Raptor North ‘devastates’ bikie gangs in Hunter
Exactly a year after the bikie-breaking police franchise Strike Force Raptor arrived in the Hunter Region to stop bloody turf wars and public shootings, its impact has been devastating.
- Strike Force Raptor extended to fight bikie wars
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Exactly a year after the bikie-breaking police franchise Strike Force Raptor arrived in the Hunter Region to stop bloody turf wars and public shootings, its impact has been devastating.
Known as “Raptor North”, the highly trained, heavily armed NSW Police squad has made 170 arrests and laid 487 charges in its first 12 months.
The arrests were almost entirely related to illegal motorcycle clubs, such as the Rebels, operating in a seedy but flourishing underworld among the wine country and coal mines west of Newcastle.
The whole point of introducing Raptor to the Hunter was to niggle bikies into submission with persistent raids on their homes and clubhouses and unwanted attention on their everyday lives.
Critical in Raptor North’s “arsenal of capabilities” are firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) — an order they can slap on a known gang member allowing police to raid their homes at any time without notice or a warrant.
There were 126 search warrants and FPOs, and nearly 70 criminal organisation warrants, executed by Raptor North in the last year.
Cops have seized 33 rifles, shotguns and pistols, three replicas, 2000 rounds of ammunition and 55 other weapons. They’ve also found an array of drugs, stolen goods, a stun gun, a python and walking canes fitted with sharp blades. In one raid, police dismantled an entire kitchen suspected of being stolen.
Anyone wearing the colours of a bikie club or professing an allegiance to one is on the Raptor radar.
This, according to the veteran in charge of the squad, Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace, is how you erase the “romance” of gang life.
“From the outset, the goal of Strike Force Raptor has been to disrupt and disable the activities of criminal networks, including OMCG, and remove the romanticism of being in a gang — and the results over the past year show we are doing just that,” Det Supt Wallace said.
“Raptor North is targeting and dismantling local organised crime groups in the Hunter Region and this is impacting on the way these criminal groups do business.”
Despite Raptor North moving to town, alleged Rebel member Jesse Hunt, 25, posted repeated selfies to Facebook wearing his club vest which brought him to the attention of Raptor North.
The images also show the defiant message tattooed along his jawline: “Only God Can Judge Me”.
His older brother Jack Hunt, 27, who is allegedly also a Rebel member, wears a similar chinstrap promise: “Loose Lips Sink Ships”.
The brothers were stopped in a car, along with a third Hunt brother William, 37, on Mount View Rd, Cessnock on March 10, after police recognised the driver. Inside were the three Hunt brothers, a 24-year-old associate and a fifth man, 22, who was looking a little worse for wear. He had head and ear injuries he said were the result of a beating.
The Hunts and the 24-year-old were arrested two months later as Raptor systematically raided their homes.
The brothers were each charged with aggravated break and enter and other charges while their associate was charged with knowingly participate in criminal group.
The cases are due in Cessnock Court next month.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
► CHAPTER ONE: Inside the squad that beat Sydney’s gangs
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