenge hit.
Hawi was the epitome of an Australian Comanchero – well groomed and smartly dressed with a taste for expensive jewellery, flash cars and designer clothes.
In Auckland, the Comancheros announced their arrival in a similar ostentatious style five years ago, posting on Instagram wearing their black and gold colours, with gleaming gold-plated Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The “Nike bikies” had arrived in Aotearoa. And then they arrived at the Next Gen gym.
That’s not what members signed up for, they say. Next Gen Gym markets itself as a family club, boasting a state-of-the-art fitness centre, heated pools, sauna, spa, steam room, tennis courts, a creche, kids’ club and member’s lounge. Premium family memberships cost hundreds of dollars a month. Potentially violent gang members should not be welcome, they say.
“You don’t expect to turn up to the most upmarket gym in the country and be working out with gang members with ankle bracelets,” one said.
Another queried how Gen Next would handle the mix of gang members and international tennis stars using the gym during the ASB Tennis Classic in January.
One of the perks of membership is to be able to watch the tournament at the adjoining ASB Tennis Centre in Stanley St from the roof of Next Gen.
Tennis stars, including Serena Williams in the past, use the gym’s facilities during the tournament, and this year the likes of Coco Gauff, Emma Raducanu and Casper Ruud worked out at Next Gen.
The Herald understands some gym members have raised the issue of the Comancheros’ membership with the gym management but have received no response. Next Gen’s general manager in Auckland, Carlos King, did not respond to the Herald but Richard Furlong, managing director of Next Gen Health & Lifestyle Clubs in Australia, sent a statement saying: “It would be wrong, potentially illegal to discriminate against people based on their ‘look’, profile or perception. Next Gen Health and Lifestyle Clubs is a members’ only club that does not discriminate based on appearance or affiliation.”
Furlong said he could not discuss any specific members or groups, but the club had terms and conditions, and rules that were given to members upon joining.
“Breaking these rules can result in members having their membership cancelled,” he said. “To date we are unaware of any rule breaches by any members in our Next Gen Auckland Domain Club.”
Gym members say the gang members may not have broken any rules but they are an intimidating and unsettling presence.
Herald crime reporter Jared Savage, who has just published a new book, Gangster’s Paradise, says although the Comancheros have been in New Zealand for only five years, the gang had quickly made their mark in a violent criminal underworld after the first members arrived, deported from Australia as ‘501s,’ named after the section of the Australian immigration law used to remove them.
Mirroring their Australian counterparts, the Comancheros tended to have a seemingly glamourous lifestyle, drive expensive cars and post on social media from luxury resorts overseas, Savage said.
Comancheros vice-president Tyson Daniels wore Versace, in the gang’s black and gold colours, during his sentencing in the High Court in 2020 for money laundering, following police raids on millions of dollars worth of high-end vehicles, property and cash.
Going to the gym was all part of that lifestyle, Savage said. However, anyone sharing gym facilities with a gang member was unlikely to experience any threats or trouble.
“I’d say there are gang members in nearly every gym in New Zealand. I’ve never had any trouble with gang members at the gym, even ones I’ve written about in the Herald, in the same way that most members of the public are not in danger from gangs because they don’t live in that world.”
Any danger would come from getting caught in the crossfire of a gang feud, Savage said.
Gym members raised the possibility of doing police checks on potential new members before accepting their money. But banning someone with a criminal background or a gang affiliation might not be straightforward in New Zealand.
Under the Human Rights Act, it is unlawful to discriminate on 13 grounds, including sex, race, ethnicity or age. Gang membership or criminal records are not included under the act.
A spokesperson for Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission said venues such as gyms were entitled to have a code of conduct or dress standard, so long as the rules did not discriminate, directly or indirectly, under the act.
Gyms also needed to be conscious of privacy law and require only relevant and necessary information from members, the spokesperson said. The commission encouraged venues to focus on the conduct they wanted to deter or promote, rather than personal characteristics.
Auckland barrister and human rights specialist Nura Taefi says there will be measures gyms can take to limit the intimidation of their other members without being discriminatory.
“For example, there are policies the gym could put in place such as prohibiting gym members from wearing gang insignia,” she said. “Gyms do need to be careful that their policies apply to everyone and that they don’t target some groups more than others.“
Jane Phare is a senior Auckland-based features and investigations journalist, former assistant editor of NZ Herald and former editor of Viva and the Weekend Herald.
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