Summer reads: Gangland - inside New Zealand's organised crime world

Herald reporter Jared Savage specialises in writing about organised crime: guns, drugs, gangs, cash and the sophisticated investigations to catch the crooks. Here are some of his best crime stories from 2021.

It was the moment detectives had been waiting for.

On a Thursday afternoon, on a busy street in Manukau, a major drug deal was expected to unfold.

Watching from a distance, covertly filming, were officers from the National Organised Crime Group. For nine months they had been conducting surveillance on the Comancheros.

That morning, the detectives running "Operation Nova" followed an associate of the Comancheros' president and a representative of a suspected Chinese drug supplier as they moved across the city, preparing what police officers expected would be a $1 million deal for chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

With a camera rolling and a microphone secretly planted in their vehicle, the officers watched and waited.

See the exclusive footage of how police surveillance helped convict senior members of the Comancheros gang.

More than $1 billion in alleged criminal wealth has been frozen in New Zealand since a powerful law targeting organised crime came into effect just over a decade ago, the Herald revealed earlier this year.

Expensive real estate, luxury cars and cash are among the assets restrained from drug dealers, gangs and other criminal groups since the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was passed in late 2009.

See how data obtained by the Herald shows the success of tougher laws introduced a decade ago.

A retired couple were threatened at gunpoint in a terrifying home invasion which police say is a case of innocent people caught in the often invisible practice of "taxing" in the criminal underworld.

The husband and wife, in the mid 60s, were woken by the sound of the front door of their Mount Maunganui home being smashed with a sledgehammer around 4am in July 2018.

At least four men, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, pointed firearms and threatened to kill the couple - and their dog - unless they handed over drugs and cash.

Read how Comancheros and Mongol members demanded cash and drugs from pensioners in case of mistaken identity.

An Auckland gang member allegedly hid in the back of a truck to escape the city's Covid-19 lockdown to "tax" property from other criminals to repay debts he claimed were owed.

The 40-year-old is a former senior member of Black Power but is now a prospect for the Head Hunters motorcycle gang.

He was living in Auckland when the country was put into level 4 lockdown. When restrictions were eased to level 2 for the rest of the country police checkpoints were established at Auckland's borders to stop traffic coming in and out of the city.

Anyone without a travel exemption is turned around but police allege the Head Hunter slipped through the cordon on September 20 by hiding in the back of a truck, according to court documents.

He was arrested in Wellington by the Special Tactics Group two days later.

Read how meth and 3D printed gun parts were found after the Auckland gangster slipped past lockdown border.