{"id":381575,"date":"2026-04-16T00:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381575\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:12:09","slug":"malachi-betham-admits-violent-auckland-robbery-plot-two-weeks-after-twin-elijah-betham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381575\/","title":{"rendered":"Malachi Betham admits violent Auckland robbery plot, two weeks after twin Elijah Betham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another defendant is alleged to have feigned an interest in buying the ring. Instead, it is alleged, he arranged for the Betham brothers and others to raid the carpark meetup pretending to be a random robbery.<\/p>\n

\"TwinsTwins Elijah and Malachai Betham have pleaded guilty to a violent robbery that took place at the carpark of a Woolworths supermarket in September 2025. Photo \/ Google<\/p>\n

Upon arrival at the scene, Elijah Betham jumped out of the car alongside an unidentified man wielding a machete and rushed the 20-year-old seller, who was knocked to the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The victim] was taken to the ground and assaulted by Elijah Betham and his associate,\u201d states the summary of facts for both brothers. \u201c[He] received multiple strikes with hands, feet from the machete.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was struck at least once to the head with the machete, causing a wound to the left side of his head and left ear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CCTVCCTV showed Elijah Betham, wearing a white hoodie, speaking with others at a West Auckland petrol station shortly before participating in a violent robbery outside a nearby supermarket. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The victim was later taken to hospital via ambulance. He suffered a \u201csignificant laceration\u201d to the side of his head, causing \u201csignificant damage\u201d to his ear.<\/p>\n

Two 18-year-olds had accompanied the seller to the carpark and were waiting in the car when the machete attack began. They drove off, leaving the seller behind, after noticing Malachi Betham walking towards them with a shotgun, court documents state.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs [the] car passed alongside Malachi Betham, Malachi Betham raised the shotgun and fired the shotgun once into the driver\u2019s side window area of the complainants\u2019 car,\u201d court documents state. \u201cThe shot was fired within two metres of the complainants\u2019 car.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shotgun pellets narrowly missed the driver, lodging instead in the front right pillar. No one inside the vehicle was injured.<\/p>\n

\"EvidenceEvidence photos show damage to an occupied car that Malachi Betham fired at with a shotgun from about two metres away. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s your f***ing money?\u201d the twins shouted as they met up where the machete attack victim was still on the ground. <\/p>\n

They then drove away at speed, overtaking a bus. <\/p>\n

Police caught up to Malachi Betham later that day, arresting him in the driveway of his Massey home. His brother was arrested the following day. <\/p>\n

In a phone call from jail a week after their arrests, Elijah Betham was recorded admitting the brothers\u2019 involvement as he tried to reassure an unidentified person on the other end of the line. <\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice remain outside a Massey, West Auckland address following a violent robbery at a Woolworths in September 2025. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t beat yourself up, yo,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s Malachi\u2019s own doing, the stoned c***. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all our own doing, yo. F***, wouldn\u2019t even be in this position if we didn\u2019t do what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the brief arraignment hearing this week in the High Court at Auckland, Justice David Johnstone ordered that Malachi Betham be taken into custody alongside his brother.<\/p>\n

The pair will be sentenced together in June. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another defendant is alleged to have feigned an interest in buying the ring. Instead, it is alleged, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,74,7814,5765,51,198365,45290,20438,8530,32294,72945,1872,156013,4275,111,43,139,69,14727,36095,17398,8442,28650,27517,20928,97,1335,12637,1847,1237,20424,4518,1533],"class_list":{"0":"post-381575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-admits","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-armed","11":"tag-attempted","12":"tag-auckland","13":"tag-betham","14":"tag-blast","15":"tag-brothers","16":"tag-carried","17":"tag-charge","18":"tag-elijah","19":"tag-face","20":"tag-malachi","21":"tag-murder","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-outside","27":"tag-plot","28":"tag-possible","29":"tag-prison","30":"tag-resulting","31":"tag-robbery","32":"tag-shotgun","33":"tag-supermarket","34":"tag-term","35":"tag-together","36":"tag-twin","37":"tag-two","38":"tag-violent","39":"tag-weeks","40":"tag-will"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}