Heated competition between rival Vietnamese cannabis growing syndicates led to a spate of violent episodes across Auckland, according to a police intelligence report.
There were 19 home invasions, kidnappings, shootings or aggravated robberies targeting properties or members of Vietnamese organised crime groups between August 2024 and February last year.
Three months later, that figure had doubled to 38 by May 2025, according to a police briefing released under the Official Information Act.
The Herald understands one of the victims nearly lost an arm after being attacked with a machete.
There were four attacks in a single day in which three or four men, armed with shotguns and knives, rounded the victims into a single room while the “safe houses” were robbed of cash and cannabis.
The similarities between the attacks suggested they were co-ordinated, police believe.
The vast majority of the suspected offenders in the 38 incidents were identified as patched gang members or their associates.
But the police investigating those cases did not believe the majority of the attacks were simple cases of “taxing” – where gangs use violence or intimidation to rob other criminals.
Instead, the police believed different Vietnamese organised crime groups were probably enlisting the help of gang members to sabotage their rivals in the underground cannabis business.
“The offenders in these incidents were members (or) associates of different, often rival, gangs. If these incidents were gang taxings, then the offenders should be from the same or affiliated gangs,” according to the police intelligence briefing in August 2025.
Historically, conflicts between gangs and the Vietnamese syndicates had been uncommon. This was because of a “mutually beneficial relationship”, according to the police.
Vietnamese crime groups are renowned worldwide for their expertise in cannabis cultivation, and are believed to be behind a proliferation of sophisticated indoor growing systems discovered in New Zealand in recent years.
The Vietnamese syndicates were “almost certainly” the only organised crime groups cultivating cannabis on a commercial scale in Auckland, which provided gang members who distributed the finished product with a “reliable and steady stream” of income.
In most cases, passports were stolen. This was another reason the police believed that Vietnamese crime figures were enlisting the help of gang members to intimidate their rivals, rather than the incidents being gang taxings.
“Passports are not commonly targeted in home invasions, however, Vietnamese organised crime group leaders typically hold possession of the passports of their workers as a form of control,” the intelligence report said.
The briefing was distributed at a time when police officers in Auckland were increasingly stumbling across cannabis “grow houses” hiding in plain sight.
These were normally rental properties secretly converted into sophisticated indoor nurseries where plants are grown under lights, often powered by stolen electricity diverted from the power grid.
In 2024, police shut down 90 “grow houses” in Auckland. In the first six months of 2025, police had discovered 97.
The scale of the problem was slowly dawning on the police hierarchy. But it was the increasing gang-related violence in Auckland that prompted a co-ordinated approach.
Fearing that someone would be killed, police launched Operation Beryl in the middle of last year.
In the space of a few weeks, police busted 120 “grow houses” across Auckland and destroyed more than 10 tonnes of cannabis plant material.
The 30 individuals arrested were Vietnamese nationals, many of whom had been duped into coming to New Zealand on false promises of employment, often after paying tens of thousands of dollars to unscrupulous immigration agents to obtain visas.
Instead of working in the legitimate jobs they were promised, the exploited migrants were forced to tend the cannabis plants as “crop sitters” to repay their supposed debts.
While Operation Beryl had destroyed an estimated $50 million worth of cannabis and disrupted the illicit industry, those who had been arrested and deported were at the bottom of the criminal hierarchy.
So the National Organised Crime Group, a specialist division of police with ring-fenced staff, was tasked with investigating the so-called “facilitators” pulling the strings in the commercial cannabis industry.
Described as “criminal entrepreneurs” in a recent police intelligence briefing released under the Official Information Act, “facilitators” specialise in specific aspects of the supply chain and were often linked to several Vietnamese organised crime groups.
The new inquiry, Operation Blackout, ended in August. Another five tonnes of cannabis plants were seized from 50 rental properties during the 10-month-long covert investigation.
Detective Senior Sergeant John Brunton, the officer in charge of the most recent investigation, said police had taken their time to investigate the syndicate and build a picture of its network – alleged to be one of the largest of its kind.
“Police are alleging that those arrested during Operation Blackout are members of a syndicate that facilitate cannabis grow operations for their profit. They operated two warehouses in Auckland that supplied equipment and arranged financing for the grow houses,” Brunton said.
“They also assisted with securing rental properties, electrical work and arranged crop sitters at the various Auckland addresses.”
The alleged kingpin of the syndicate is a 36-year-old man from the Auckland suburb of Flat Bush.
He faces charges of participating in an organised criminal group, money laundering, supplying equipment used in cannabis cultivation and possession of cannabis for supply.
Companies Office records show the man is the sole director and shareholder of two garden supply businesses, as well as a nail salon in Auckland.
Vietnamese organised crime groups start businesses in industries such as construction, beauty and hospitality to launder the profits of their criminal enterprises, according to the police intelligence briefing.
Brunton said the investigation will now focus on alleged unexplained cash deposits into the bank accounts of the two businesses that allegedly supplied the cannabis growing equipment.
He also confirmed a search warrant was conducted at a nail salon business in Auckland where financial records were seized for further investigation.
“We are still in the early stages of quantifying the value of funds believed to have been laundered,” Brunton said.
“However, financial analysis, supported by other investigative evidence, indicates the use of money laundering typologies consistent with the concealment and movement of proceeds derived from alleged cannabis cultivation offending.”
The police intelligence briefing also states Vietnamese organised crime groups have “almost certainly” exploited immigration pathways to enable their offending.
The Herald has previously revealed another investigation, Operation Clementine, which exposed how more than 200 Vietnamese nationals were able to enter New Zealand on work visas for defunct businesses.
Those businesses, mostly in the construction and hospitality industries, were later exposed as fronts for a vast network of cannabis “grow houses” in Auckland.
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster’s Paradise and Underworld .
