Mongrel Mobster with giant swastikas tattooed on his face promotes healthy eating

A convicted gangster with giant swastikas on his face has turned his life around and is now promoting healthy eating.

Coey Rogue is a member of the feared Mongrel Mob in Gisborne, New Zealand.

He spent seven years behind bars for attacking a Black Power gang member and cutting off his thumb with a machete.

But now the mobster is on the straight and narrow and promotes healthy eating via a Facebook page called Hiels kitchen.

Reformed: Coey Rogue spent years behind bars for attacking a Black Power gang member and cutting off his thumb with a machete. But now he promotes healthy eating

Mobster: Coey Rogue is a member of the feared Mongrel Mob in Gisborne, New Zealand

The page has attracted more than 100,000 followers after members of the Mongrel Mob set it up to tackle obesity and diabetes.

In a television interview with New Zealand Today, Rogue explained why he backed the project and revealed there is more to him than drugs and violence.

‘I’ve been in and out of prison for quite some time but it’s all changed,’ he said.

‘I’ve got children now and I’m just trying to help our community, help the country and eventually help the world.’

He denied the gang’s desire to promote healthy eating was incongruous with its violent clashes with rivals, especially the Black Power gang.

‘The mongrel mob have been doing good deeds in the community way before I was born,’ he said.

Rogue shows New Zealand Today reporter Guy Williams how to make ‘prison noodles’ – pasta with chips on top

Rogue is a regular contributor to the Hiels Kitchen group where he uploads recipes and pictures of his food.

The former gangster revealed that he used to never cook but eat in restaurants every night because he was ‘an extremely rich man’.

But he got addicted to meth and ‘smoked his empire away’.

Without enough money to continue his lavish lifestyle he was forced into the kitchen.

New Zealand Today reporter Guy Williams asked Rogue why he has swastikas on his face.

‘Every mark on my body tells a story, takes me back to a time in my life,’ he explained.

Rogue (left and right) revealed that he used to never cook but eat in restaurants every night because he was ‘an extremely rich man’

Rogue shared this image of a cake he had made to the Facebook page Hiels kitchen

Williams joked: ‘What time do they remind you of, World War Two?’

He later asked Rogue if it is right to give a convicted gangster airtime by interviewing him.

But Rogue, who volunteers helping homeless people, had a profound response to insist he was no longer a bad guy.

‘I’ve done a lot of things that I cant take back, that I regret.

‘But that doesn’t make me a bad person or mean I don’t deserve the spotlight or to be human.’

Talking about the mob, he added: ‘We’re good people and I just want to say that I feel sorry for anyone that cant see that.’

New Zealand’s most notorious gang: A brief history of the Mongrel Mob

The Mongrel Mob is an organised street gang based in New Zealand that has a network of more than thirty chapters throughout the country.

The gang’s main rival is the Black Power gang and there have been several very public and violent clashes between the two gangs over the years.

The gang began with a group of mainly European youths from Wellington and Hawke’s Bay in the 1960s. Legend within the gang holds that the name originated from the comments of a judge in the Hastings District Court, who referred to a group of men before him as ‘mongrels’.

By the late 1960s loose groups of rebellious young men in Wellington and Hawke’s Bay were calling themselves Mongrels. By 1966 they were wearing patches bearing the name ‘Mongrel Mob’.

By about 1970 the gang had expanded to include numerous Māori. Members consider Hastings in Hawke’s Bay to be the gang’s ‘Fatherland’ or birthplace, and the gang first became known for its violence in Hawke’s Bay.

Later, similarly named groups sprang up around the country, forming their own independent chapters.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the Mongrel Mob began expanding into parts of Australia. In 2018 they also expanded into Canada.

The gang claims it offers a surrogate ‘family’ for young men, most of whom are often alienated from their family via joining.

The membership is mixed but predominantly Māori and Polynesian.

The Mongrel Mob is one of New Zealand’s largest gangs with more than 1,000 associates.

It started the Facebook page Hiels Kitchen ostensibly to promote healthy eating.

But some of the meals shared include toast with cheese and kiwifruit, Red Skins sweets melted on bread, and burnt homemade pizza.

Members have also shared pictures of bacon and eggs for breakfast, green chicken curry, buttered bagels with prawns and salmon, and even a Mongrel Mob-themed birthday cake for a one-year-old.

The gang attracted media attention in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack in March when members performed a stirring haka outside a mosque.

Members vowed to protect their ‘Muslim brothers and sisters’ praying at the Jamia Masjid mosque in Hamilton on the North Island.

Wearing their trademark black and red leather waistcoats which feature the words Mongrel Mob alongside the gang’s British Bulldog insignia, members performed their haka before standing guard outside the mosque.

Their performance was met with a round of applause and cheering from members of the Muslim community who watched before heading inside to pray.

The Mogrel Mob is pictured performing a haka at the Jamia Masjid mosque in Hamilton on the North Island. Members stood guard outside the mosque in a moving display of solidarity after the Christchurch terror attack

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