A former gang member giving evidence at a High Court trial says he was on board with the gang's activities until they messed with his 'missus”.

This compelled him to tell the police – and, subsequently a jury – all he could about them.

But it's an account the gang leader's lawyer says is 'a pack of lies”.

Nine senior members of the Mongols are standing trial in Hamilton, on a raft of drugs and weapons charges.

Following a covert surveillance operation, police arrested the entire senior hierarchy of the gang in June 2020.

At the time the police said a gang war was brewing in the Bay of Plenty region, with numerous groups battling for the lion's share of the drug market there.

Among those on trial is the Mongols' national president, Jim David Thacker, also known as JD.

So too is vice president Hone 'H1” Ronaki; sergeant-at-arms Leon 'Wolf” Huritu; Jason '666” Ross; Kelly 'Rhino” Petrowski; Matthew Ramsden; Kane Ronaki; Te Reneti Tarau; and another man who has interim name suppression.

The jury has this week been hearing evidence of 'Wheelman” – a gang insider-turned-Crown witness whose real identity has been suppressed.

The witness, who is appearing in court via audio-visual link from another location, specialised in transporting drugs, guns and money to and from the Bay of Plenty.

During Operation Silk in 2020, police said eight firearms were located on June 23, including two AK47s and two MSSAs (military-style semi-automatics). Photo: NZ Police.

On Thursday afternoon Thacker's counsel, Bill Nabney was given the opportunity to cross-examine the witness – and he immediately zeroed in on some of the more colourful aspects of the witness's evidence.

This included grilling him about his interaction with other members of the gang who had monikers such as "Irish and "Two Times".

"Where do you come up with these names?" Nabney asked.

The defence lawyer suggested the witness's story was a concocted one, an elaborate tale he had devised in order to justify an immunity from prosecution offered to him by the police in return for giving details in court about the gang's activities.

'You chose to lie about it,” Nabney said.

An arsenal of Molotov cocktails were found during the culmination of the police operation to uncover evidence of the Mongols' misdeeds. Photo: NZ Police.

'No sir, that's not true at all,” the witness replied.

Nabney: 'You made up a whole lot of stories that can't be recovered.”

Witness: 'Through a cypher phone, which is the whole point of them.”

During Nabney's cross-examination, the witness also alluded to what had compelled him to give evidence for the prosecution.

It related to an incident at his home not long after he and other gang members were arrested in June 2020.

"After talking to my missus about what the Mongols had done to her, I was an open book."

He later added: "I was one of them, and I turned on them ... I wanted to be like them, until I seen what these people are actually like".

And later still: 'I really wanted to see people that f...ed with my family go to jail”.

Nabney also questioned him about a reduced sentence on charges the witness had been facing "for assistance given to the authorities”.

This had, Nabney observed, resulted in the police withdrawing their opposition to him being granted bail at a court hearing on July 13 of that year.

Also, eventually, there was a reduction in his ultimate penalty at his sentencing from a start point of between three and four years to an end sentence of seven months of home detention.

Nabney also questioned the witness about the timing and circumstances of some of his trips to the South Island to deliver drugs to members of the gang's Christchurch chapter, as well as his trips to Auckland, where he obtained cocaine for Thacker from a member of the Headhunters gang in Kumeu.

"He instructed me to put [the cocaine] in the blue gumboot at the front door."

Nabney also queried whether the witness really used the moniker 'Wheelman” in relation to his covert business with other gang members, and noted a name he had apparently used much more often was Toretto, or Retto.

This, said the witness, was a reference to the character Dominic Toretto from the Fast and the Furious movies, played by Vin Diesel.

The trial, before Justice Melanie Harland, continues.

-Stuff/Mike Mather.