TED is a man in his 40s who lives with his family in an eastern suburb of Melbourne. He likes to collect antiques and tend his garden, but for years he was forced to live the life of an outlaw bikie.
He was a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang that refused to let him drift back to conservative, mainstream society. He would rather have been home planting geraniums, but he had to go to the parties, ride on bike runs and fight people he didn’t know who had offended the honour of a club ‘brother’, a person he probably didn’t even like.
According to police, Ted is one of a growing group of aging bikies trapped in a lifestyle they have long since outgrown. But you can’t retire from an outlaw motorcycle gang, not without paying a huge price.
‘To be honest, I was sick of it,’ he told police. ‘But if I quit they would have come around here with a truck and cleaned me out.’ So, as infrequently as possible, he kisses his wife goodbye, dons the colours of the club and rides his bike to another booze and drug filled night out.
The traditional retirement gift for a bikie who wants to leave his club is a beating from fellow members and the loss of his bike and other assets. Ted finally found a way out. He was released without punishment after he found he had a life-threatening disease.
‘They join because of the parties and the image but they end up getting ripped off by their so-called brothers,’ a policeman says.
Only colour-wearing members are allowed to know the secrets of the clubs. There are hangers-on who are used for a purpose, the girls, the users and the potential recruits known as prospects, who are treated as virtual slaves.
One prospect was ordered to take a package of drugs across town with the lights of his motor-bike off. It was done to see what he would do if he was picked up by police.
No wonder police have had massive problems trying to investigate the groups. Traditional methods such as using undercover operatives can’t be used. Those close to the bike gangs are often required to commit crimes to prove their loyalty, which effectively protects the groups from being infiltrated by undercovers.
One of the few non-members in Australia to be accepted as an equal by bikies was Frank, who helped produce amphetamines for one outlaw motor cycle gang. For years he helped produce the best speed that money could buy and he watched as some of the toughest bike groups moved from being good-time boys who loved parties and fights, to sophisticated gangsters in leather jackets.
‘In the gangs there are two types of blokes. Half of them are dead set tough and the others need to be in a big group to survive. They wouldn’t know what to do if they were on their own.’
Frank has known bikies for decades. He believes some of them just love the image. They have the bike, the belt, the colours and all the T-shirts. They go to the parties, ride on the interstate runs and will brawl for their bothers.
‘If you are a H A (Hells Angel) and you walk into a pub you have immediate respect. Everyone knows that if you fight him, the rest of them will come after you,’ he says.
But there are others who are in the clubs for themselves. They ride their bikes only when they have to and exploit other members of the gang as cheap labour and low level runners for their drug activities.
‘Some of them are very smart and very greedy,’ says Frank.
At one time a Melbourne bikie group was producing the purest amphetamines in Australia, with four ‘cooks’ producing five-kilogram batches in shifts.
The chemical overflow from the operation was poured into the garden. ‘It must have been good stuff. The weeds were gigantic and the mosquitos were as big as helicopters,’ Frank says.
He said the Australian bike groups began to use and sell amphetamines in the 1970s after seeing the profits made by US gangs. ‘At first the speed was sent from America through the post wrapped up in T-shirts. Then they got a recipe from the Hells Angels in the States.’
The links between Australian clubs and their US counterparts have long been established, and it is believed that Australian bikies were taught how to cook speed in America. The money to be made was so great one group wouldn’t even stop while on trial over amphetamine charges. They would cook overnight and then go to court. To stay awake through the hearing, they used their own ‘gear’.
Bill is a policeman who investigated bikies for years in Melbourne. In the 1980s he had a price on his head and kept a loaded shotgun in his car.
‘They are total misfits who band together because they don’t fit in anywhere else. Many of them are just hypocrites. They say they never use the needle, but some of them sell heroin,’ he said.
‘Years ago some of them were real hard men you respected, but most of them are long gone, either dead or in jail. Now crims just use some of the clubs as fronts. Most of the members aren’t too bright and are led around by the nose by the few who are in it for the money,’ he said.
The Hells Angels were the biggest suppliers of amphetamines in Australia in the 1980s. They recruited a brilliant eccentric, dubbed ‘The Mad Professor’, Colin Fleet, who produced 27 different types of illicit drugs.
Fleet was convinced police were firing micro-waves at him, so he wrapped his head in tinfoil. He also sanded the bottom of his bath, believing that this would sabotage police bugging methods.
Ultimately, he committed suicide.
The Angels were convinced that one policeman was responsible for investigations of their drug-producing empire. Police received information that an international gang hitman was to be flown to Australia to kill the officer in question.
They intercepted one of America’s top US Angel members, James Patton ‘Jim Jim’ Brandes. He had been charged and acquitted of attempting to murder a US undercover policeman, Bill Zerby. Zerby lost his hearing in his left ear and 75 percent in his right after a remote control bomb was detonated next to his car.
When Brandes arrived in Australia his luggage included thumb cuffs, a de-bugging device, instructions on how to tap telephones and a confidential copy of a US Treasury book, Forensic Handbook. Hand marked in the book were passages on ‘Explosive Substances and Devices’ and areas devoted to fingerprints on chemicals.
Brandes was kept in a holding cell at Melbourne Airport, then sent back to the US.
At one stage Australian Hells Angels sent their US brothers the Chemical P2P, a vital ingredient of amphetamines. It was smuggled into America in pineapple juice cans.
An internal struggle sparked a gang war in Melbourne. At one stage gunmen burst into a member’s house and, using a shotgun, blasted the television, fishtank, furniture and walls. They then set fire to a bike and car. Police gave chase to a group on its way to a fire fight. Gang members threw their weapons out the windows. Police later recovered an Owen sub-machine gun, a .357 magnum, a Colt .45 automatic, a .38 revolver and a pair of thumbcuffs.
One enemy had every major bone in his body broken. Two members of another gang had their kneecaps shot and their clubhouse burnt to the ground. But the Angels have long since lost their stranglehold in the amphetamines market. According to police, the delicate power structure of the outlaw motorcycle gangs is changing in Australia and has resulted in an upsurge of violence.
Police know of at least 14 violent incidents in 18 months connected to inter-gang rivalry, and they believe many more attacks have gone unreported. Detectives believe one unsolved murder and an attempted murder in country Victoria are related to bikie gangs.
Drive-by shootings, violent raids on opposition clubhouses, bashings, sophisticated targeting of rivals, bombings, and predatorial takeovers of smaller gangs, have become part of the scene.
In 1995, police were told that five men in a car had been spotted wearing balaclavas in a quiet Melbourne street. Police moved in to stop what they believed may have been a planned armed robbery. What they found were members of a bikie gang, all carrying firearms, about to conduct a military-style raid on a rival group.
Police have now found that gangs are producing detailed dossiers on enemy members, which include pictures, work details and likely movements, in order to plan future attacks.
Detectives fear that the undercurrent of violence is part of an undeclared battle for control in Victoria. For two decades the Hells Angels have been considered the strongest gang, but in the last few years the Bandidos have developed a strong power base.
‘The Hells Angels are an endangered species in Australia. This will all end in a big blue,’ a bikie associate predicts.
Police intelligence reports indicate that several smaller country gangs have been absorbed by outlaw motorcycle groups with strong interstate connections.
Police believe the smaller gangs are forced to close and hand over their assets, which include club houses and property, to the major national gangs. A bikie was shot dead, another abducted and tortured and a third attacked with a tomahawk before one club was absorbed in one regional Victorian city.
Detectives say dominant elements in some of the big clubs have been involved in the production and distribution of amphetamines, debt collection, counterfeiting and being paid to commit assaults. At least one lawful and respected club is being pushed into organised crime by a few members, according to police.
Money from illegal activities has been laundered through motor cycle shops, concerts, strippers, property and bike shows, according to police intelligence.
As the likelihood of violence has increased, the gangs have begun to fortify their club houses against attacks from rivals. The club houses are normally located in industrialised areas. The gangs buy or rent small factories or warehouses and turn them into garrisons.
Police say some of the buildings have been fortified with internal walls made of layers of railway sleepers. ‘They have surveillance cameras, strong lights and monitoring devices to protect buildings which are really just big tin sheds,’ a detective says. ‘When they have meetings they usually have two members on foot-patrol outside the building who wear headsets equipped with state of the art communications gear,’
They don’t have that sort of gear to protect them from police raids, because when we go in there’s nothing much of interest there. It is designed to protect them from raids from other gangs.’
The head of the organised crime and task force division in Victoria, Detective Superintendent Ian Thomas, says some gangs encourage young factory workers to become involved. ‘They have Friday night parties for the local workers where there are strippers and drinks. The workers end up being the unpaid eyes and ears for the clubs.
‘This may seem innocent enough but with the tension between rival gangs there is a real chance of these people being caught up in violence. The main reason for some of these clubs existing is for criminal activities.
‘There is a group of criminals in the bikie community and they should be treated as any other criminal group. It is pointless to glamorise them. Many of them exploit the image of a bikie and use and exploit their fellow bikies.’
The National Crime Authority had to fight the bikies in and out of courts to proceed with the investigation. Operation Panzer began in May 1995 on the instructions of the state and federal governments as reference 23 for the NCA. Under a special reference the NCA is able to use its coercive powers, which include demanding answers under oath to questions in secret hearings.
The NCA was instructed to investigate gang members suspected of murder, drug trafficking, armament dealing, extortion, fraud and tax evasion. But in June, 1996, the Federal Court ruled in favour of two gang members and found the reference was too general to allow use of the coercive powers. It is not known who paid the massive legal fees.
The NCA appealed the decision, but continued the investigation without using the special reference authority. A year later the Full Federal Court found in favour of the NCA.
The authority established a national task force involving state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate bikie groups. For the first time, ten years after the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence found some bikie groups were linked to international crime gangs, there was a national approach to the problem.
By the end of 1996, NCA-related investigations had resulted in the arrest of 169 people charged with 454 offences including the manufacture of amphetamines, possession of steroids, supplying cocaine, possession of ecstasy, counterfeiting currency, possession of firearms, explosives and a stun gun.
Police were amazed at the new methods bike gangs used to try to protect their criminal activities.
In one case a gang built a large brick barbecue to conceal an underground concrete bunker designed as an amphetamines laboratory at a luxury property near Frankston.
The gang used a local concreter to build the bunker. The night after he completed the job his clients stole his truck and removed the hydraulic lift on the tray. The hydraulic system was fitted below ground level to lift the barbecue to expose the secret trapdoor.
BIKIE VIOLENCE IN VICTORIA
January, 1993, Geelong. Shootout between members of the Warlocks and Black Uhlans results in one death and several injuries. Police said the dispute related to a dispute over drug distribution. The Warlocks were taken over as a Rebels chapter opened.
August, 1993, Horsham. Rebels gang tries to take over the Cougars. Rebuffed at first but takeover later completed.
April, 1995, Ballarat. Bandidos Gang absorbs the Loners Gang. No major violent incidents reported.
April, 1995, Ballarat. Several shots fired into the Vikings clubhouse in Ballarat. Police believe it was a show of strength by the Bandidos.
April, 1995, Kyabram. Bandidos take Broke Brothers Motorcycle Club.
May, 1995, Ballarat. Hells Angels attack and bash members of the Bandidos gang at a bikie function. The Bandidos have a set of their colours stolen. Police say this confirms world-wide tensions between the two groups. They have reports of an international war between the gangs, culminating in an anti-tank missile attack in Amsterdam.
May, 1995, Ballarat. Bandidos fail in a takeover attempt on the Vikings. Tensions rise.
May, 1995, Ballarat. A Bandidos member’s business is bombed with a home made explosive device. Believed to be in retaliation for a takeover bid.
June, 1995, Thomastown. Four members of the Bandidos arrested near Hells Angels (Nomads) Chapter clubhouse armed with various firearms. Police said the Bandidos had planned an armed raid on the Hells Angels to try and get their colours back. August, 1995, Melbourne. Two Hells Angels (Nomads) arrested in possession of pistols. In a search of their house, police found a book which contained personal profiles and photos of 14 Bandidos’ members. A confidential police report on the incident said ‘It is likely the Hells Angels had these details for use when targeting the Bandidos members for violence.’
November, 1995, Ballarat. Bandidos member knocked from his motorcycle by a car as he leaves the clubhouse in a hit-run ‘accident’. Police later told it was part of an ongoing bikie war. The hire car which struck the man was found to have been rented by the girlfriend of a Hells Angels Nomad member.
February, 1996, Ballarat. A hotel brawl between Vikings members and a Bandido leads to heavily armed Bandidos firing between 12 and 20 shots with a .223 rifle from a passing car. One Vikings member hospitalised. One bikie involved made a statement to police, breaking the code of silence.
May, 1996, Ballarat. The man who had made the statement over the February incident goes to police to withdraw his allegations, saying he was under the influence of drugs at the time. Police later find he has received a number of threats, and rival gang members continually drive past his house as a form of intimidation. Police received intelligence that the Vikings plan revenge.
May, 1996, Ballarat. Witnesses see a Vikings member being bashed on a street corner at 4 pm. Offender’s vehicle registered to Bandidos’ associate. Four hours later two cars spotted with front seat passengers pointing shotguns out of the window in nearby Sebastopol. Believed to be Vikings gang members.
July 1996. Members of Bandidos (Sydney) chapter spotted in Portland. It is believed they are attempting to take over the Bros club as part of an expansion into south-western Victoria.