Exposed: Who’s Who of Qld’s underworld gangland

Queensland’s outlaw bikies largely remain out of the spotlight - but gang members have to go shopping. Here’s some of the state’s most notorious bikie members.

Queensland’s underworld was put on notice last week when the state government issued a $250,000 reward for information into the Pimpama murder of former bikie Shane Bowden.

Although Bowden’s murder made headlines, Queensland’s outlaw bikies largely remain out of the spotlight.

But gang members have to go shopping — sometimes. Here is our list of some of the state’s most notorious bikie members over the past decade and the suburbs they frequented.

SHANE BOWDEN: PIMPAMA

Possibly Queensland’s most infamous bikie in recent years, Bowden was gunned down in an execution-style murder in the driveway of a Gold Coast unit block on October 12 this year.

Bowden was a member of the Finks terror team and was part of the infamous Royal Pines “ballroom blitz” – considered one of Australia’s worst bikie brawls.

Shane Bowden was gunned down and killed at Pimpama.

Bowden shot and injured Hells Angel and convicted murderer Christopher Wayne Hudson during the melee. Before his murder, it is understood Bowden angered members of the Mongols after he made attempts to return to his former roots as part of the Finks club, following his Mongols exile.

It is believed Bowden made attempts to “patch-over” from the Mongols back to the Finks after he was released from a five-year-jail stint. Bowden was picked up from Victoria’s Loddon Prison by a limousine and convoy of Mongols, after he served time for a violent home invasion. However, the hospitality was short lived for Bowden, when he was shot at in the driveway of his then Epping home, just 15 days following his release from jail.

It’s understood the shot at Bowden was a direction from within the Mongols gang, however no one was ever charged for the hit, which struck Bowden’s leg.

BRETT ‘KAOS’ PECHEY: WEST END

Pechey was one of Queensland’s most notorious and recognisable ex-bikies.

He fled the Gold Coast to Western Australia in 2018, where he was jailed in 2020 for a year for a “bizarre” and “menacing” meth-fuelled rant.

Brett Pechey was the absent West End chapter president.

Pechey had threatened two police officers who were issuing the 34-year-old with a police order following a domestic violence incident involving his ex-partner. Things escalated when police discovered a video of Pechey sitting in the driver’s seat of his Chrysler 300C with a firearm by his side. “F**king c**t … die today, coppers die today … yeah boy, f**king maggots,” Pechey said in the clip. Pechey pleaded guilty in Perth Magistrates Court to threatening to kill, possessing a firearm in circumstances of aggravation, possessing unlawfully obtained property and multiple police order breaches.

BRUNO AND NUNO DA SILVA: WOOLLOONGABBA

Twin brothers and Hells Angels bikies, Bruno and Nuno Da Silva ran a sophisticated drug trafficking operation from their Brisbane locksmith business in the early 2010s.

Brothers Bruno and Nuno Da Silva used to own a Woolloongabba business.

At one stage during a police investigation, it was estimated they had sold $2.5 million in methamphetamines from their award-winning business Millennium Locks Locksmiths. They communicated with customers using codewords like “work”, “timesheets” and “shifts”, and directed proceeds of their deals back to the Hells Angels. In December 2015, Bruno was jailed for nine years and Nuno for seven years after they both pleaded guilty to trafficking, possession of steroids and possession of proceeds of crime. Bruno also pleaded guilty to a charge of supplying drugs.

HARLEY BARBARO: GOLD COAST

Barbaro emerged as a Mongol after initially being linked by police to violent Sydney crime gang, Villains. He is a member of the notorious Barbaro underworld family, several members of which have been shot dead in recent years.

Harley Barbaro was often spotted on the Gold Coast or in Logan.

The Calabrian clan has a long history of violence and bloodshed, dating back to 1990 when Harley’s grandfather, Pasquale, was executed outside his home in Brisbane. In 2003, a cousin also named Pasquale was shot dead alongside Melbourne “Underbelly” gangster Jason Moran. One of Harley’s brothers, also a Pasquale, was gunned down in Sydney in November 2016. In 2018, Harley Barbaro became the first bikie charged under Queensland’s then-new consorting laws but was acquitted. He launched an unsuccessful bid to challenge the laws in the High Court. He also won an appeal against a 2019 conviction for failing to give his mobile phone passcode to police, but Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll is now challenging that ruling in the Court of Appeal.

GREG ‘25’ KEATING: SOUTHPORT

Keating, like his slain good mate Shane Bowden, was a sergeant-at-arms with the Finks bikie gang and a member of its feared “Terror Team”.

Greg Keating owned a Southport tattoo shop.

He and Bowden joined other prominent Finks members in “patching over” to the Mongols when that notorious international gang expanded to Australia in 2013. When Queensland police moved to outlaw the Finks in 2012, Keating – who then owned a Southport tattoo parlour – was named in court documents as the gang’s main enforcer, charged with maintaining order and discipline “by any means available”. Keating and Bowden fled to Victoria after the Newman Government introduced the nation’s toughest bikie laws, becoming “nomad” members of the Mongols gang. It’s understood that Keating, like Bowden, had recently rejoined the Finks and returned to Queensland. A convicted drug supplier, Keating was jailed in 2009 for refusing to testify at a secret Australian Crime Commission into organised crime. His lawyer told Southport District Court that Keating had been a bikie gang member since he was a teen and his allegiance required ``absolute silence’’. Keating is nicknamed “25” while his older brother Graeme has the moniker “50”.

JACQUES TEAMO: ROBINA

Teamo was the ringleader of the infamous Gold Coast bikie brawl outside when he and a group of about 60 Bandidos bikies stormed a Broadbeach restaurant to hunt down a gang enemy.

Jacques Teamo was shot at the Robina Town Centre.

In 2012, Teamo was shot by Mongols bikie Mark James Graham at Robina Town Centre. Less than two years later, Teamo was expelled from the Bandidos, with club members reportedly ordered to “shoot on sight”. Senior Bandidos were reportedly livid over Teamo’s involvement in the Robina Town Centre shooting and his alleged role in a Broadbeach brawl.

BENJAMIN BLACK: BROADBEACH

An ex-Lone Wolf bikie, Black was known as the Rebels Hunter after police caught him with photographers of two members of the Rebels, a gang despised by the Lone Wolves. In July 2020, Black was jailed for bashing Jacques Teamo while the two were behind bars. Black and multiple other men were involved in the planned bashing inside Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, during which Teamo was hit with a stationary bicycle seat, a ping pong bat and toaster. Black was also sentenced for a February 2018 assault of a man in a Broadbeach unit where he and another person zip tied the man and gagged him with duct tape, while threatening him with an axe handle.

Black was handed a head sentence of six-and-a-half years behind bars.

MARIO VOSMAER: MOOROOKA

Mario Vosmaer resigned from his long-time position as president of the Brisbane chapter of the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle club in 2013.

Mario Vosmaer owned a Moorooka car yard.

The Bandidos’ Moorooka clubhouse was also dismantled, ahead of the Newman state government’s tough outlaw motorcycle gang legislation coming into effect. In 2013, prominent criminal defence lawyer Michael Bosscher confirmed Vosmaer had resigned. Known as “one way Mario” for his habit of riding only one way to gang events and then flying back home, the former Bandidos president was convicted for heroin and amphetamine trafficking between 1995 and 1999. In April last year, Vosmaer’s Moorooka car yard was set alight.

JOHN FAHEY: BURLEIGH HEADS

In 2013 the former Bandidos enforcer, who patched over to the Hells Angels, was arrested after a brawl in a Burleigh Heads gym carpark.

John Fahey was arrested after a brawl at Burleigh Heads.

Fahey was charged with affray and pleaded guilty to the fight, but told a court he was confronted by two rival gang members, one of whom was armed with a metal bar.

It is widely believed Fahey’s defection to the Hells Angels led to the Broadbeach Brawl.

STEVAN UTAH: SUNSHINE COAST

The former soldier who grew up in Victoria and got acquainted with a high-level Bandidos boss in the mid-1990s, according to Duncan McNab who co-authored a book about the man in 2008.

Steve Utah left Queensland and moved to the US.

Utah was present at the 2000 murder of a 54-year-old man, and four years later led police to the body, Mr McNab said. He went on to become an informant for the Australian Crime Commission until a 2006 newspaper story up-ended the arrangement. The article revealed the agency was conducting an intelligence operation into outlaw motorcycle gangs, a piece of information that led bikies to suspect Mr Utah.

Having been exposed, he was taken to a spot in the Queensland bush, surrounded by bikies and mercilessly beaten, Mr McNab said. But Mr Utah managed to run away and hide from the gang and eventually made his way to Canada.

SEAN JONES: TUGUN

Jones’ involvement in a shooting was the start of decades of bikie incidents on the Gold Coast that eventually led to the Newman Government introducing its controversial VLAD laws in 2013.

An injured person is tended to after a shooting at Tugun.

In November 1996 a motorcycle exhibition at the Tugun Seahawks Rugby League Club became the scene of a shooting after Black Uhlans associate Sean Jones shot fellow club members Richard McKenna and Steve ‘Bam Bam’ Zaicov McKenna.

Fleeing from the scene, Jones handed himself into police two days after the shooting and was charged with two counts of attempted murder and possession of a concealable weapon.

A year later his attempted murder charges were dropped and he was found guilty of grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to five years’ jail.

NICK ‘THE KNIFE’ FORBES: GOLD COAST

The man alleged to have started the Ballroom Blitz melee, Forbes is another member of the Finks “Terror Team”.

Nick “The Knife” Forbes was at The Royal Pines Resort at The Gold Coast.

During a kickboxing tournament at the Royal Pines Resort in March 2006, Forbes threw a punch at Christopher Hudson, starting a violent brawl.

He was sentenced to 27 months in jail for grievous bodily harm related to his role in the melee, but was released on a suspended sentence after serving 18 months for the incident.

Again a brawl with the Hells Angels put Forbes in prison in 2011 when he was extradited to South Australia. Initially acquitted over the charges, Forbes was sentenced to two and a half years prison in a retrial in 2016 after being found guilty of affray.

ADAM WHITE: BROADBEACH

The president of the Bandidos during the Broadbeach brawl, White was one of 18 involved who pleaded guilty in August 2015 to charges including riot, affray, public nuisance and assault and obstruct police.

Adam White was the president of the Bandidos during the Broadbeach brawl.

Initially sentenced to four months imprisonment, wholly suspended, White had his sentence increased to 12 months wholly suspended when police appealed in 2016. The brawl sparked a crackdown on the Gold Coast on bikie gangs and in the following year police made 3206 arrests and laid 5000 charges.

The LNP Government launched its VLAD laws and twin task forces, Maxima and Takeback, were formed to fight the war on bikies.