Summarised by Centrist
The Crown is seeking to permanently seize the Mongrel Mob’s fortified gang headquarters in Mataura after a series of “prolonged and torturous” assaults carried out on the property.
The Albion St pad, alongside a neighbouring section, is valued at $347,000 and has been under a restraining order since March under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.
According to police, the gang pad was repeatedly used in 2022 as the site of internal discipline attacks. Victims were either kidnapped from their homes or lured to the property, locked inside, and “symbolically dumped” beneath the Mob insignia before being beaten.
The assaults were connected to a violent feud within the chapter that prompted drive-by shootings and left several people critically injured.
Operation Pakari, launched in response to the spree, resulted in 20 arrests and 85 charges, with six members sent to prison.
One of those jailed was chapter president Turoirangi Atarea Harmer-Elers, who received three years and four months for ordering the August 2022 kidnapping and assault of a member who wanted to leave the gang.
The victim was thrown head-first onto concrete, beaten, taken to Harmer-Elers’ home to confirm the attack, and later dumped at Gore Hospital with broken ribs, a fractured eye socket, and a collapsed lung. The ordeal lasted two hours.
The properties are registered to Harmer-Elers’ father, a former Mob president.
A future hearing will determine whether the property is forfeited.
