Full list of Mackay bikie gang links revealed
It is an unsavoury underworld that new laws have almost eradicated in Queensland. Read the full list of Mackay’s 13 links to outlaw bikie gangs.
Police & Courts
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To combat a devastating and violent streak of underworld violence in Queensland, state governments introduced the VLAD laws.
The Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act of 2013 has resulted in an exponential decrease to bikie-related crime in Mackay, but the seedy underworld still lingers.
Here are 13 Mackay links to outlaw bikie gangs.
Bikie Battlefield
The day Mackay was a bikie battlefield has become one of the regions ‘where were you’ moments.
August 31, 1997 was the day the tension of two bikie groups, the Odin’s Warriors and the Outlaws, spilled over and Mackay went into a lockdown.
According to investigators at the time, a possible confrontation had been brewing for weeks until a group of Odin’s Warriors rode past the Outlaws’ clubhouse, known as the ‘Round House’, and stopped at a nearby hotel.
Soon after stopping, a truck was driven from the Round House, straight across Barnes Creek Road and into the Odin’s Warriors members.
Immediately after the crash there were shots fired, with as many as 40 rounds fired from different types of weapons.
Officers were called in for overtime, while every available detective in the district, including from Moranbah and the Whitsundays, were involved.
The investigation that followed was “extremely frustrating”, as all 53 bikies from the two clubs adopted a ‘code of silence’.
Despite 53 people being arrested and charged with causing an affray, no one was found guilty in the ensuing court case.
Michael Paul Falzon
An Ilbilbie man was a key player in a multi-million dollar drug syndicate that supplied the Rebels Motorcycle Club.
Michael Paul Falzon was found guilty of trafficking a dangerous drug, possessing a dangerous drug and three counts of producing a dangerous drug. He had pleaded not guilty.
The 50 year old helped produce and traffic methamphetamine across various properties outside Mackay, Rockhampton and Dalby.
Falzon and his partner James Thomas O’Brien had built a massive financial portfolio with millions of dollars in buried cash, bank accounts, real estate, earth-moving equipment and custom motor vehicles.
They were each ordered to pay the state $14,051,238.56 accrued in producing 200kg of methylamphetamine between 1997 and 2003.
After an appeal in 2016, Falzon was ordered to only pay the state $7,025,619.28.
Falzon was sentenced to 10 years in jail for unlawfully trafficking and producing methylamphetamine.
O’Brien was sentenced to 14 years jail for seven counts of unlawfully producing methylamphetamine and unlawfully trafficking methylamphetamine and cannabis sativa.
Fatongia Alepini Hanisi
Fatongia Alepini Hanisi was one of four men who raided a Mackay family home looking for an owed debt to the Lone Wolf bikie gang.
Hanisi went to the house in Ooralea to reclaim $20,000 that was owed to the gang.
Prosecution documents lodged at a bail hearing said four men and a woman flew from Sydney to confront a former member, who left after five months because he was not happy with the behaviour in the club.
The man was at work when the four bikies arrived, but his wife and three children were home.
One of the men called the wife a “slut” in front of her children and ordered her to call her husband to come home.
Police arrived at the house and arrested the four men as well as one woman who was accompanying the group, and found jewellery from the house in their possession.
The group was arrested and charged under Queensland’s anti-bikie laws for entering a dwelling, and robbery.
Hanisi pleaded guilty to burglary in company, entering premises with intent to commit an indictable offence and stealing, and was sentenced to a suspended term of six months.
Medhat Mankaryous
Medhat Mankaryous was also one of the men who travelled from interstate to Mackay to recoup a $20,000 debt owed to a Lone Wolf outlaw motorcycle gang member.
The men, all from Sydney suburbs, travelled to Ooralea on August 13, 2016.
The group was to recover a $20,000 debt from an alleged former member of the gang, who had left five months earlier.
Justice David North said the connection with Lone Wolves was relevant to the charges despite claims from the defence it was not.
“I can’t say it’s not relevant because it forms part of the background material in terms of how these people knew each other and part of the motivation,” he said.
“Whilst it’s not proper to describe membership of that club, at least in New South Wales, as being unlawful, it’s also accepted it wasn’t a tiddlywinks club and it creates an unhealthy and inappropriate association.”
On November 5, 2018, Mankaryous pleaded guilty to burglary in company, entering a premises with intent to commit an indictable offence, stealing and drug possession.
He was sentenced to a suspended jail term of 18 months.
Viliami Hafoka Iongi
Viliami Hafoka Iongi was in the same group reclaiming a debt owed to the Lone Wolf motorcycle club.
During his defence, Iongi’s lawyer said he and his three accomplices were actually helping someone move out of a “toxic” home environment when he was arrested on August 13, 2016.
Defence solicitor Michael Ayache, who flew to Mackay from Sydney, said the group maintained its innocence and there had been “lies” in the statements of the home occupants.
Veronica Lisa Harte was arrested during the raid, but she was not linked to the Lone Wolf.
On November 5, 2018, Iongi pleaded guilty to burglary in company, entering premises with intent to commit an indictable offence and stealing.
Harte pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to burglary, and was sentenced to a suspended term of three months.
Iongi was sentenced to a 15-month suspended jail term.
Zane Tray Lincoln
One of the men convicted of killing Timothy Pullen in Mackay will be deported to New Zealand after serving the remainder of an 11-year sentence.
Zane Tray Lincoln organised the kidnapping of Mr Pullen on April 16, 2012, knowing he would be treated violently over a $30,000 drug debt he owed to Odin’s Outlaw Motorcycle Gang.
Lincoln was not involved in the dumping of Mr Pullen’s body west of Airlie Beach which was never recovered.
Witnesses said Lincoln watched as his “boys” punched and then stabbed Mr Pullen during a “wrestle” at the North Mackay unit.
Lincoln pleaded guilty to manslaughter ahead of a supreme court murder trial.
He was sentenced to 11 years jail, with parole eligibility after five years served.
Lincoln was denied bail in 2018 for refusing to co-operate in finding the burial site under Queensland’s ‘No Body, No Parole’ rule, introduced in 2017.
Stephen Dale Renwick and Luke Shayne Kister
Stephen Dale Renwick and Luke Shayne Kister were also connected to the brutal death of Timothy Pullen in Mackay on April 16, 2012.
Pullen was killed after owing $30,000 to the Odin’s Outlaw Motorcycle gang, with the pair in charge of disposing the body.
Renwick and Kister accompanied police to a location near Collinsville, west of Airlie Beach, in an attempt to recover the remains on June 1, 2016.
The pair received five-year jail terms as accessories to murder, with parole eligibility after 12 months (Kister) and 20 months (Renwick).
Kister was released on parole on July 31, 2017, just 25 days before the ‘No Body, No Parole’ law came into effect in Queensland.
Renwick made a parole bid on January 12, 2018 and revealed new details that Mr Pullen’s body was cremated and then probably swept away by Cyclone Debbie.
His parole bid was refused, but Renwick was a free man again on May 27, 2021.
Frank Harold Voss
The Bruce Highway regularly hits the headlines for undesirable reasons but its even more sinister use might be lesser known.
The stretch of highway from Mackay to Gold Coast is one of Queensland’s most important trade routes, but the deliveries Frank Harold Voss made on the stretch of bitumen was of a different variety.
Voss acted as a drug runner for the Mackay Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, and was the target of a police sting that was set up in December 2013.
Voss, the primary target of the operation, supplied amphetamines to an undercover police officer 12 times between June 24, 2014 and March 13, 2015.
The Vietnam veteran told the covert officer he had sourced the drugs from his Gold Coast supplier for 18 months.
He also said he had been making return trips from Mackay to the Gold Coast, a 24 hour-round trip, every two to three weeks.
Voss pleaded guilty to trafficking and other drug-related offences, and was sentenced to jail for five years.
Nicholas Voorwinden and Kiera Jeanette McKay
Engaged couple Nicholas Voorwinden and pregnant Kiera Jeanette McKay played a significant role in the death of Tim Pullen.
The couple lived at the apartment where Mr Pullen was staying on the night of April 16, 2012, and had left the door unlocked for Lincoln and others to enter the room.
On March 2, 2015, Voorwinden and McKay were charged with manslaughter for their role in the killing.
The two pleaded guilty to manslaughter, with both jailed for five years.
Each term was suspended after 15 months (Voorwinden) and nine months (McKay).
Benjamin Francis Graeme Oakley
Benjamin Francis Graeme Oakley was also involved in the abduction and subsequent death of Tim Pullen on April 16, 2012.
Oakley was one of six people jailed over the death, with Oakley taking part in the abduction of Pullen.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on May 31, 2016, on the basis he agreed to participate in the abduction.
Oakley was sentenced to an eight-year jail term, with parole eligible after one third.
Despite the ‘No Body, No Parole’ law coming into effect in August 2017, Oakley was released on parole on November 13, 2017.
Garry Charles Burt Owen
Garry Charles Burt Owen was an accomplice to Frank Harold Voss, and would help him on the journeys to and from the Gold Coast.
The South Mackay man regularly visited the Gold Coast, often spotted by police surveillance entering Burleigh Bars, a custom motorcycle handlebars business next door to the Black Uhlans outlaw motorcycle gang clubhouse.
Police on the Sunshine Coast stopped Owen near Forest Glen on his return to Mackay with his teenage daughter and found a sandwich bag containing 28g of meth with 27 per cent purity inside the pocket of a pair of jeans.
The 50-year-old man also pleaded guilty to trafficking and other drug-related offences on June 13, 2016.
Owen also pleaded guilty to possessing a mobile phone used for trafficking, possessing marijuana and digital scales.
He was sentenced to four years, with the sentence suspended after 16 months for four years.
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