The Head Hunters have established a new chapter of the notorious gang in Auckland for the first time in more than 20 years, the Herald can reveal.
Police in the Waitemata district are on high alert and drafting in extra staff to monitor the official celebrations being held this weekend.
Social media posts reveal a North Shore branch of the outlaw motorcycle club was unveiled last week, with a group photograph of nearly two dozen patched members wearing the new insignia.
The show of strength comes as the National-led coalition government promises to crack down on gangs by passing a raft of new laws within the first 100 days of taking office.
The development is also seen as a shift in power within the hierarchy of the Head Hunters, shortly after the death of a godfather figure and a court case in which the gang’s largest chapter could lose their headquarters to the police.
The Head Hunters started in the east Auckland suburb of Glen Innes around 1967, but moved across town to west Auckland by 1984 to open their inaugural clubrooms in Henderson.
In the early 2000s, the gang effectively split into three: West, which stayed in the Henderson premises, East, which was set up in Marua Rd in Ellerslie, and North, which was based in Wellsford.
Over the next two decades, the gang’s strength in numbers grew from several dozen patched members to several hundred - to become the third largest gang in New Zealand - as the Head Hunters expanded across the country.
But while the club now has a presence in Northland, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and even the bottom of the South Island, permission was not given to officially open chapters in those locations.
Those members spread around the country are aligned with the original chapters in Auckland despite the geographical distance.
Even when the Head Hunters “patched over” another gang in Christchurch in 2016 and took ownership over their clubrooms, the so-called “South Chapter” was technically an offshoot of the West chapter.
So the creation of a fourth chapter in the North Shore - and the first in more than 20 years - is seen as an endorsement of a senior Head Hunter who has long aspired to receive the official recognition of running a chapter.
The new North Shore chapter was previously a crew inside the gang’s dominant East chapter which referred to themselves as “Northside” - a name they effectively trademarked in the criminal underworld and protect fiercely.
This was demonstrated when a local motorcycle repair shop was sold in 2021.
The new owner was a member of the Mongols, a rival gang set up by Australian deportees, so Head Hunters were no longer welcome, and the business was also rebranded as Northside Power Sports - which the Head Hunters also took exception to.
This led to a tit-for-tat war of drive-by shootings and arsons, which culminated in the infamous shooting inside the lobby of the Sofitel hotel in downtown Auckland.
Now a standalone chapter, the North Shore Head Hunters are led by an influential member who enjoyed a round-the-world holiday with his crew earlier this year.
Photographs posted on several Instagram accounts in April show the gang members sitting in business class, without their shirts on, when leaving New Zealand and staying in luxurious accommodation in Cambodia.
The Head Hunters then moved on to the Middle East and Europe. Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the gang’s insignia, photographs show the group standing outside the Egyptian pyramids, the Louvre museum in Paris, and the Colosseum in Rome.
“Just another day in the life of E,” the boss of the North Shore crew wrote under a photograph of the friends standing outside the famous gladiatorial arena.
Over the weekend, the Head Hunter again took to social media to announce the arrival of the newly minted North Shore chapter.
He did not respond to a message from the Herald.
However, police are aware of the new North Shore chapter and extra staff will be on duty to watch the gang’s celebrations in Wairau this weekend.
Enforcement action will be taken where appropriate for any unsafe or dangerous behaviour, Inspector Stefan Sagar said.
“Police have a number of teams that work hard to target and disrupt unlawful gang-related activity, including from the Head Hunters,” Sagar said.
“We will be actively monitoring this event to ensure it is carried out in a safe manner for all involved, including the wider community.”
The creation of the North Shore chapter could also be a potential sign of future change within the Head Hunters, following the recent death of a revered leader and potentially losing their headquarters.
Last month, senior member William “Bird” Hines died after years of ill health. A towering figure in the underworld, Hines had been released from prison earlier this year on compassionate grounds while serving a 17 year sentence for running a drug syndicate.
His death came soon after the conclusion of a High Court hearing to decide whether the East chapter’s pad in Ellerslie, along with several other properties linked to Wayne Doyle, the gang’s alleged boss, will be confiscated
The police sought forfeiture applications covering more than $15m of Doyle’s alleged profit and assets they claim are tainted with the proceeds of the criminal activities committed by the Head Hunters, from standovers to meth dealing.
Doyle, now aged 69, denied the claims and spent several days in the witness box during the court hearing.
His evidence gave a rare insight into the changing face of the gang, now numbering several hundred patched members.
Under cross examination, Doyle said that there were a few members of the Head Hunters that he had little regard for.
He said the club took a dim view of meth use among members and wanted strong, fit men who looked after their families.
“In any group of people, there’s ones who don’t cause you trouble and others that will always cause you trouble,” Doyle said.
When asked about a member of the Head Hunters who had threatened someone with the gang’s “hit squad”, Doyle said the man had been thrown out of the club and was emblematic of the club’s more troublesome members.
“I just understand this guy to be a lunatic. This is a prime example of what I have to deal with.”
Many of the new members of the gang are young Pasifika men, while older, original members tended to be Pākehā or Māori who came up in Glen Innes together when the Head Hunters were little more than a street gang.
The gang’s regular meetings were called “church” until about 2014, a term common to biker gangs, before they voted to change the name first to “parole board” and most recently to “hui”.
Police allege members of the Head Hunters are required to pay a “koha” to the gang of 20 per cent of their criminal earnings, a claim rejected by Doyle.
Doyle said there are members who have never been convicted of any offence, or involved in any crimes, and who spend their lives running legitimate businesses.
Evidence from various court cases over the years has shown Head Hunters often act independently in cells, without the wider club knowing what they were up to.
In 2016, a man hired a group of Head Hunters and associates known as the “Ghost Unit” to kidnap a woman embroiled in the drug trade. The kidnapping turned fatal when the woman fell from a car boot.
Doyle said he had no idea of the existence of the Ghost Unit at the time and he did not sanction violence.
“I don’t give green lights, I don’t believe in violence. I believe in protecting yourself but I don’t believe in violence.”
Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland and Gangster's Paradise.
George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.
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