New Zealand is marketed as a pristine paradise but gangs are growing even after government’s anti-gang measures

The simple act of crossing the road landed gang member Calen Morris in more trouble with the police.

He had been wearing his leather patch – depicting a horned skull engulfed in red flames, and the gang’s name “Head Hunters” spelled in giant gothic lettering – at a private party at the group’s clubhouse in late October. He left the event, walked across the road to his car and drove off.

Then, Morris said, his house was raided by the police, who he says seized his patch, arrested him and told his partner to flee with their children. They also raided the clubhouse.

Morris, 40, is accused of wearing his patch while crossing a public road – a breach of a recent law banning displays of gang insignia in New Zealand. But the bike mechanic, from the west of the country’s most populous city Auckland, claims his patch was folded under his arms and therefore not on display.

“It meant a lot to me,” said Morris.

His was one of 192 patches seized by police in the first 12 months of the law being in effect.

The legislation was the conservative coalition government’s response to growing public concern over a surge in gang membership over the past decade, which brought the country’s reported gang population close to outstripping its number of sworn police officers.

A year on, more than 850 charges have been laid for breaches of the prohibition order, and the government is touting the law change as a roaring success – claiming a decrease in serious violent crime.

The patches have all but disappeared from the streets. But the gangs have not.

According to gang members, the banishment of the patches is just optics – they’re recruiting new members just as fast as before. And even the police admit the most sinister gang activities are still happening.

Despite tourism campaigns marketing a pristine paradise in the South Pacific, New Zealand has a menacing criminal underbelly. The country’s 37 “identified” gangs and their more than 10,000 known members are credited with running the drug trade – primarily dealing methamphetamine, MDMA and cocaine – and driving violent crime.

“It’s about a quarter of a percent of our adult population… (committing) about 18% of our serious violent crime,” said Corrie Parnell, an acting assistant commissioner with New Zealand Police.

Between October 2024, just before the insignia ban came into effect, and August t