A secret witness was inspired by Hollywood movies to concoct an elaborate tale of drug- and gun-running, the lawyer acting for an alleged gang boss says.

The former gang insider's account is similar to a plot twist in the movie The Usual Suspects, says Bill Nabney, who's acting for Mongols' national president Jim Thacker.

In that film, a character played by the actor Kevin Spacey 'makes up a story, using things [he sees] in the room in order to weave a web”.

Likewise, some people the witness described as being involved with the gang were like film characters, Nabney suggested during his closing argument in a High Court trial in Hamilton on Friday.

'Two Times, like Jimmy Two Times in [the movie] Goodfellas ... Marko, Irish.

'These sound like things in a movie that he's made up, to sound or feel real. That's what I would suggest.

'It would be a great movie script,” Nabney later added. 'But that's all this is. It's just a story.”

The witness has permanent name suppression and gave evidence earlier in the trial.

The seven men and five women of a High Court jury will soon have to decide whether his evidence is something that could have been penned by a screenwriter.

Nine senior members and affiliates of the Mongols, including Thacker, are standing trial 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 also on trial is the gang's sergeant-at-arms Leon 'Wolf” Huritu; Jason '666” Ross; Kelly 'Rhino” Petrowski; Hone 'One-er” Ronaki; Matthew Ramsden; Kane Ronaki; Te Reneti Tarau; and another man who has interim name suppression.

Much of Friday was devoted to the closing argument of Nabney, who is acting for both Thacker and Huritu in the trial.

The police had obtained a warrant to monitor Thacker's phone in late 2019 and over the following six months he had made ”not a single comment in which drugs of any sort were mentioned,” Nabney said. 'Not one.”

”And yet the Crown would have you believe he was the main person in a major drug operation.”

The lack of references to methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs did not stack up against the charges against Thacker, the lawyer said.

”[Thacker] is so good, he is so astute that despite moving massive amounts of drugs, as the Crown insists, he never mentioned drugs even once.

'You will have no difficulty in finding Mr Thacker not guilty on all the charges he faces because the evidence is simply not there.”

The jury had earlier been played Snapchat footage of Thacker snorting a long line of cocaine – however this was not the damning evidence the Crown believed it was, Nabney said.

'While it would seem to be a prodigious amount, it was a single occasion.”

The evidence of the secret witness – who said he had communicated with his colleagues in the Mongols using the code name 'Wheelman” – was filled with vague dates and times of his exploits, Nabney said, such as when he had met a person called Marko in Johnsonville – or possibly, as he earlier told the police, in Christchurch.

Another area in which 'there was simply no evidence” against Thacker was the January 28, 2020 incident in which a home in Haukore St in Tauranga was sprayed with gunfire.

The Crown alleges the home was targeted as part of a series of increasingly violent exchanges involving the Mongols and the rival Mongrel Mob gang.

'We don't know who the shooters are. That's common ground. Nobody does,” Nabney said.

Thacker, Hone Ronaki, Huritu and the defendant with name suppression had been charged by the police with discharging firearms with reckless disregard in relation to that incident.

'The Crown position is ... if they are not the shooters, then they are certainly part of what happened. Well, there's no evidence of that.

'There's no evidence that Mr Thacker encouraged it to happen, [or] wanted it to happen.”

Likewise, no one could say for certain that Thacker was involved in a subsequent firefight between Mongrel Mob and Mongols members west of Te Puke.

'We don't know whether Mr Thacker actually got there,” Nabney said.

'It's for the Crown to prove that he was there, and they then have to satisfy you that he was not acting in self-defence.”

The trial continues.

-Mike Mather/Stuff.