Greg Williams: Detective Superintendent on the police arresting nearly every Comancheros member following lengthy investigation

A major police crackdown on the Comancheros motorcycle gang has landed nearly all its members with criminal charges.

A total of 137 charges have been laid and police allege the group has been involved in money laundering, drug trafficking and military-style training.

Detective Superintendent Greg Williams says the police operation focused heavily on those higher up the ranks.

"That's all the leadership of the gang, past patched members - so 41 members out of a total of 92."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon, nearly every single member of the common Heiro's gang
in the country has been charged by police. This is
the result of a three year investigation into money laundering,
drug importation and drug supply. Detective Superintended Greg Williams as
the director of the National Organized Crime Group. Ay, Greg, Hi,
how are you very well?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Listen. How much of a blow is this to a
gang like this?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh? Look, this is huge, you know. They it's a said,
we basically have focused on the hierarchy, so that's all
the leadership of the gang pass. Now they're in patch members.
So they're all patch members, all of them, so forty
one members and out of a total of ninety two.
So yeah, this is a significant impact on what we
say as the organized criminal enterprises that they are engaging in.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Just because they've been charged, Greg, doesn't mean that they
can't carry on with their underground, underworld activities. So how
much of how much is it actually stopping what they're
able to do?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, it's a complex question, isn't it. In the sense
that we tend to find these groups I use the
word relentless, you know they Yep, we're charging them, We're
putting people in prison and sense of that. But they
continue to be relentless but focus on the commentarias here
sort of follows quite a big piece of work done

(01:19):
across Australasia on the Commonaros and that's primarily because, as
we said, you know, they've made it very clear they
want to be the number one gang in the world.
And probably the biggest dange that they have for us
is that big transnational link that they have across the
world where you know, they can have access sourcing significant
quantities of various drugs. So you know, it still disrupts

(01:44):
the ability for them to be able to bring that
into the country and run it through the systems and
structures they had set up across the country.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Listen, what about this military style training that they put
a whole bunch of their memberstory, Who did they bring
in from overseas to do that?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, look, we've mentioned it, but we've the route here,
I explained to our listeners as this is not currently
a sort of a trial by media here, you know,
so that's all has to be proved in the court.
So we've got it very careful when we make the
release about what we're saying. So when we say we
can't really go into much more detail about that. We
can't because it really has to run through the court process.

(02:23):
But I'm sure the listeners understand what we mean by
that are the process and it's sort of just as
we sort of said earlier today, it's part of the
overall sort of message at the Contras given about being
the number one gang in the underworld in New Zealand,
and they intend to use violence to make sure that

(02:44):
they actually are the number one GAG. So it reflects
their thinking. That's probably the chilling point that comes out
of this. Greg.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm loving the crackdown that you guys are doing at
the moment on organized crime. Are you loving it as
much as I am?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'm very lucky I have a fairly passionate group of
people that work under me, and the beauty of the
national nice crime group we've got. You know, we're right
across the country now and that means that we can
really see and understand those national processes running, and that's
been a great highlight of probably this particular investigation of

(03:20):
linking that. Plus we've also really focused on building our
capability to be able to investigate really complex money launering
because it's critical to every investigation we do, so yeah,
it's an on I mean, look, this is this is
one of many awesome investigations that National Nized Crime Group
has done this year. You know, this is not our

(03:41):
only focus, but it just shows the breadth of the
work that our guys are capable of.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Greg really appreciated, well done, Thank you so much. It's
Greg Williams, the detective and superintended and director of the
National Organized Crime Group. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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