Inside the Anti-P Ministry: the secret war against meth

The death of a small girl at the hands of her P-fuelled stepfather haunts Black Power New Zealand president Junior Kapene.

Steven Williams was high on methamphetamine when he beat Coral-Ellen Burrows to death in the Wairarapa in 2003.

Williams had spent days awake using P in fear of reprisal from Kapene, who had threatened to kill him not long before.

WARWICK SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ

President of Black Power New Zealand Junior Kapene, left, and founder of Anti P Ministry Brendon Warne.

“He’s thinking I am coming after him. I still blame myself to this day for that girl’s death. That is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life, knowing that her mother thinks that of me.”

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Kapene said he had a moment of clarity about the drug and its effects after being diagnosed with a health problem. As a result, Black Power does not deal P and he wants to rid New Zealand of it.

MATT SHAND/FAIRFAX NZ

Anti P Ministry organisation logos and documentation.

“The drug was causing people to go to their deaths and I knew I was to blame for Steven Williams.

“I see my own people going without and see people making so much money and saying, what the f…, we’re just going around and around the merry-go-round, with them getting richer and not giving a f… about the habits or not caring who has an addiction.”

Kapene said he backs Taupo minister Brendon Warne’s Anti P Ministry in its crusade, but it’s not enough.

MATT SHAND/FAIRFAX NZ

The Anti P Ministry says it interrupts the drug trade by smashing equipment and stealing drug money.

Warne’s church, the Equinox Ministry, has its own makeshift chapel in a sleepout in Dannevirke, Kapene’s hometown.

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“We need to get the message into schools,” he said. “Tell people not to go my way. Then our tamariki [children] can see. Don’t ruin your future for a bit of crack. I will be keen to do that. I hope I can get into schools and talk.

“I can set the example and when whoever calls time up there puts me up, I hope someone picks up my chess piece and carries on my work.

MATT SHAND/FAIRFAX NZ

Brendan Warne is also an ordained minister.

“But he’s [Warne] the star here. Anyone can be a gang member. He’s helping get people’s lives back together.

“The Anti P Ministry is real and it’s a good thing.”

Kapene said Black Power is becoming more aggressive at keeping the drug away from the community.

MATT SHAND/FAIRFAX NZ

Ryan Wood, taken when he first joined the Anti P Ministry.

“These Skippy Cornflakes gangs that come and sell our people an addiction,” he said, “you come to my door and complain about the Ministry. I’ll tell you to leave once. I’ll tell you to leave twice. Then I’ll pull the gun out. Give you a warning shot. You still won’t leave? It’s in your leg.

“I don’t give a f… about cops when it comes to meth.”

MINISTER ON A MISSION 

Tucked away in his bag are locks of hair from his mother and father, a clip loaded with 9mm ammunition and a Glock handgun.

MATT SHAND/FAIRFAX NZ

Brendon Warne with Black Power NZ President Junior Kapene at the Dannevirke Chapel of the Equinox Ministry.

The hair he keeps private. He waves the pistol with one hand – a semi-automatic symbol that he is not messing around.

His other hand slides a bulging folder across the table. It is chocker with pictures of his group’s operations, testimonies from members, and their gang symbols.

These are the talismans of the Anti P Ministry, an undercover group with one mission: Detect, disrupt and destroy the vicious drug P wherever they find it.

It is a secret society of thieves, gangsters, reformed addicts and one ordained minister – the one brandishing the Glock – by the name of Brendon Warne.

The gang president turned God’s soldier is on a mission to eradicate a drug he admits he once dealt himself.

“I am not an angel,” Warne said. “I have a lot to make up for and I am not sure if I will ever make up for it all.

“I’ve got agents everywhere. We’ve taken so many drugs off the street and destroyed it with fire.

“We have 50 agents across New Zealand, but they are worth 500 gang members.”

Funded by donations and money seized, Warne has orchestrated guerrilla-style raids against P labs and dealers since 2007.

The police have not heard of the Ministry, so it’s no surprise that law-abiding citizens haven’t.

A top-ranking police source said, however, it’s “not outside the realms of possibility” such a group exists, since the underground war on P is heating up.

The source said many gangs are looking at cleaning themselves up and some have strict rules about P use.

The Ministry has tried hard to stay in the shadows, so it seems suicidal to throw itself into the light now.

But the fight is getting to Warne. He is losing members to jail, to injury. But mainly, the small wins are no longer working against an inexorable force.

The P trade has become a  juggernaut. There needs to be a wider focus.

Sociologist Jarrod Gilbert, a gang expert and author of Patched, had not heard of the Anti P Ministry, either, but like the police source, was not surprised it exists, and gave the same reason.

“We’re seeing many gangs attempting to move away from methamphetamine use. They have seen the destruction it causes the community and are turning away from that particular drug.

“If you look back into the 1970s, heroin was banned by gangs.

“There are a number of reasons for that. If you are an addict, your first priority is to the drug, whereas gangs want their first priority to be to them.

“If you are using, you are more likely to steal off brothers and if you are taken into custody, you are more likely to roll over.”

Gilbert said different chapters of New Zealand gangs have different attitudes to drugs.

“The drug trade around meth is enormous and there will always be people to fulfil this demand.”

“It’s a hard job to take to do this,” Warne said, lighting his first cigarette and standing three feet back to not share the smoke.

“I have a lot of stress and people out to get me.”

But the Equinox Ministry is his rock – a parish where he preaches his message to gang members in a bid to settle disputes and calm tensions.

“I tell people Jesus loves you, but I don’t,” he said. “We hold a lot of respect. I’ll show it to you. At the end of this I’ll make a call and settle the gang tension in Taupo.”

He calls the Equinox Ministry the light, the Anti P MInistry the dark. Equinox reforms, the Anti P destroys.

The spring equinox holds meaning for Warne. His son was born on the March equinox and his brother died during a police chase on the same day 20 years ago. His brother was driving Warne’s car. The police thought they were chasing Warne. It is this for reason he has kept the Anti P Ministry secret from police. He cannot trust them.

Warne said P has infected every corner of New Zealand and the country is sick with it. More jails will not fix the problem.

“I’ve seen lawyers take the stuff and I’ve seen people give their last cent for it. If there was a way for me to be able to deal with police, we could get this drug off the street. I can’t deal with them. They killed my brother. But not everyone needs to be charged. Some need a different type of help, like rehabilitation. Not everyone needs to be locked up.”

Another person Warne helped sits down at the Spa Park meeting. He doesn’t give his name, but wears a red shirt. Red was acting as a guard for Warne, but has his own story to add.

Red’s parents sold P in Auckland.

“One day I met my brother here [Warne] and he told me about what he is doing and why,” Red said. “I watched it destroy the community and take away my childhood. I thought, if I can make a positive impact on the community so little kids do not have to go through what I went through … I’ll fight for that.”

Red typically arranges deals for Warne. He looks the part and can infiltrate and gain trust from dealers. His information is fed back to the Ministry.

Red said he knows Warne is looking out for all of his members and it is a responsibility Warne does not take lightly. He hates the analogy of leaving people on the cross.

“Even though I’m a minister and I believe in God, I hate some of the messages in the Bible. I hate reading a book about how twelve guys left their bro on a cross to die. Go and get him off. You never leave people behind. It bothers me that I have lost people on the way. They’ve fallen over or gone back on to drugs. It’s not fair to them. I brought them into the Ministry, it’s my responsibility.”

As committed as Warne is to the fight against meth, he admits he might not be able to curb its impact anymore. His members still operate, but for how much longer is anyone’s guess.

“What is happening now is people are bringing in tonnes of the stuff,” he said. “I’m not sure how long we can fight it. I don’t think those first P cooks knew what they were bringing into the country when they brought this here. I don’t know if we can fight the amount being brought in at the moment. But I would gladly die for the Ministry.”

With that he takes a cellphone, punches in some numbers and lets it ring on speaker phone. He is calling a gang leader in Taupo. The phone answers with a “Youzah.”

“Hey, brother, you having some troubles in town?”

“No.”

“What about that up in Rawhiti?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I think we need to get a peace.”

He manages to get the man to agree to a handshake, a koha and a hongi. He asked for something to be “put on hold”. The voice agrees.

Warne takes his locks of hair and handgun, and heads home.

The next day, a police source confirmed the gangs had made a shaky truce.

THE MAN BEHIND THE GLOCK

Brendon Warne is no stranger to gang life, having affiliations in Black Power and the Nomads. His torso is a road map of tattoos, painting a gang career in the rise from patchy to president.

“I did everything. I took every job and did every task. I did a lot of bad things.

“The Ministry is not scared of the gangs. We have fought them in wars and I will fight for what I believe in.”

Warne used to distribute P and helped get people hooked on it. Now he stays clear when he can – but refusing drugs can lead to problems when undercover.

“They affect me badly. I get stressed and my head spins in all bad ways. I was in the gang when P first started. There was a new drug people were using and getting a real buzz from. All of a sudden it turned and suddenly people had no food in their cupboards. People’s partners were angry and the kids are getting affected. I didn’t like it.

“In the Ministry, I have had to smoke it a few times for trust. I hate it. I can’t go home if I smoke it. I’m afraid to be around my family when I’m f….. up.”

Warne’s life changed after being sent to prison in connection to a fire-bombing attack on an office belonging to a man who conducted sexual acts on a 15-year-old girl in Palmerston North.

“It was my orders, so I pleaded guilty to that,” he said. “I do not like paedophiles.”

You find all sorts of characters in prison. Warne found Jesus.

Tapping into his new-found religion upon release, the Anti P Ministry started converting people to its cause. They “cleansed” packets of P with flame throwers and broke pipes into the shapes of crosses. Members filmed it all for bragging rights, to see who could take the most P off the streets.

Warne recruits through a mixture of persuasion and manipulation.

“I do whatever I have to do to get people on board. I got one of my members to sleep with a transsexual, and she was nice. I had that over him and if he betrayed me, I could tell everyone. He became one of my best members.”

One of the Ministry’s soldiers, Ryan Wood, can attest to Warne’s head games.

Warne drove Wood to a house filled with P dealers and laid out his plan. He told Wood to fill a pipe with P, light it, then drop it on the floor.

“Say sorry and I’ll take it from there,” Warne told him.

Wood walked into a room filled with Crips – a feeder gang into a larger gang – and drugs.

“It’s f…… nuts. He didn’t tell me how many were in there and they were in the Crips,” Wood said.

One Crip pulled out a bag of powder, more P than Wood had ever seen. Wood did as he was told, filling a pipe, shaking the whole time.

“I lit it and it started bubbling and I put it near my mouth. Well, I dropped the pipe all right and it smashed. I said f… as loud as I could.”

The gang members were angry about Wood’s “clumsiness”.

“I’ll never forget that moment right there, because I was scared. Brendon was smiling and I thought I had been set up hard.

“But then he smashes a cup of tea that was half full,” Wood said.

“He yells, ‘It’s only crack, you c…’. Then he starts stomping on the broken glass and the other two Crips are saying, ‘It’s all good, bro.’ He goes up to that one and rips a bigger bag out of his hand and starts tipping it out and shaking it, saying, I don’t give a f… about this crack, this shit doesn’t rule me.”

Warne had flipped the script.

Warne said the Ministry deploys many tactics, but one of the favourites is to replace meth with organic sulphur. At a fraction of the cost, and laced with a few healthy benefits, the powder looks like P and has the same consistency. It even burns and smokes nicely in a pipe.

“Junkies will think they got a bum batch and won’t go back to that dealer again,” he said. “Or we can smoke it to look the part.”
But each victory the Ministry claims is met with threats and risk.

“Yeah, people are angry,” he said. “They say people are going to come down and shoot me, but so far they’re all talk. What are they going to do? Go to the police, tell them they got ripped off?

“I’ll get a call from people calling me a f……, saying I owe someone twenty grand, that I’m in the s…. What they eventually realise is they got caught by the Ministry, so bad luck.”

Any money found during raids is kept by the Ministry for what Warne calls his collection plate.

“If we take gear off people and there is money there, we take that as well.

“We burn drugs and smash pipes. But we have never burned money.”