The Herald reports:
A senior gang leader who has been outspoken about helping “broken people ” make positive changes in their lives has been charged with importing and distributing methamphetamine.
Name suppression has today been lifted from Mark Anthony Griffiths, or “Griff”, who was a longstanding member the Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom when he was arrested in November following a covert police investigation.
The chapter has generated headlines in recent years for establishing an all-female chapter, guarding their local mosque after the terror attacks in Christchurch and delivering food to 3000 vulnerable people during Covid-19 lockdown.
The 50-year-old Griffiths was sometimes the public face of the Waikato chapter, which left the Mongrel Mob’s national council two years ago, in what they say was an effort to forge a new kaupapa (founding values) of empowerment for those marginalised in society.
He gave media interviews about the positive changes made by the chapter, in order to help gang members study and get jobs, and even gave a guest lecture at the University of Canterbury.
So he was doing all this media work about how they have reformed and reject drugs, while allegedly was helping run a major Meth organisation.
Anyone who doesn’t treat gangs as organised crime is deluding themselves. That is not to say any gang member is commiting crimes all the time. But they way they get their money is through crime.
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