What it’s like inside Finks outlaw motorcycle club
They have a reputation for extreme brutality but members of the Finks are forced to follow a strict set of rules. This is what it’s like inside the notorious bikie gang.
A builder who made the mistake of hanging out with the Finks gave a terrifying account to a court of life inside their clubhouse.
The Melbourne builder claimed he got mixed up with the Finks after he agreed to do some work for a mate at a warehouse that happened to be the club’s Ringwood chapter headquarters.
He appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in 2016 where some of his former chums were accused of a conspiracy to bash him, among other offences.
The builder claimed he built a stage, bar and installed a stripper pole but never got around to finishing the toilet and shower.
Inside, club supporters would pay $100 a month for the privilege of drinking with the bikies — paying $5 a drink no matter what they ordered.
The “nominees” would run the bar, open the club gates for fully patched members and generally behave as servants, the builder said. It could take years before a nominee earned their full patch.
Full members would fork out $250 a month to wear the patch, and fees were to be paid no matter what.
The builder said chapter president John Napolitano would control the blokes “like a cult” and allegedly order club members to bash members or nominees.
Violent outbursts and random beatings were common on Friday nights, where up to 50 people would gather to get drunk, the builder said.
The victims were usually blow-ins, who foolishly thought it might be fun to drink with the Finks.
Other bikie gangs
THE COMANCHERO: THE MOST VICIOUS BIKIE CLUB
THE BANDIDOS: HOW THEY WERE BORN
THE REBELS: POWER VACUUM WEAKENED THEIR EMPIRE
HELLS ANGELS: THE BIGGEST AND BADDEST GANG
Finks push east from SA
The Finks have established a strong presence along the east coast and a reputation for brash and brutal violence since their formation in South Australia in 1969.
But the Finks only began to make a serious move into Victoria in 2009 after the SA Government launched a crackdown on bikies.
It was reported in April of that year that a man representing the Finks had made inquiries about several Ballarat properties.
The Herald Sun later revealed that a police intelligence report confirmed the Finks were in the process of establishing their first Victorian chapter.
They were already operating a tattoo parlour in Port Melbourne and were trying to acquire a clubhouse in the same area.
South Australia tries to ban bikies
In 2009, the Finks came under intense scrutiny in South Australia, as Premier Mike Rann introduced a series of controversial new laws designed to eradicate outlaw bikie gangs from his state.
The Finks were the first to be declared a “serious criminal organisation”, an order which applied to 48 members and associates of the Finks.
The laws meant a person could be charged if they associated with a Finks member more than six times in a year, unless they were relatives.
But the bikies rallied against the changes, taking their case to the High Court which declared the laws invalid in November 2010.
There are now just a handful of Finks left in SA — they are those who refused to patch over to the Mongols and a handful who rejoined when the Mongols disintegrated due to relentless pressure from Crime Gangs detectives.
Child caught in bikie crossfire
In Adelaide, the Finks’ ongoing feud with the Hells Angels took a dramatic turn when an 11-year-old boy was shot in September 2011.
Armed intruders broke into a suburban home and shot the boy — the son of then Finks associate Mark Sandery — twice in the leg.
A source said the Finks were offering $500,000 to anyone who could help them track down those responsible.
In 2014, prospective Hells Angel Aaron Cluse was jailed for more than a decade after pleading guilty to charges of aggravated serious criminal trespass and two counts of aggravated endangering life.
In 2012, escalating tit-for-tat violence between the Finks and Hells Angels in Adelaide culminated in a group of Hells Angels shooting dead panel beater Jason De Ieso. He was an innocent bystander — police say the man they were after was senior Fink Charlie Bonnici.
Finks rules (as of 2012)
To join you must ride a British or American motorcycle over 650cc.
To become a nominee of the club, the rules state you must join an interstate run and be nominated by a chapter. “Noms” have a fully patched member as a sponsor.
The club is ruled by a national committee made up of four nominated members from each chapter.
According to club rules, the duty of sergeants-at-arms is “To keep law and order by any means available at all meetings and all activities to do with the club”.
The Treasurer opens the club bank account and looks after the club’s finances, and the secretary takes meeting minutes and records events such as runs, parties, etc.
Follow the code of SLYF (Support your local Fink); FFFF (Finks forever, Forever Finks), Invincible Empire.
Chapters hold fortnightly meetings, known as “church nights”. The treasurer takes dues from members and minutes of the meetings are circulated to other chapters.
Women can’t join, or wear club colours, or be “told club business”.
Only fully patched members can have club tattoos.
Bikies murder mechanic
The Finks fell directly in the sights of police after the 1996 murder of Darryl Lewis, a Queensland mechanic who was suspected of dealing stolen Harley-Davidson parts.
Lewis was kidnapped and beaten by members of the Finks before they dumped his body.
In what was one of the largest murder investigations in Queensland’s history, thirteen men faced charges relating to Lewis’ death, and eight members of the Finks were jailed.
Schapelle Corby’s Finks link
In 2006, police issued an arrest warrant for senior Fink Yassar Bakir in relation to a Gold Coast shooting.
Bakir was the brother of “Mad Ron” Bakir, a controversial Queensland entrepreneur who initially funded Schapelle Corby’s legal defence against drug-smuggling charges in Indonesia.
Yassar Bakir was eventually arrested and banished interstate on strict bail conditions, but the charges were then dropped in 2009 after Bakir’s alleged victim failed to appear in court to testify.
Melbourne murderer defects
Melbourne CBD killer Christopher Wayne Hudson was also a member of the Finks in Queensland.
But he defected to the Hells Angels in late 2005, enticed by the offer of a new Harley-Davidson and the opportunity to help them overthrow the Finks’ control of the lucrative drug business in Gold Coast nightclubs.
This enraged the Finks, sparking a violent brawl in March 2006 at a kickboxing tournament at Queensland’s Royal Pines Resort.
Hudson was beaten and shot in the jaw and back; two others were shot and two were stabbed as Finks and Hells Angels fought in what became known as the “Ballroom Blitz”.
Fink bikie Shane Scott Bowden was sentenced to six and a half years’ jail in 2008 for his attack on Hudson.
One of the men stabbed during “Ballroom Blitz”, former Fink Ben Young, was shot dead in Adelaide in August 2008, in what was believed to have been a planned hit.
They stole a yellow Lamborghini
In 2010, two Victorian Finks stole a $400,000 Lamborghini from a dealership around the corner from their Port Melbourne headquarters.
Fink Richard Michail put car dealer Srecko Lorbek in a headlock and demanded $50,000, before stealing the canary-yellow luxury car and parking it outside their clubhouse, less than 2km away.
Michail told a judge the Finks had just three members in Port Melbourne and no hierarchy, claiming his role was merely as spokesman and collector of membership fees.
He gave evidence that their clubhouse was a shed that cost $30,000 a year to rent. The judge dismissed his evidence as “nonsense”.
In April 2011, Michail was sentenced to a minimum two years’ jail, while Matthew Ward — his accomplice and fellow Fink — received 18 months’ jail.
A lawyer for Michail told a court in 2015, he resigned from the Finks in 2013.
Adelaide enforcer joins Victorian Finks
The Victorian Finks received a new member in 2011, when enforcer Mick MacPherson arrived from South Australia after battling with the government over their anti-bikie laws.
MacPherson’s luxury Eureka Tower apartment was raided by police in August, where they found him suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach. He refused to co-operate.
At the same time, the Australian Federal Police were investigating MacPherson’s link to a 1.1kg stash of cocaine that was seized from airfreight in Sydney.
MacPherson was also touted as the official spokesman for the United Motorcycle Council Victoria, a new representative group for Victorian bikie gangs that the Finks had previously discussed with the Comancheros in 2010.
“Finks Terror Team” exposed
On the Gold Coast, expansive details of the Finks’ operations were exposed in Queensland’s first attempt to have a motorcycle club declared a criminal organisation.
Evidence filed at the Supreme Court in 2012 revealed the Finks’ murky history of drug deals, sexual assaults, murders, home invasions and extortion.
The “Finks Terror Team” — allegedly the gang’s enforcement arm — was exposed in the documents, as was the identity of at least 47 members of the club’s Gold Coast chapter.
Violence continues
Also in 2012, Melbourne-based Fink Mark James Graham was charged after a shooting at a Gold Coast shopping centre.
Senior Bandido Jacques Teamo and an innocent female shopper were shot in the incident.
In the days after the shooting the Finks distanced themselves from Graham saying they did not sanction the shooting.
Graham was jailed for 12 year and three months.
He patched over to the Mongols in 2013.
Finks patch over
In 2013 it was reported a large number of Finks, possibly up to 95 per cent of members, had patched over to the Mongols.
In Melbourne, former Finks members cleaned out their headquarters in Port Melbourne and decked out the inside of the clubhouse in their new colours — black and white.
At least nine of 12 Finks chapters across the nation patched over to the Mongols.
But by 2014 the gang was bouncing back, rebranding its logo to the gun-toting Bung and recruiting new members.
Ringwood clubhouse raided
Raids on a Ringwood clubhouse in 2015 revealed plans by members of that chapter to kidnap a former Fink who had left the club on “bad grounds”. Numerous people were arrested during raids across Melbourne and police allegedly uncovered two clandestine labs for making ice, drugs, guns, gun-making equipment, stolen cars and motorbikes.
Recent developments
The national president of the Finks moved to Victoria earlier this year from NSW, with the gang looking to re-establish a foothold in the state.
Kosh Radford, aka Koshan Rashidi, appeared in Parramatta Local Court late last year agreeing to post a second $10,000 surety so he could move to Endeavour Hills.
Radford’s lawyer, Asem Taleb, told the court his client had been forced to go back to look for work in the construction industry in Victoria, having previously held jobs there in the past.
Radford was in court facing six charges including resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer after he allegedly set his dog on two male constables at his home in Sydney’s northwest last November.
Just a few days earlier, on November 8, Radford was barred from entering Bali and sent back home to Sydney after Indonesian Police received a tip-off from Australian intelligence sources.
The Finks hit the headlines last month when the Frankston home of enforcer Brent James (BJ) Reker was a target in a shooting.
Reker’s house was sprayed with bullets while his baby slept inside. It is not known who shot at the house, but Reker was allegedly attacked at a Frankston pub weeks before the shooting.
Following initial suggestions the Hells Angels might have been involved, the Herald Sun understands police are moving away from the theory that another outlaw motorcycle gang was involved in that incident.
Radford took control of the Finks motorcycle club following their 2013 merger with the Mongols.
Other bikie gangs
THE COMANCHERO: THE MOST VICIOUS BIKIE CLUB
THE BANDIDOS: HOW THEY WERE BORN
THE REBELS: POWER VACUUM WEAKENED THEIR EMPIRE
HELLS ANGELS: THE BIGGEST AND BADDEST GANG
Originally published as What it’s like inside Finks outlaw motorcycle club