A notorious bikie gang has descended on Christchurch for a patching ceremony that has the city’s police on high alert.
Officers stopped a convoy of Tribesmen MC gang members in the early hours of yesterday morning just north of Christchurch.
Six motorbikes were seized and impounded, while a number of infringement notices were written up.
The Herald understands that the group is made up of around 50-60 gang members for their annual national run, taking in a patching ceremony in Christchurch, before heading south for the Burt Munro Challenge in Southland – said to be the largest motorcycle rally in the southern hemisphere.
The convoy is believed to have started with the Kaikohe chapter riding down from the Far North to Auckland and meeting up with crew there, before picking up others as they travelled down the country, catching the Interislander ferry across Cook Strait to Picton late on Thursday.
But as they motored along State Highway 1 through North Canterbury at around 1am yesterday, they were stopped by a planned police checkpoint.
After taking some of the bikes and issuing tickets, the police let them go.
“Their riding was monitored all the way through Marlborough, and will be whilst in Canterbury and their travels south,” a police spokesman told the Herald.
“Police will continue to monitor their activities whilst in Canterbury, and take action for any identified offending.”
Many were understood to have gone to the Christchurch chapter’s gated and well-secured headquarters in Woolston.
Some gang members were seen coming and going from the pad today, while several powerful motorbikes were lined up out front.
Thick black tyre skid marks could be seen on the road outside the property which has a huge sign bearing the words, ‘Life behind bars’.
Large numbers of patched members were seen yesterday, however, in the quiet country town of West Melton, 30km west of the city yesterday.
It’s understood they will travel south in the next few days, heading for Invercargill and its big annual Burt Munro Challenge bike gathering.
The Tribesmen formed in Murupara in 1980 and then started other chapters in Ōtara and Northland, before heading south more recently to establish a presence in Christchurch.
A number of patched members have been convicted of serious drug and violence offences, including murder, and the Tribesmen were last year at the centre of a high-profile gang war with the Killer Beez.
New Zealand police launched Operation Cobalt last July to respond to a spike in intimidating behaviour and violence by gangs in the first half of the year.
Since then, the police have seized hundreds of firearms and laid thousands of charges in court, as well as confiscating commercial quantities of drugs and large sums of cash.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.