Long serving Hells Angels North Crew bikie Eugene Osenkowski dies

One of the state’s oldest Hells Angels has died, taking with him the secrets of the notorious bikie gang and a life as an expert crook.

Eugene Osenkowski was known for two things in the criminal underworld.

He was not to be crossed, and he was a man of his word, according to those closest to him.

To authorities he was a career criminal and part of a notorious bikie gang with a propensity for violence.

But as a long serving and senior member of the Hells Angels’ North Crew, he was an asset, a wise head and a brother; to his family he was an adored father and grandfather.

“He was the last of the good guys,” his daughter Natasha Osenkowski said.

“He never folded on his principles.

“He always kept his word.”

One of the state's most senior Hells Angels Eugene Osenkowski died last month. Picture: Supplied

Osenkowski takes to the grave many of the Hells Angels closely-held secrets and much of its decades old history. Picture: Supplied

Osenkowski, one of the state’s oldest Hells Angels, died at 79 in early May after battling underlying health issues, taking with him many of the notorious gang’s secrets and a lifetime of experience as a criminal.

Regarded as one of the last remaining old-school crooks, he was a prominent member throughout the past three decades when the club was arguably at its most violent and responsible for several high-profile murders.

The cops who investigated Osenkowski – who served time for drug trafficking – regarded him as a resourceful and skilled crook; an expert of his craft.

Notoriously paranoid and almost impossible to gather intelligence on, Osenkowski for years ran a successful trafficking business, with the number of times he evaded the law far outweighing the times he was pinched.

He was farewelled by family and senior Hells Angels at a private funeral in the northern suburbs late last month, with a North Crew flag draped over his coffin.

“The man was respected by many people, not just the club,” Ms Osenkowski said.

Osenkowski made national headlines in 2006 when he launched a historic challenge to the state government’s new anti-fortification laws introduced by then-premier Mike Rann.

In December 2005, then-police commissioner Mal Hyde made an application for a “fortification removal order”, later approved by the then-Chief Magistrate, which forced Osenkowski to remove the fortification from his Adelaide Hills home.

Osenkowski lost a Supreme Court bid to have a “fortification removal order” on his Mt Pleasant home overturned in 2006.

Osenkowski argued the home was not a bikie fortress despite the razor wire in the house’s roof cavity, the steel doors securing the property, the bars across an internal manhole, the cage inside the home and the security system in place around the property.

His challenge reached the Supreme Court, where it was knocked back by the Full Court in November 2006.

Ms Osenkowski, who was raised in the Hills home, maintained it was not a “bikie” fortress, but a result of her father’s well-known paranoia.

While his headline-making legal bid was before the courts, Osenkowski was one of several South Australian Hells Angels involved in the infamous “Ballroom Blitz” brawl on the Gold Coast in March 2006.

Several gang members travelled to Queensland, where three men were shot and three were stabbed in the brawl between Hells Angels and Finks members at the Royal Pines Resort during a kickboxing event.

At times a “brutal” man in a “beautiful way”, according to his eldest daughter, Osenkowski stood up for the “criminal underdog”.

Despite her father’s status within the criminal world, Ms Osenkowski said he was respected by Hells Angels and non-bikies alike.

“That man had a lot more honour than everybody today,” Ms Osenkowski said.

“He was the real deal.”

Ms Osenkowski said many of the Hells Angels’ secrets would die with her father, who was a walking example of the bikie code of silence.

“Three keep a secret if two are dead,” Ms Osenkowski said.

“He’ll be dearly missed by the underworld.”