Bikies Inc Podcast: List of top lawyers loved by bikies, crime networks
When the police come calling and things go awry, these are the lawyers Australia’s outlaw motorcycle gangs have on speed dial. See the full list.
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When the police come calling and things go awry, these are the lawyers Australia’s outlaw motor cycle gangs have on speed dial.
The list includes some of the top criminal lawyers in the country, who have acted for bikies facing all sorts of situations from alleged involvement in brawls to drug trafficking and murder.
Often photographed with heavy tattoos and jewellery, they can appear menacing, but the lawyers acting for them say some of the most feared of the outlaw motor cycle gang members are often not what people think.
Some have been described as respectful, sensitive and very knowledgeable about the law, while others as home bodies with a talent with wood turning and preserve making.
But with such high-profile clients in often dangerous situations, the lawyers say it is inevitable they have lost, in some cases, a lot of clients.
Here are some of those lawyers:
Ahmed Dib
Mr Dib has acted for members of the Comanchero, Nomads, and the Hells Angels. His clients have included alleged Rebels Associate Taniela Marley Loloa, murdered ex Comanchero bikie Shane Ross and murdered Hells Angels associate Kemel “Blackie” Barakat.
He has acted for many of the bikie group members and associates right from the start of his law career.
Mr Dib first came into contact with the OMCG groups through the boxing world.
He and his younger brother, Billel “Babyface” Dib, who was ranked No 5 on the WBO featherweight standings, are both professional boxers and some of the bikie gang members would attend boxing matches where they got to see them box.
Mr Dib described all his bikie clients “super respectful”.
“I have never had a bikie client who was not a pleasure to deal with,” Mr Dib said.
The Sydney-based solicitor said they have always been courteous and polite to point of even sending flowers and presents for his first born son.
“I would never have a phone call with any of them where they didn’t ask after my family and kids”.
However, because of the nature of the bikie world, it is inevitable lawyers lose some clients and Mr Dib has lost his fair share.
One of those was Kemal “Blackie” Barakat, who was allegedly shot dead by assassins posing as police.
“We are humans and you do grow some form of attachment to your clients,” Mr Dib said.
“It can be sad.”
Zali Burrows
Ms Burrows has acted for a number of members from OMCG clubs including the Bandidos – one of whom was Bandidos bikie Peter Mauric, who boasted about sharing sexual partners with the man at the heart of the Gold Coast bikie brawl.
Mauric was subsequently the only man left standing in the first mass bikie trial and was acquitted. The second bikie trial did not go ahead.
It is never a dull moment for Ms Burrows, who said she has gained her colourful clients by word of mouth referrals.
“The clubs are seriously days of our lives” with their internal dramas, betrayals, disloyalties, bromances, takeovers, power struggles, elections, punishments and affairs – let alone criminal charges drama,” Ms Burrows said.
She jokes she only talks to them “using a cup and string” because that is the only device police haven’t worked out how to intercept.
But she says her bikie clients have been very sweet, with one even making her some handcrafted wooden bookshelves.
Another one who makes jams and pickles in his spare time, she calls a “nanna”.
Mr Burrows says he takes it good naturedly – but points out no one else would ever dare call him that – because they would be six feet under.
Bill Potts
Bill Potts is one of the most experienced criminal lawyers in Queensland and has acted for just about every single bikie group from the Hells Angels to the Lone Wolves and the Black Uhlahs.
Mr Potts also acted previously for Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle who was arrested while on holiday on Gold Coast before he left the country.
He has also previously acted for notorious bikie Shane Bowden, who was murdered in an execution-style killing in 2020.
Mr Potts stopped acting for bikie groups in 2015 when he took up the position of President of the Queensland law society.
But before that, Mr Potts said his numerous bikie clients had come to him by word of mouth.
It was a time decades ago now, Mr Potts said, when he first started acting for OMCG’s they were still more social groups – people getting together with bikes.
But over 40 years of practising law he said they had changed and their structures had become more toward criminal organisations.
“When you start acting for people they tend to stick with you.”
Mr Potts described the upper echelons of the OMCGs as very bright, but the lower end – not and often ending up as patsies.
He said bikies cases can be difficult and the bikies themselves have high expectations of those acting for them.
“You have to be absolutely ethical in all your dealings,” Mr Potts said.
Michael Gatenby
Gold Coast lawyer Michael Gatenby has acted for former Finks members and Mongols.
“At the start of my career I acted for one or two and now I seem to have acquired a number of different bikies from number of different organisations,” Mr Gatenby said.
“In my experience they have been incredibly polite people and they are people who certainly know the law.
“They are not what you might expect.”
“But I have not experienced any pressure from bikies and I have been happy to continue to act for them”.
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Brett Galloway
Brett Galloway has acted for former Nomads bikie boss Sam Ibrahim and has described it as one of his stranger moments.
Mr Galloway reportedly enraged Ibrahim, a former Parramatta chapter president of the Nomads, more than a decade ago by refusing to represent him in an upcoming case unless the bikie settled his $30,000 bill from a previous another case.
“He threatened to kill me if I didn’t show up,” Mr Galloway previously said.
“So I told him that if he was going to do it could he please do it before the close of business because it was going to be pointless doing hours’ worth of work preparing for the next day if he was going to kill me.”
Less than half an hour later Ibrahim walked in and threw $30,000 cash at Mr Galloway.
“He said something like: ‘You’re the funniest bloke I know sitting up here waiting for me, knowing what I would do to you’,” Mr Galloway said.
Harry Patsouris
Mr Patsouris is a prominent Adelaide lawyer who acted for the bikie brothers Tom and Perry Mackie.
The Mackie brothers migrated from New Zealand in the 1970s and were founding members of the Descendants – a motorcycle group which has now been outlawed under South Australia’s anti-bikie laws. They are now facing deportation after former home affairs Minister Peter Dutton cancelled their visas declaring it was in the national interest.
Mr Patsouris has also acted for two senior, national members of one of the country’s most infamous outlaw gangs Rebels Motorcycle Gang members Alex and Damien Vella who are facing charges of associating with local criminals in South Australia.
Theo Magazis
High-profile lawyer Theo Magazis has acted for Victoria’s highest-profile bikie former bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell during his different incarnations with outlaw motor cycle gangs.
Mitchell was a former high-ranking Bandido before leaving the club in 2013 after being shot seven times in two separate ambushes.
Most recently he was boss of the Mongols until he was kicked out earlier this year.
Mr Magazis has also acted for the alleged Mongols sergeant at arms, Joshua Eddy, after he was charged with drug trafficking offences following raids on the Mongols bikie gang last year.
Fabiano Cangelosi
Mr Cangelosi a former Tasmanian President and Director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance has acted for members of the Bandidos and the Rebels.
He acted most recently acted for Rebels Motorcycle Club State President Shaun Lee Kelly on a charge of evading police while riding a Harley Davidson. The charge was dismissed after the magistrate found police evidence of the events had been “highly fanciful, if not impossible”.
Mr Cangelosialso acted for an alleged high-ranking Bandidos motorcycle club member Barry Douglas Salter, who was charged with drug trafficking.
James Crotty
Mr Crotty acted for a former associate of the Tasmanian Rebels motorcycle gang Nicholas Mark Stebbins over an $11 million amphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy ring.
Stebbins was a key player in one of the state’s biggest drug importation rings pleading guilty to trafficking. He was jailed for 12 years prison in 2015.
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