Fourth Reich (New Zealand gang)

The Fourth Reich was a skinhead gang originally formed in a Christchurch prison, as various skinhead prisoners, came and went, doing their time. There was around 22 main members, they did not all know each other, they had never been all in the same room, at one time. (Due to the Gang being predominantly more a prison group) and associates, female partners, considered all part of the wider Fourth Reich group. Their members came from Christchurch, Dunedin and the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand formed in 1994.

Despite their name, hinting at White Supremacist leanings, and like other New Zealand Skinheads groups before them, the group had maori members as well.

In 1997, two members killed a young Māori man, Hemi Hutley. They beat him unconscious, dragged him across wasteland, stripped him and then threw him into the Buller river where he drowned.

This was the beginning of the gang's reign of terror on the West Coast and they were later involved in the murders of Janis Bamborough in 1999 and Korean tourist Jae Hyeon Kim in 2003.

Attempts were made by the gang to set up inside Nelson, from members that weren't inside, at the time.

This tension had boiled over after, when the Fourth Reich blew up a Ford Fairmont outside the Lost Breed clubhouse, sparking a turf war, which ultimately saw the Reich leave the town.