Gangs

The heat will stay on organised crime in Otago and Southland, with a new district-wide police focus targeting those making money and buying assets from illegal means.

A Road Knights patched gang member who tried to get a 13-year-old girl to recant evidence she had given in court was jailed for 16 months when he appeared in Invercargill District Court today.

It may be a race between police and Black Power gang members as to who catches a man who assaulted a four-year-old boy because he was wearing a red shirt.

Residents in a Bay of Plenty suburb - where a 4-year-old boy was assaulted for wearing a red shirt - say they have stopped dressing their children in the colour for fear of Black Power gang reprisals.

Armed police using stun grenades seized the Mongrel Mob's Dunedin headquarters this morning as part of a six-month crackdown on the gang in the city.

Police raided and seized a Dunedin gang house yesterday - one of only two seizures of its kind in the country - and are warning other gangs they could be next.

This was an open home like no other.

Police claims the Dunedin suburb of Corstorphine has been living in fear of gang activity have come as a shock to some residents.

A senior Mongrel Mob Aotearoa gang member and six female associates were arrested in raids across Dunedin yesterday.

A man is in Dunedin Hospital with serious head injuries following an armed altercation between two rival gangs last night.