Conflicting reports on why Toby Mitchell is out of the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang

Rumours are swirling about the end of Toby Mitchell’s reign as president of the Mongols bikie gang, while the colourful outlaw history of a key powerbroker is exposed.

The bikie who has emerged as a key Mongols powerbroker after Toby Mitchell’s shock departure has a colourful outlaw history in Queensland.

National sergeant-at-arms Phillip Main, who moved to Victoria in recent years, has in common with Mitchell that he survived being shot and has an extensive criminal record.

The Mongols’ upheaval has come as the Australian Federal Police prepare to announce new capital city strike teams to tackle ­drug and gun running.

The AFP strike teams will get $170m in funding for transnational serious and organised crime to fight drug and firearms trafficking, money laundering and other offending.

Teams will target organised crime operating out of Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth.

National sergeant-at-arms Phillip Main is rumoured to have been instrumental in ousting Mitchell.

There are conflicting ­reports about the reason for Mitchell’s reign as president ending suddenly last Friday.

One is that he was ousted after a unanimous vote of members and that Main was instrumental in that. But one source said Mitchell decided to walk from the gang himself.

Main, 48, has a background of drug and weapons offences and once threw a man off a nightclub balcony while working as a bouncer.

He is said to be strongly ­allied with national president Nick “The Knife” Forbes, ­another Queenslander with a fearsome reputation.

The Brisbane Supreme Court in 2011 sentenced Main to five years and nine months in jail for selling methylamphetamine to an undercover police officer.

That hearing exposed a wild catalogue of Main’s activities.

The court heard he had refused to answer questions at an Australian Crime Commission hearing about who had wounded him in a shooting and elements of the drug trade.

Mitchell is no longer a Mongol. Picture: Mark Stewart

A prosecutor said he had ­assaulted police who went to a Gold Coast casualty ward to investigate after he turned up for treatment of his gunshot injuries.

In 2016, Main was the first person charged under Queensland’s serious and organised crime laws for wearing Mongols paraphernalia in public.

Police investigating the 2019 EastLink murder of fruiterer Paul Virgona charged Main and two other men with weapons offences in 2020. Those charges were dropped and police ordered to pay costs.

State and federal police forces regard the Mongols as a major organised crime priority

Originally published as Conflicting reports on why Toby Mitchell is out of the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang