Every member of the Christchurch chapter of the Comancheros Motorcycle Club has now been convicted on drug charges, closing out one of the largest organised crime investigations run in the South Island in recent years. Police confirmed the outcome on Monday, saying all 29 people arrested under Operation Avon have been convicted of a range of drug offences.
The investigation was led by the National Organised Crime Group and the Asset Recovery Unit, with support from Canterbury police. According to RNZ, the operation ran for seven months and targeted a trafficking network that moved methamphetamine and cocaine between Auckland and Christchurch, with distribution reaching as far south as Invercargill. Those charged ranged in age from 18 to 55.
Acting Detective Inspector Phil Sparks said the case had done lasting damage to the gang’s position in the region. “This operation has significantly disrupted the Comancheros’ ability to establish and maintain a foothold in Canterbury and has had a major impact on the drug supply chain across New Zealand,” he said in comments reported by the Otago Daily Times.
Sparks also said the financial side of the case mattered as much as the drug charges. “Class A drugs cause immense harm in our communities,” he said, adding that organised criminal groups “profit from that harm, accumulating cash, property and high-value assets while showing no regard for the devastation caused to individuals and families”. He said Operation Avon showed police were committed to targeting organised criminal groups and holding offenders to account.
The convictions bring to an end a case that began publicly nearly two years ago. In August 2024 police executed around 70 warrants, including 29 at addresses and more than 40 on vehicles, mostly in Christchurch with some in Auckland. That phase produced roughly 5kg of Class A drugs, 11 firearms and ammunition, and about $250,000 in cash, according to the police statement issued at the time. Police also restrained more than $1.9 million in assets, including a property in Auckland and 11 vehicles.
Police say more than $1 million worth of drugs at wholesale value moved between the North and South Islands during the period they were watching, which they put at an estimated $15 million once sold at street level. The gang was said to have coordinated shipments of drugs and cash between Auckland and Christchurch every few weeks.
A second and related investigation, Operation Leith, identified another eight people involved in criminal activity across the lower South Island. Police have not released detail on where those cases have got to.
What makes this case unusual is not the size of the seizure but the completeness of it. Police have broken up gang drug operations before, but rarely have they been able to say that every patched member of a chapter has been convicted. Sparks said the arrest and conviction of the entire Christchurch chapter had effectively ended the Comancheros’ presence in the city.
Whether that holds is another question. The Comancheros arrived in New Zealand around 2018 as part of a wave of deported Australian gang members, and the group has been treated by police as one of the more organised and business-minded outfits operating here. Chapters that lose their membership to prison have been rebuilt before, and demand for the product has not gone anywhere.
The wastewater numbers make that plain. Police testing published in the National Drugs in Wastewater Programme report for the first quarter of 2026 found New Zealanders were consuming an estimated 36.6 kilograms of methamphetamine a week, about 15 percent above the average of the previous four quarters. Police put the social harm cost of that at roughly $38.4 million a week. Most districts recorded above average use.
Canterbury sits near the lower end of the national table, but its own numbers have been climbing. The Press reported that Cantabrians consumed an average of 916mg of methamphetamine a day for every thousand people between January and March this year, up close to 20 percent on the previous quarter’s average. Only the Southern district recorded less.
Explore the data. See how methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA consumption have shifted across New Zealand since 2018 in our interactive wastewater drug tool.
Price is part of the story. The average price of a gram of methamphetamine has fallen from about $563 in 2017 and 2018 to around $334 last year, which points to a market with plenty of supply rather than one being squeezed. Cheaper product tends to mean heavier use among those already using, and the share of users reporting weekly or more frequent use has risen sharply over the same period.
That is the tension sitting behind an otherwise clean result for police. Taking out an entire chapter is a genuine achievement, and the asset restraints mean the people involved lose more than their liberty. But enforcement works on the supply side of a market where the demand side has been growing steadily for several years. A chapter can be removed from Christchurch without the drugs leaving Christchurch.
None of the 29 people convicted has been named in police statements, and sentencing details have not been released. Police have not said whether further asset forfeiture proceedings are still running.
What do you make of it. Is dismantling a whole gang chapter the right use of police resources, or does the wastewater data suggest the effort belongs further down the chain. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply