IR-01-23-19755
23 August 2023
James
[FYI request #23268 email]
Tēnā koe James
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 26 June 2023. You
wrote:
Last week it was reported that Operation Cobalt had laid almost 40,000 charges
to date. Under the OIA please provide the month-by-month total of charges laid
from the inception of Operation Cobalt to 23/06/2023.
Please provide the data on how many gang prospects have been charged.
Please provide the data on how many gang associates have been charged.
For the purposes of the Operation Cobalt reporting, ‘charges’ are defined as prosecutions
and warnings that had a mode of arrested, summonsed, or other against gang members
or associates (this means other actions, such as youth referrals or Te Pae Oranga
referrals are not included). As at 21 July 2023, Police laid 42,308 such charges between
13 June 2022 and 23 June 2023. This is shown by month in the table below.
Table 1. Charges against gang members by month, as at 21 July 2023.
Month
Charges
13 - 30 June 2022 1,912
July 2022
3,470
August 2022
3,594
September 2022
3,622
October 2022
3,097
November 2022
3,314
December 2022
3,442
January 2023
3,682
February 2023
3,108
March 2023
3,618
April 2023
3,283
May 2023
3,496
1 - 23 June 2023
2,670
Total
42,308
Of the 42,308 charges, 18,303 were laid against 4,253 people who are recorded in the
National Intelligence Application (NIA) as gang members or associates, while 4,737
charges were laid against 925 people who are recorded as a gang prospect/probate.
Police National Headquarters
180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
Data in this response is drawn from a dynamic operational database and is subject to
change as new information is recorded or updated on a recurring basis.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Please note that as part of its commitment to openness and transparency, Police
proactively releases some information and documents that may be of interest to the
public. An anonymised version of this response may be publicly released on the New
Zealand Police website.
Ngā mihi
Uraia Vakaruru
National Controller COBALT
Detective Superintendent: Northern
New Zealand Police