Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005
Source: Manawatu Evening Standard (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2005 Manawatu Evening Standard
Contact:  http://www.manawatueveningstandard.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1057
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

'GRANDFATHER' GANGSTER CONVICTED OF LUCRATIVE DRUG OPERATION

One of the grandfathers of New Zealand gangs made $35,000 a week from a 
spectacularly lucrative drug operation.

Abraham Wharewaka, 62, was this week convicted in the High Court at 
Auckland on charges including manufacturing methamphetamine and cultivating 
cannabis after being busted in what the police named "Operation Soprano".

The veteran president of Black Power's Sindi chapter kept meticulous notes 
of sales of around $70,000 a fortnight at his tinnie house, known as "the 
marae".

His handwritten accounts detail running workers' "shifts", his spectacular 
income and paying wages to gang members to staff the house in Albert St, 
Otahuhu, South Auckland.

The entrepreneurial Wharewaka became the household face of gangs in the 
1980s by getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Government for 
work trusts. As evidence unfolded in court, he was often dressed in a 
dapper jacket in the chapter's orange and black colours.

Police raided "the marae" - which had ornate carvings over the entrance 
depicting the Wharewaka family history - many times over the years.

But it would always be back in business the same day, selling "tinnies" of 
cannabis.

It was finally closed for good in July 2003 after a series of police 
searches. After the final raid a sign went up: "Closed for business - Busted."

In one raid police found 437 tinnies ready for sale at $20 a time.

Deals were done through a curtained window and the premises were guarded by 
closed-circuit television. Wharewaka's brother Timothy Wharewaka managed 
the tinnie house.

Often police saw dozens of people arriving in cars, queuing to buy drugs. 
Some were schoolchildren.

Sometimes during a raid, confused purchasers would try to buy tinnies from 
officers, despite being shown police identification.

After the closing of the illicit trade, burglaries in the area - a source 
of income to buy drugs - plummeted.

Detective Sergeant Peter Jones said after the verdict: "We believe that we 
have closed down the busiest drug-dealing address in the South Auckland 
district without a doubt. "A lot of the residents of Albert St complained a 
number of times about intimidation and being threatened in their own homes.

"There were also incidents where firearms were discharged in the street 
from rival gangs trying to move in on the drug-dealing activities."

Wharewaka set up the Sindi chapter in 1978 and is understood to have 
received government grants to build 12 units in a housing project at 14 
Albert St.

Over the years a number of the units were used to sell drugs. #head 
Cannabis was grown indoors at a property in East Tamaki, to feed the Albert 
St retail operation.

Wharewaka lived at the Aquarius Massage Parlour in East Tamaki, with his 
partner, Rania Niazi, 24, who was also found guilty of drugs charges. The 
prosecution described Niazi, originally from Egypt, as Wharewaka's "super PA".

Swabs taken from a property across the road, which Niazi rented, showed 
that methamphetamine had been manufactured. Equipment and chemicals for 
making the drug were also found in a rubbish skip.

Wharewaka's lawyer, Peter Kaye, said that his client had no knowledge of 
what was going on but Crown prosecutor Bruce Northwood said Wharewaka was 
the president, the boss, and knew what was happening.

Justice David Baragwanath is to pass sentence next month.

Wharewaka has come full circle since the 1980s when his gang-based Tatau te 
Iwi Work Trust was hiring out its labour to contractors and attracting not 
inconsiderable government support for its efforts.

In 1986 he and his Black Power buying team bought 18 Harley-Davidson 
choppers, a load of spare parts and a purple Cadillac in Los Angeles.

At that time, after eight years of government work schemes and contract 
labour work, there were 94 employees, a fleet of 15 trucks and a bus for 
the gang's contracting work and two developed sites - the "factory" and the 
"factory units" in South Auckland.

Abe Wharewaka was the eldest of 14 children born in Auckland during World 
War 2.

He grew up in Panmure and told an Auckland newspaper in 1986 that most 
young people at his economic level "pulled a job". It was "petty stuff" but 
he was "not going to be any different".

He never got to secondary school because, says one account, the family 
could not afford the Penrose High School uniform.

Attracted by the unity of gangs, by the late 1970s he was Black Power's 
national president and, in his words, "short-tempered, explosive, 
dangerous", he said in the 1986 interview.

"I had the capacity to kill someone at will."

In 1979 he was jailed for 18 months after a confrontation between Black 
Power and Headhunters.

During the period when the Black Power work schemes were at their height, 
the Labour Department helped with $605,000 over 36 months.

Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon supported their earlier work programmes.

But there were often financial troubles, partly due to a habit of using 
assets from one exercise to back the next.

In 1988 Abe and his brothers John, David and Jake were convicted and fined 
for selling liquor without a licence at the "factory" head-quarters.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom