Slain Mongrel Mob leader Daniel Eliu was shot six times at point-blank range - including four in the back - by a patched member of the Head Hunters motorcycle gang, the Herald can reveal.
Thomas Richard Tahitahi, 42, has now admitted to the murder of Eliu, who was standing outside a church in Manukau when he was gunned down in December 2022.
Eliu was the president of the Notorious chapter of the Mongrel Mob in Auckland and at the time of his death, detectives said the fatal shooting appeared to be “targeted”.
The guilty plea in the High Court at Auckland this morning means that Tahitahi’s membership of a rival gang, the Head Hunters, can now be reported.
Tahitahi had previously tried to keep his name secret because of fears for the safety of his family, but this was rejected by the Court of Appeal.
He stood in the dock wearing a white dress shirt today as he said only one word during the brief hearing: “Guilty”.
Justice Geoffrey Venning set a sentencing date for August 14, and remanded Tahitahi in custody.
Members of Eliu’s family quietly sat in the front row of the courtroom gallery, leaving soon after Tahitahi was escorted back to his cell by guards.
His victim Eliu, also known as Sa-Dan Notorious, was gunned down in front of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Papatoetoe on December 17, 2022.
Mongrel Mob member Daniel Eliu was shot dead in front of a Manukau church in December 2022.
The 46-year-old had been attending a graduation for the Grace Foundation, a rehabilitation programme catering to those “truly on the margins of New Zealand society” who are seeking to put their criminal pasts behind them.
Although Eliu wasn’t graduating himself that day, he had been in the programme for about six months.
The graduation had finished and Eliu was waiting with other members of the group outside the church for a Christmas barbecue when he was killed in front of them.
Court documents show that Tahitahi, carrying a .22 calibre rifle wrapped in a black jacket, walked up behind Eliu and fired two shots - one in each leg - at point-blank range.
He then fired another four shots into Eliu’s back.
He collapsed to the ground, while Tahitahi ran to a getaway vehicle, a 2006 Mercedes-Benz S500, parked on a nearby street and drove away at speed.
Thomas Tahitahi, accused of carrying out a hit on Mongrel Mob boss Daniel Eliu in December 2022, appears at the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Within minutes, Eliu was dead.
The Mongrel Mob leader was no stranger to violence, or drugs.
At the time of his death, Eliu was waiting to be sentenced after pleading guilty to two charges of conspiracy to deal methamphetamine, and four charges of supplying the drug.
Nearly $230,000 cash was found in his car when he was stopped by police investigating an organised criminal group selling meth across the Hawke’s Bay.
On the same day Eliu was pulled over in 2020, police raided the Hastings home of another Mongrel Mobster, Ernie O’Neal Paul, and seized a further $26,755 in cash, along with two motorcycles.
Phone calls intercepted in Operation Casino indicated the pair agreed to a purchase price of $230,000 for 2kg of meth, plus a “delivery fee” of $20,000 for Eliu. This was because Paul was serving a sentence of home detention for his part in a gang-related assault in prison.
In 2006, Eliu had also been sentenced to 11 years in prison for kidnapping a man suspected of being a “nark”, or police informant.
Using a boxcutter knife, Eliu slashed the victim’s face from his jaw to his hairline, which the Court of Appeal would later describe as “a particularly bad crime of its kind”.
Jared Savage is an award-winning journalist who covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006, and is the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.
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