The World's Most Evil Gangs (15 page)

O
n Australia’s affluent East Coast, gang warfare has erupted between rival outfits across two states, conducted on high-powered machines by modern-day ‘bikies’. The motorcycle-riding old guard is being supplanted by a violent new breed of steroid-pumped, amphetamine-taking young rebels, often of Middle Eastern or Eastern European descent. They shun leathers and straggly hair, preferring designer clothes and ‘gansta’ bling.

According to police, the feud between rival gangs is now a step away from an all-out war. The epicentre of the current outbreak of violence is Sydney, where there were more than 60 drive-by shootings in 2012 alone. Homes have been sprayed with bullets while children have slept inside.

Tensions in the city go back to an infamous massacre in 1984 when six bikers were shot dead in a pub car park and a teenage girl killed in the crossfire. Since the 1980s there have
been about 100 biker killings across the country and 1,000 shootings. The most dramatic was the 2009 murder of a biker in the crowded main terminal of Sydney Airport. The scale of the problem was highlighted by police in a major crackdown on the gun-toting gangs – which, in Sydney alone, resulted in 555 people being arrested and 908 charges laid.

As well as an epidemic of violence centred on Sydney, New South Wales, there have been several related shootings in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. The main target of Sydney gangs is the lucrative drugs trade on Queensland’s Gold Coast, where in April 2012 a tattooed gunman shot a rival and a woman bystander in the region’s biggest shopping mall.

It is estimated there are 35 ‘outlaw’ motorcycle groups in Australia with an inner circle of 3,500 fully ‘patched’ members and many thousands more followers. Among this assortment of bikie groups, a handful are especially powerful, some of them with international branches. Among them are the gangs profiled below – not a comprehensive list but one that reflects the sometimes typical, sometimes differing aspects, attitudes and histories of these Aussie outlaws.

Pre-eminent are the Bandidos, which the American FBI has identified as one of the ‘world’s Big Four’ outlaw motorcycle gangs, with an estimated 210 chapters in 16 countries. Nineteen of these chapters are located across Australia, comprised of up to 400 members. The Bandidos’ international origins go back to 1966 when it was formed by a Texan named Don Chambers. The Australian chapter was not founded until 1983, by Anthony Mark ‘Snodgrass’ Spencer, its first national president, following a split from the existing Comanchero Motorcycle Club. Its motto is: ‘We are the people our parents warned us about’.

The Bandidos is one of the clubs that has actively recruited from ethnic groups in recent years. Wannabe members are called ‘hangarounds’ and the chapter president decides when they can become a ‘prospect’. To become patched members, other full members must unanimously vote them in. Members wear leather or denim vests known as ‘cuts’ because the sleeves are cut off. The logo is a Mexican bandit.

The Bandidos are probably best known for their involvement in the Milperra Bikie Massacre on 2 September 1984 – a dramatic event related later in this chapter, and one that was a catalyst for significant changes to gun laws in New South Wales. Among the 30 convicted combatants, ‘Snodgrass’ Spencer took his own life in prison.

Over a decade later, in October 1997, it was thought the club had mellowed but a triple murder of three of the members prompted the National Crime Authority to wrap up a two-year investigation into the Bandidos, code-named ‘Operation Panzer’, during which two undercover detectives had infiltrated the Bandidos’ operations in Ballarat, Victoria. State police raided properties in Ballarat, Geelong, Shepparton and Bendigo, while simultaneous raids took place in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. Police seized more than $1 million worth of drugs – including cannabis, LSD, amphetamines and heroin – and weapons such as an AK-47 assault rifle and sawn-off shotguns. Nineteen people faced charges, including 13 Bandidos in Victoria.

The raids initially weakened the Bandidos but the club continued expanding in regional Victoria by taking over smaller rivals. Inter-gang feuding continued. In October 2008, Bandido member Ross Brand was shot dead while walking outside the gang’s Geelong clubhouse. The rival Rebels
motorcycle gang was blamed and affiliate John Bedson was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to 23 years in jail.

In New South Wales in March 2009, the ‘sergeant at arms’ of the Bandidos chapter in Parramatta, Mahmoud Dib, was arrested and charged with firearms offences by police investigating a string of drive-by shootings in Sydney. Police found a .45 calibre semi-automatic pistol that was loaded with seven bullets. Days before Dib’s arrest, his family home was the scene of a wild shoot-out between members of the Bandidos and the rival Notorious gang in an ongoing feud with the latter Parramatta based bike group. In Queensland, enemy gangs in the Brisbane metropolitan area targeted Bandidos properties, the most serious incidents being two drive-by shootings at their Woolloongabba clubhouse and a Milton tattoo parlour in June 2012.

Among the Bandidos’ main rivals are the Comancheros. Boasting roots that go back to Hispanic-American traders from New Mexico who made their living by dealing with the nomadic plains tribes in that state and neighbouring Texas. One of the oldest and smallest outlaw clubs in Australia, with a New South Wales membership of perhaps 100, its headquarters is in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Club positions include president, commander, vice-president, sergeant-at-arms and secretary. Prospective members are ‘nominees’ and expected to obey the motto: ‘If the president says jump, ask how high’. Titles are indicated in patches on the front of a vest or jacket, usually including the letters ACCA (Always Comanchero, Comanchero Always).

For almost a decade after its inception in 1966, the Comanchero Motorcycle Club kept to itself, shielding the public from boozy, violent behaviour within. Their founder,
Scotsman William George ‘Jock’ Ross, ruled the Sydney-based club with an iron fist, demanding members live by the club’s rules of loyalty. It was the violation of this sacred law that sparked Australia’s most infamous bikie battle, the 1984 ‘Milperra Massacre’.

After months of in-fighting, Ross’s follower, Anthony ‘Snodgrass’ Spencer, defected from the Comancheros to start the first Australian chapter of the American group the Bandidos. His defection was seen as treason and on Father’s Day 1984 the two bikie gangs squared off in Milperra’s Viking Tavern car park, as families visiting a motorcycle swap meet ran for their lives. Four Comancheros, two Bandidos and an innocent bystander, 14-year-old Leanne Walters, died during a ten-minute gun battle that left at least 20 others injured. In a landmark trial lasting 14 months, nine men were found guilty of all seven murders and affray, while 21 others were found guilty of manslaughter and affray. Judge Adrian Roden, who presided over the trial, warned about the dangers of bikie culture. ‘As patriotism can lead to jingoism, and mateship can lead to cronyism, so bikie club loyalty can lead to bikie club war,’ he said. On appeal, all nine murder convictions were overturned and all those jailed were back on the streets in just over five years.

In the decade following the massacre, tensions between the Comancheros and the Bandidos simmered but both clubs were also careful not to further tarnish their image. However, like most outlaw gangs, the Comancheros continued to be involved in tit-for-tat violence over turf and power. In 1999 the body of Comanchero bikie Peter Ledger was found dumped in the driveway of his ex-wife’s house. He had been tortured and beaten to death by Comancheros sergeant-at-arms Ian Clissold
for selling a Harley-Davidson motorcycle against club rules. According to court papers, Clissold had been ordered to ‘sort somebody out who had been causing a bit of trouble’ and the beating ‘went a bit too far’.

By the turn of the century, both police and public had become enraged by the growing abuses of the motorcycle gangs. But by then the main outlaw groups had already agreed to curb their public feuding – by creating a mafia-style ‘crime Syndicate’. This loose association of the major players was formed not for altruistic reasons but to cut smaller clubs out of the lucrative drugs market. A 2000 police report into organised crime read: ‘In early 1994, following the world trend, there was a meeting in Sydney between the major gangs where it was decided informally that the gangs in the country would adopt a similar stance to that already being set up by the rest of the OMCG (outlawed motorcycle gangs). It was agreed in principle that there would be a maximum of six gangs controlling Australia by the year 2000, hence the project being dubbed The Australia 2000 Pact’.

It appeared that the Comancheros may have been locked out of the drug market, as they were not included in the six powerful gangs vying for dominance. But they survived and the feuding continued. In 2001 their western Sydney headquarters in Erskine Park was fire-bombed, causing about $40,000 damage. The following years saw a spate of further
fire-bombings
, bashings and drive-by shootings culminating in the Sydney Airport shootings in March 2009. This time the feud, between the Comancheros and the Hells Angels, boiled over publicly with tragic consequences.

Comancheros president Mahmoud ‘Mick’ Hawi and four other members had boarded a flight from Melbourne to
Sydney. Hells Angels chapter president Derek Wainohu also happened to be on board. When the plane touched down, each gang called for reinforcements. The ensuing wild brawl in front of horrified travellers claimed the life of Anthony Zervas, the brother of a well-known Hells Angels member. Zervas suffered stab wounds and massive head injuries when he was attacked with bollards and kicked, punched and stomped on as he lay on the floor of the domestic terminal.

Fourteen people were charged over the murder, including Hawi who, just days after the attack launched a ‘damage limitation’ exercise, banning the wearing of Comanchero club colours and rallying of motorcycles in a bid to curb the escalating violence. But Hawi’s call for calm among bikie gangs was ignored when the airport victims’ Hells Angels brother, Peter Zervas, was also murdered – shot as he arrived at his mother’s home nine days after the airport brawl. Police found Zervas leaning against his white car, which was left streaked with his blood.

More than two years after the airport brawl, Hawi was found guilty of murdering Anthony Zervas, while the 13 others were found not guilty. In the NSW Supreme Court, Zervas’ mother Frederica Bromwich called out, ‘No punishment is enough for the loss of my son’ as Hawi was sentenced to a minimum of 21 years behind bars. Judge Robert Hulme said Hawi and his Comanchero colleagues had displayed ‘a flagrant disregard’ not only for the law, but also for the many witnesses ‘in whose memories the incident will live long’. As a result of heightening violence, New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees announced that the state police’s anti-gang squad would be boosted from 50 members to 125.

While the bikie wars raged on, the Comancheros grew ever
more powerful. Creating new chapters, the club has widened its membership to allow Middle Eastern and Islander members. From their Sydney base they expanded into South Australia and Victoria. The Spearmint Rhino strip club became a known Comanchero haunt in Melbourne, with the gang running three suburban clubhouses. At the helm of the South Australian expansion was former Hells Angel and founder of New Boys street gang Vince Focarelli, who has survived four attempts on his life. His 22-year-old son Giovanni was not so lucky.

The Hells Angels are undoubtedly the best known of all the bikie gangs. ‘Treat me good, I’ll treat you better; treat me bad, I’ll treat you worse,’ was the saying of Sonny Barger, founder of the Hells Angels, which was established in March 1948 and has since spread worldwide, with 230 chapters in 27 countries and a membership of around 3,500.

Australia is home to 14 chapters with around 250 members, the first having been granted their charters in Sydney and Melbourne in 1975. Keeping the public in the dark about the murkier side of the cult’s activities, they expend a great deal of time and energy cultivating a positive image, raising money for charity and delivering Christmas toys to children. But many see this as a cloak behind which the gang practise a nonconformist and often violent lifestyle.

Violence has certainly bubbled to the surface in recent years, with friction between rival gangs exasperated by the Angels’ renewed push into the glittering Gold Coast of southern Queensland. The holiday area’s large transient population makes it an attractive destination for bikie gangs wanting to exploit lucrative criminal markets in drugs and prostitution. The NSW Hells Angels also control ‘legitimate’ businesses –
including gyms, tattoo parlours and a haulage company – and attempts have been made to spread these enterprises north of the Queensland border.

In 2012 two senior Sydney members were reported to be spearheading the campaign, both having been granted ‘nomad’ status, which meant they no longer belonged to any one chapter but could operate freely in rivals’ territory. They chose the Gold Coast resort of Burleigh Heads as the base of the new chapter and settled in what was the heart of Bandido territory, within walking distance of the rivals’ clubhouse.

The local police force was immediately on the alert, saying the tentative peace that had existed in the city now looked decidedly shaky. They feared the move would fuel tensions with the other 300 Gold Coast gangs – in particular, Bandidos, but also outfits known as Finks, Uhlans and Lone Wolf Club – that had long fought to stop Hells Angels from encroaching on their turf. ‘This will not go down well,’ said a police source. ‘The Uhlans will probably do nothing but the Bandidos will have to react or be seen as weak.’

The front line switched to South Australia in November 2012 when fighting broke out between members of the Finks and Hells Angels at the ‘Knees of Fury’ Thai kick-boxing event in Adelaide. Worse was to come within a few days when a business owner in the city’s Pooraka district was killed in an execution-style murder. Jason De Ieso, 33, was gunned down in front of terrified witnesses in his spray-painting workshop, where he specialised in hot cars and motorcycles. Finks bikies arrived at the scene soon after the shooting, with one suggesting it was one of their number, or a close associate, who had been killed. The police, in a move aimed at keeping a simmering bikie war off the streets of Adelaide during the
Christmas festivities, barred up to 80 known trouble-makers from every licensed venue in the state. The barring orders were to be for between three to six months and those caught breaching them could face a fine of up to $1,250.