Charges follow raid

BARRY HARCOURT/ID 125785

STAND OFF: A Mongrel Mob member watching as an associate is questioned by police after the gang's Severn St headquarters was raided by police and the armed offenders squad yesterday morning.

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Two patched Mongrel Mob members have been charged with possessing cannabis after raids on two Invercargill properties yesterday.

Officer-in-charge Detective Dave Kennelly, of Invercargill CIB, said search warrants were executed at a Teviot St house and the Mongrel Mob headquarters in Severn St about 9.30am after city pharmacies reported gang associates trying to buy pseudoephedrine-based products, a key precursor substance used in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine or P.

Disgruntled mob members stood in a sometimes abuse-filled vigil at the end of Severn St during the police search.

One member shouted a remark that could have been a reference to the jailing in April of Invercargill mob president Phillip Edwards.

Edwards was sentenced to one year and 10 months' jail on two charges of sexual connection with young persons between 12 and 16, after he had sex with a 12-year-old girl and attempted to have sex with her 13-year-old friend during an incident in Invercargill in 2006.

P is synthesised from the pseudoephedrine found in over-the-counter cold and hayfever remedies such as Sudafed or Claritin-D.

No pseudoephedrine products were found but two male gang members allegedly had small amounts of cannabis. The men, a 35-year-old Mataura man and a 26-year-old from Invercargill, both patched gang members, were arrested at the mob's headquarters and are scheduled to appear in the in Invercargill District Court next Tuesday.