If a Bay of Plenty gang member was dealing in millions of dollars worth of methamphetamine and other drugs then his lifestyle should reflect that, a High Court jury has been told.

Instead, Mongols vice president Hone Ronaki lived a modest life in a rented house and was not exactly a high-roller, his lawyer Ron Mansfield KC says.

Ronaki is one of nine senior members and affiliates of the Mongols gang who 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 also on trial is the Mongols' national president, Jim David Thacker, also known as JD; 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.

On Wednesday it was the turn of Mansfield to put the defence of his client, Ronaki, to the jury.

Ronaki was 'a bit of an old school gangster,” he said – 'Relatively humble, relatively sustaining his family ... but certainly not flashy.”

The Crown charges against his client alleged Ronaki was responsible for a minimum of 12 kilograms of the drug.

Such an amount would have a value of between $1.5 million to $2m.

'That's a lot of cash to be swimming around out there.”

A former gang insider who had given evidence for the Crown against the club had given evidence the gang – which Mansfield referred to as a club – were dealing in large volumes of methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs.

'Every lawyer wants to say ‘Show me the money', and that's certainly what we can say in this trial.

'Where is the evidence reflecting that level of drug dealing within the club?”

It was, Mansfield said, nowhere near 'the grand scale [the witness] peddled to the police in order to get that sweet [immunity from prosecution] deal he wanted for himself.”

Ronaki's lack of flashiness extended to his eschewing of the cypher phones and encrypted apps the other senior members of the gang were allegedly making use of.

Hone Ronaki was part of a group of Mongols who allegedly ran the wife of a fellow gang member off the road – prompting that man to give evidence against the gang in the trial. Photo: NZ Police.

He had made 'no real attempt ... to use codes that sophisticated, or talk about drugs in any hidden way.”

Prior to the start of the trial, Ronaki had pled guilty to 73 drugs-related charges – but he was guilty of no more, Mansfield said.

”He is what he is. He was a methamphetamine and cannabis dealer at the level I have asserted. That's why he pled guilty ... because there is clear and compelling evidence of his activities at the correct level.

”He was happily in a haze of meth, chatting away [on the phone] about his drug dealing transactions that were taking place.”

Ronaki's seniority in the gang did not automatically mean he was more culpable for any wrongdoing, Mansfield said.

'Being a member or office-holder of the club does not make you liable for the other members. Imagine how absurd that would be if you were a member of a local squash club or golf club?

'Please don't say ... ‘He is the vice president and he is therefore responsible for what the other members do'.

'[The witness] was, on his own account, obtaining and supplying methamphetamine. He was dealing in the same types of drugs that he says others were more heavily involved with.”

During his evidence, the Crown witness – who has permanent name suppression – told he was compelled to turn against his former comrades after a group of Mongols on motorbikes attempted to force his wife off the road, as she was driving with his children and mother in the car.

Ronaki was allegedly the leader of that group that day.

Mansfield said if that was true, then why did the witness not lodge a complaint with the police?

'Isn't it extraordinary ... that despite working really closely with the police [as a Crown witness] nothing is ever said?”

The trial continues.

-Mike Mather/Stuff.