Jarrod Gilbert: Canterbury University Sociology Professor says the Comancheros crackdown won't be the end of the drug trade

Justice is set to be served to nearly every member of the Comancheros motorcycle gang, but that won't be the end of New Zealand's drug trade.  

A three year police operation has resulted in 137 charges being laid.  

Canterbury University sociology professor Jarrod Gilbert says it's decimated the Comancheros, and sends a message that any high profile organised crime group has a large target on their back.  

But he says we can't expect this to significantly disrupt drug trade long term - as supply will just move to meet demand and the void will be filled. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so the police seem on a real roll at
the moment, don't they when it comes to gang's major
Headhunter's bust the other week. Now charges all over the
place for the common terero's. The claim is that virtually
every single common cero is facing charges or at least
some sort of court time forty one individuals, one hundred
and thirty seven alleged defense as sociologists and gang expert
Jared Gilbert with US Jared Morning, Good morning, Mike. I
can't remember when a gang in almost totality has been busted,

(00:23):
can you.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, there's only one time that I can recall it happening, actually,
and that was up in Nelson with the Red Devils.
They formed of the feeder group to the Hall's Angels,
and the entire chat was taken out there. Unfortunately, Mike,
the outcome of that wasn't great because those charges were
overblown and there were some discrepancies with the way the
police had collected evidence. So they all fell over and

(00:48):
that group became Hell's Angels. Okay, I think it will
be a little more successful.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I've got to say, well, I was going to say,
do you revel in this? It seems at last to
some degree that the authorities are on top of this
criminal behavior.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I think this. I mean, this is a really
big bust and this is why I think they'll be
the these will be successful. And this we've got to
see the evidence, of course, Mike. But you know there's
a there is a heck of a lot of kilograms
of drugs have been confiscated, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So make no bones about it. This is a really
significant bust and it appears though it's basically taken out

(01:25):
the common generals.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, does it get filled the gap? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Look, unfortunately it does, right, because I mean it's quite
like this, if a big coffee supply tomorrow, Greg's Coffee
or whoever just decided not to supply the market for
whatever reason in New Zealand, demand for coffee would remain
exactly the same, and so others will just come in
and fill that. Right. So, if we want to really
tackle the drug trade, and we've got to focus on

(01:52):
the demand side, so addictions stopping people getting into meth
for example. However, that does not mean because you could
shrug the shoulders at that point you say, well, what's
the point of these busts, then, well they are incredibly
important and you can make no bones about that. And
the reason for that is that it stops well, one,
there is an element of trust it to people breaking

(02:13):
your lordship, your health to account firstly, but perhaps even
more importantly than that in this instance, is that it
stops these crooks gaining really significant financial assets which can
then be used to corrupt the system. So knocking that
head off as you can't you just can't be understated.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Obviously, I don't know. I'm no expert in this, but
it does surprise me that at the size of these operations,
because you don't get that big without the authorities understanding
something that is going on. Is there something in the
legal system that prevents them acting earlier and smacking them
at an earlier stage before they get this big and
this effective.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well will These series of operations have been going on
for I think more than three years. Yeah, so it
does take time. The reason for that is you want
to make sure that your net has caught as much
as possible. I mean, even an operation, say it comes
into a port, if you confiscate, if you find contraband
in a container at a port, for example, Oftentimes it's

(03:14):
far better to let that container leave the port, see
who picks it up, where the contraband goes to, who
else is involved, So you can actually get wide a
net and the other part of us which is really
important because we when we look at organized crime, we
tend to just think of the people slinging drugs, for example,
but actually there's people who launed the money exactly. You know,

(03:34):
there's the people that are wholesaling. So there's actually far
bigger fish to fry sometimes. So that's why these operations
can take quite a long time. Obviously the police want
to be fair.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, no, fair enough to good on sight. I appreciate it, Jared,
As always, Jared Gilbert's sociologist and gang expert Mark Mitchell
have plenty to say about this, as well as Genny.
Of course, up to eight o'clock. Just to give you
an indication, one hundred and thirty seven charges at this
particular point since twenty one, they've been involved two hunred
and six kilograms of myth, two hundred and six kilograms
one point seven six kilograms of coach sa virtually none,

(04:06):
so they're all in the myth game. Two point six
kilograms of cannabis, one point two seventy five million dollars
in cash, nine point two million dollars in assets. They've
got five properties and fourteen vehicles, so that is a
major operational For more from the mic Asking Breakfast listen
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