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The press
The Mongolian MC established a Canterbury chapter earlier this year. The gang headquarters is south of Christchurch.
Police are searching the Canterbury headquarters of the international motorcycle gang, the Mongolian MC.
State Highway 1 was blocked when armed police raided the platform at The Old Sawmill in Burnham, south of Christchurch, around 6.15am Thursday morning.
The path reopened shortly after 7 a.m.
The property is home to the Mongols, who established a Canterbury chapter earlier this year.
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A spokesman said police were carrying out a “pre-planned search warrant.”
There were several people on the property at the time of the raid.
Police were speaking to a “person of interest” regarding a weapon they had found there, the spokesman said.
He would probably face charges.
The press
Pistols found during a raid on the Mongolian MC Canterbury gang in February.
Staff would be on property most of the day, the spokesman said.
The Mongols, led by National President Jim Thacker, established a chapter in the Bay of Plenty last year.
The gang’s expansion at Canterbury created tension between rival groups, particularly the Tribesmen MC, which at the time was considered the dominant player in the region’s underworld.
In separate attacks in February, believed to be aimed at the Mongols, a tattoo parlor and a barber shop were struck by vehicles in Christchurch. The barber shop, which has no apparent link to the gang other than through a man who used to associate with the local president, was also burned down.
The same month, someone shot at the Burnham headquarters of the Mongols with a high-caliber rifle.
Days later, police raided the property and found 10 pistols, military-style semi-automatic pistols, shotguns, and a pistol, some of which were hidden in the walls and ceiling, dozens of bullets, $ 50,000 in cash and methamphetamine.
The press
Mongols are one of the most feared bikini gangs in the world.
Canterbury police have arrested more than half a dozen Mongolian members in recent months, including the local president and the sergeant-at-arms.
There has been a shift in the country’s gang landscape in recent years, which is due, in part, to the arrival of hundreds of hardened criminals, known as 501s, deported since the 2014 changes to Australian immigration law.
New groups have been established, especially the Comanchero and the Mongols, and according to police data, gang membership has increased 50 percent since 2016.
In late August, the national gang registry bore the names of 71 of the 501.
Police previously said that many of the deported gang members were powerful and influential figures in the Australian underworld who brought with them professionalism, a striking new image, and significant international connections.
Earlier this month, Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers said there was recently “a desire by criminal networks to move more to the South Island and we have seen that with the Mongols and others there in Christchurch.”
Chambers confirmed that the police were establishing a South Island branch of the National Organized Crime Group that would be based in Christchurch and report to the National Police Headquarters.
The new group of specialists, which the police hoped to have operational by the end of June, will focus on gangs with international ties.
In the 12 months to December last year, the number of Canterbury-based gang members increased 16 percent to 548, according to police figures.
