Gold Coast bikie clubs history: Clubhouses, turf wars and murders
A long history of bikie gangs on the Gold Coast has seen many come and go. Here are the clubs that have called the Glitter Strip home. LEARN ABOUT THE EVOLUTION
Gold Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Gold Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Life, death and drugs: Coast’s most dangerous bikies
- Fury over ‘crime dens’ in abandoned Surfers houses
A LONG history of bikie gangs on the Gold Coast has seen many come and go. Here are the clubs that have called the Glitter Strip home.
FINKS
The Gold Coast chapter was founded in 1969 and was hardly seen by the public with gang members keeping to themselves.
In 1974, police were concerned about the gang’s growth and influence and were ready for a major gathering at an Upper Coomera farm understood to be owned by a club member.
But it was never to be, rather the members swapped the remote farm for beer gardens in Surfers Paradise.
A shocking incident in the 1980s saw rival gangs embroiled in a shootout in a park at Tugun that catapulted bikies into the headlines.
By 2000, the Finks had morphed into a modern, organised-crime style outlaw gang thanks to the city’s party scene and booming drug culture.
The club was among the many of the Gold Coast whose acts of crime and violence resulted in the Newman Government’s controversial VLAD laws in 2013.
The Finks moved out of their clubhouse at Export Drive, Molendinar despite it curiously not being included on the Queensland government’s list of clubhouses.
Hells Angels
International heavyweights the Hells Angels moved their heavy presence in Brisbane to the Coast through former bouncer, Black Uhlan come Fink Christopher Hudson.
Hudson patched over to the Angels in late 2004, and gave the club a way into the Glitter Strip but his defection fuelled the infamous Ballroom Blitz brawl in 2006.
Hudson was among many to be injured that night, with the turncoat suffering a shot in the
back and jaw and stabbed.
A year later Hudson was sentenced to 35-year for murder for an unrelated incident, which he is currently serving.
While the head-to-head melee sparked fears of an all-out Gold Coast bikie war that never materialised, the clubs remained at loggerheads.
Police were called in to investigate the theft of more than $5000 worth of fittings from the Lemana Lane, Burleigh premises after the Hells Angels moved out.
In October last year the Bulletin reported the club was allegedly using a spot in Logan to operate as “a small, tight-knit group”, in which members attend “club meetings (church)” at varying locations such as hotels and members’ residences.
Bandidos
The Bandidos have the famous motto “Our colours don’t run” and were a major reason for the crackdown on bikies in Queensland.
An incident at the Robina Town Centre in 2012, in which Bandido Jacques Teamo clashed with Fink Mark Graham, resulting in Teamo being shot along with an innocent bystander.
The following year Teamo led a group of 60 Bandido bikies into Aura Tapas and Lounge bar in Broadbeach to confront two Finks associates, causing the infamous Broadbeach Brawl.
Teamo’s sentence of four months imprisonment, wholly suspended, for rioting was lifted in a 2016 appeal to 13 months wholly suspended.
The bikie brawl resulted in a major citywide crackdown on the clubs, with police making 3206 arrests and laying 5000 charges in the following 12 months and prompted the Newman Government to introduce its controversial VLAD laws.
The Bandidos were the first to hand back the keys to their clubhouse at Cronulla Ave, Mermaid Beach.
Mongols
While clubs around the Coast struggled following the introduction of the VLAD laws, the Mongols capitalised on a crumbling Finks club.
Many of the Finks members patched over and the Mongols’ Australian membership had swelled from 70 to almost 400 by the end of 2013.
The feared club has been linked to recent incidents on the Gold Coast.
In 2020, it was revealed the Mongols bikie club was using a gym in central Gold Coast to meet.
In June 2020 Barbaro was charged with consorting and drug offences for a separate incident.
He pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court to a charge of habitually consorting and will be sentenced in the same court on April 1.
Lone Wolf
The last to leave its club following the bikie crackdown laws, the Lone Wolf clubhouse was situated on Hayter Ave at Currumbin Waters.
It took until 2014 for Lone Wolf members to close the clubhouse, just days after a High Court challenge to the tough bikie laws was dismissed.
The Lone Wolf bikies have continued to conduct criminal acts on the Gold Coast, including two alleged members violently bashing a man in Coolangatta in 2017 caught on tape.
Rebels
Police found alcohol, cash and undisclosed items in a search of the Rebels clubhouse during a bikie crackdown in mid-2013.
An associate was charged with illegal bartending and ordered to pay a $3000 fine.
He was charged with selling liquor without a licence after police from Taskforce Vanguard stormed the Rebels’ Lawrence Drive clubhouse in Nerang in June 2013, which the associate pleaded guilty to.
A court hearing for three men in January 2019 heard a secret gang accused of forming on the Gold Coast to take over the Beenleigh chapter of the Rebels bikie club had an allege strict codes of conduct for members, including compulsory attendance at “church” nights, weekly membership dues, leaving fees, requirements to sell drugs, and systemic bashings.
Nomads
Only a couple of kilometres from the Rebels clubhouse lived the Nomads.
Before the Nomads left their clubhouse on Ryecroft Street in Carrara, about 15 kilometres from the heart of Surfers Paradise, it was the hot spot for formal after-parties.
A Bulletin story in 2012 revealed three Gold Coast schools booked the clubhouse for their graduation after-parties.
Black Uhlans
Having one of the six Gold Coast clubhouses on the government hit-list in 2013, the Black Uhlans, who were the only club to own their base in the city, put their clubhouse up for sale.
The clubhouse at West Burleigh was put on the market in November that year.
The club hit the headlines in November 1996 after a motorcycle exhibition at the Tugun Seahawks Rugby League Club became the scene of a shooting. Black Uhlans associate Sean Jones shot club members Richard McKenna and Steve “Bam Bam” Zaicov McKenna.
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, which a year later were dropped and he was found guilty of grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to five years’ jail.
Mongrel Mob
A Bulletin story in October last year revealed the New Zealand gang was branching out of its Logan heartland to infiltrate surrounding suburbs.
It was understood the Mongrel Mob launched a Gold Coast chapter in 2016, before they were outlawed in Queensland in 2018.
Sources told the Bulletin that Mongrel Mob members had been in the city’s northern suburbs for some time, slowly growing a presence among young New Zealand men in the region.
Satudarah
The gang, which means One Blood, was founded in the Netherlands in the late 1990s and had made its way to Australia by 2015.
The gang is considered one of the most violent in Sydney with a multicultural base.
Notorious bikie Bronson Ellery, known as Lizard Man, was trying to start a new chapter on the Glitter Strip.
Before Ellery murdered his ex-girlfriend Shelsea Schilling and took his own life in November 2016, police investigated links between Ellery and the notorious Dutch-based Satudarah MC.
Comanchero
In 2016 when the bikie laws looked set to be relaxed in Queensland, Comanchero members were seen making moves on the Gold Coast.
The bikies resurfaced on the Gold Coast for the first time in two decades in the wake of Labor’s plans to scrap tough anti-association laws.
Five Comanchero members were seen roaming through Burleigh Heads in full gang colours in June 2016.
Since then numerous members of the club have been involved in major criminal events on the Gold Coast.
Comanchero associate Liam Scorsese died on February 25, 2018 when shot by police following a domestic incident at Goulburn St in Wakerley.
Former Comanchero bikie Shane Ross was found dead at a Tallebudgera park in October 2019. His friend and Monstr clothing business partner Cameron Martin was also killed.
Early last year police charged five people with 18 drug-related offences following raids.
Veteran restaurateur’s three companies in liquidation
Three companies behind well-known Gold Coast restaurants are in liquidation with hefty debts – but two of the venues have stayed open under the same ownership.
MAPPED: Qld beaches with the most shark catches
Queensland’s most sharky beach has been revealed in the wake of the Sunshine State’s latest shark attack. SEE THE MAP