Andrew Coster: Police Commissioner on the success of Operation Avon and the arrest of Christchurch's Comanchero chapter

Praise for Christchurch police after wide-scale arrests of Comanchero gang members. 

Every patched member of the Christchurch chapter has been arrested as part of Operation Avon, with 21 arrests in total across Auckland and Christchurch.  

Millions of dollars of illicit drugs were seized.  

Police commissioner Andrew Coster told Mike Hosking they've invested a huge amount to counter the increase in gang crime in the last decade. 

He says police will keep focusing on going after their assets, as that's what hurts them the most. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What a good week for the police. A headhunters blowing
up in Auckland, fifteen million dollars worth of assets handed over,
including their headquarters. Then yesterday every single member of the
Common Cherio has got rounded up in christ Church. The
Police Commissioner Andrew Costs is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I've got to feel good about this.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh. Look, absolutely, it's been an outstanding week and just
reflection of incredibly hard work by a huge number of
people in our and biscuit of area.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Particularly just for the record, the naysayers have been texting
me saying there are about three common Cheros in christ
Jurch and that's rounding up nobody. How many did you
actually get?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
We executed twenty nine search warrants and we arrested eighteen
men aged between eighteen and fifty five, so a pretty.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Remarkable efat Why don't we hear more often the term
every single member has been arrested.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, that's our object, of course, when we're going after
an organized crime group. We're always limited by the need
to have evidence, of course, but in this case they
have done an outstanding investigation and I managed to get
evidence on all of those offenders. So that's pretty impressive
effort and just reflects the sophistication that we've developed in

(01:15):
our capability to investigate organized crime.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I don't know whether people are surprised or not. Maybe
I'm ni, but I was moderately surprised at the size
of what you got, guns, money, cars. I mean, this
is big, big business, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, And we have seen a real upping of the
Antibo organized crime groups here in the last five to
ten years. We have responded. We've invested a huge amount
into our capabilities in terms of organized crime, investigation, surveillance,
financial crime. You know, we know that going after the
assets is what hurts them the most, and that's what

(01:52):
will continue to do.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
The pace of the legal process. Do you want to
make a comment because this seems to take to if
there's a weak link here, and I don't want to
get into criticizing judges, and you might do it, but
this takes to my eye far too long. Is the
legal process or problem?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Our investigators say that it's roughly a third to third
of third, So one third investigation, one third preparing the
case for court, in one third disclosure in relation to
the court process. That is a heavy burden. You know,
a lot of that is necessary for the interests of justice,
but yeah, it's a big overhead in something that does

(02:31):
slow us down in terms of our ability to get
onto the next job.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Is it possible to your eye that there's something we
can obviously do in this country to make that easier
or not.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
There are different approaches taken in other countries that we
would respect in terms of things like criminal disclosure and
those processes. There needs to be a balance between serving
your interests of justice, which is of course of primary importance,
but also not getting so bogged down and all of

(03:03):
that that we are inefficient.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, exactly, Well, I've got you the Ginny Anderson numbers.
Just just I think we put the record straight. But
beat beat numbers are up, aren't they up? Not down?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yes, they are up certainly in a year on your comparison,
Beat numbers are up, and you know those numbers are
interesting for me. The most important testers are people seeing
and feeling a difference in terms of their perceptions of
safety through the presence of police, and I think we

(03:36):
are very clearly getting the message that people are appreciating
out the visibility we've got, particularly the most maintenters.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I don't think there's any doubt about that. Andrew Cost
appreciated as always, Police Commissioner Andrew Cost.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
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