Tribal Huk, an ethnic gang from Ngaruawahia, a small town in New Zealand, took it upon themselves to rid their community of methamphetamine dealers, after seeing the local youth negatively affected by the synthetic drug. After giving offenders an ultimatum, the gang cleaned their town of meth dealers in just one weekend.
It all started on Thursday, October 13, when Jamie Pink, the notorious leader of the Tribal Huk gang gave methamphetamine dealers 24 hours to pack up and leave, during a local town meeting. He told attendees that his group had polled local children, and around 75% of them were affected in some way by methamphetamine, so they had decided it was time to take action.
“For a lot of years, the Huks have kept a lot of other gangs out of here in Ngaruawahia and we are always going to do that, but we haven’t kept their poison out of here. We are a bit sorry about that,” Pink said. “From this second on, without disrespecting, we know who they are – some of them are whanau (extended family), but they’ve got to go. They have 24 hours to stop. We ask nicely first, then they’ve got to go. We’ve got no choice. The kids are asking for it. They’ll be asked nicely the first time.”
Photo: YouTube screengrab
On Friday night, when the deadline expired, things appeared peaceful on the main street of Ngaruawahia, but a source told Stuff.co.nz, that things were anything but that behind the scenes. Tribal Huk members decommissioned 10 P ( slang for methamphetamine) houses overnight, and peacefully escorted five or six dealers out of town. Those who would not go quietly were given ‘a hand’. One woman, who chose to remain anonymous, told reporters that she saw the gang rough up one drug dealer who chose to ignore their warning.
“Bloody bastard deserved it, feeding our kids that bloody stuff,” she said. “He bloody went down, I can tell you that. He’s going to have a mamae [sore] head when he gets up. I’m not going to tell you who did the hitting, because it’s none of your business, but I can tell you now – I’d hate to be a bloody wacky cracky dealer in Ngaruawahia,” she said. “I’ve had my house broken into by bloody kids on this stuff three times. Since the boys [Tribal Huk] started their patrols around the town, it’s been bloody heaven.”
An ‘old school’ member of the Black Power Gang told Stuff.co.nz that he understood the Tribal Huk’s frustration with methamphetamine and he pitied dealers willing to get on Jamie Pink’s bad side. “There are gangs that sell it, there are also people not in gangs that sell it, because it brings in the revenue. But it also destroys,” the anonymous source said “The Huksta [Pink] has drawn the line in the sand. He’s been anti crack for a long while. These crack dealers will see him angry and they’d better watch out. They ain’t dealing with these new show pony gang members, they’re dealing with an old school member. We look after our own and we look after our patch, to the death.”
Police said they were not aware of any violent incidents in the central North Island town, but that’s probably most of the community was very supportive of Tribal Huk’s cleanup campaign. The woman who had witnessed the beating of one meth dealer said she had no intention of notifying authorities about it. As for the drug dealers themselves, calling the police was definitely not an option for them.
On Saturday, October 15, Jamie Pink announced that their operation had been successful and Ngaruawahia was a meth-free town. The news got mixed reactions from the general public, with some praising Pink and his Tribal Huks for ridding the town of meth, and saying that the country needs more leaders like him, while others said that the gang didn’t actually solve the problem, only moved it somewhere else. That makes sense, as those drug dealers didn’t just disappear, they just set up shop somewhere else, so now another community has to deal with them.
The Tribal Huk gang was in the news two years ago, after pledging to make 500 sandwiches a day for needy schoolchildren at 30 schools in Ngaruawahia. They have been doing it ever since and have come to be known as the ‘sandwich gang’ by local media.
“We’re not exactly the pillars of society, we understand that… we’re doing something good, and that’s true. No matter what people say, you can’t take that away,’ Jamie Pink said.
