Victorian bikies: Rebels, Outlaws, Mongols and Comancheros dark influence in regional towns
Powerful chapters of Australia’s most notorious bikie gangs are directing criminal enterprise from strongholds in country towns across the state.
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Across Victoria the influence of outlaw bikie gangs is on the rise with the Outlaws, Comancheros, Mongols and Rebels all having taken a foothold in regional towns and centres.
From these country power bases, some of Australia’s most notorious bikies are directing lucrative criminal enterprise spanning the drug trade, extortion plots and vehicle theft.
THE MONGOLS MOVE INTO BENDIGO
Earlier this year the Mongols began pushing into Bendigo with their ranks bolstered by turncoats from the Bandidos in Melbourne.
Under national president Toby Mitchell, the gang has been muscling in on turf previously dominated by the Bandidos, whose entire Echuca chapter “patched over” to the Mongols in late 2020.
Bikie gang expert Associate Professor Mark Lauchs told 3AW there was a “close connection” between Queensland’s hard line anti-bikie laws and an increased presence of outlaw gangs in country Victoria.
“Quite a few people are still members (in Queensland) but you don’t see them anymore, they literally have disappeared from the streets and the clubhouses have all been closed,” he said.
“You’ve got to see all of this warfare as a type of game that we’re not playing, but that we could be the collateral damage from.”
In a show of force in March, Mitchell led a 70-strong rider rally from Bendigo to Melbourne, which was closely monitored by both Victoria Police and the AFP.
Gang members from Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales also took part.
The Mongols push into Bendigo is the latest development in Bendigo’s colourful bikie-related history. In 2019, the Rebels made their own power play in town by taking over the Satan’s Soldiers clubhouse.
MILDURA: A HOTBED FOR BIKIES
While some country towns are famous for producing footy players, Mildura seems to produce more than its fair share of powerful bikies.
Situated close to the borders of NSW and South Australia, Mildura is almost the perfect spot for outlaw gangs to ply their trade.
The hundreds of trucks rolling through town each day make it tough for police to track drug shipments, and the industrial sheds, orchards and greenhouses in towns along the Murray River have for decades hidden drug cultivation and production rackets.
Former Australian Army sniper turned Comanchero enforcer Josh Faulkhead, now 45, was perhaps the town’s most notorious bikie figure in recent years.
Faulkhead was in 2015 sentenced to nine years and five months jail on drug, violence, theft and blackmail charges.
The County Court heard Faulkhead was recruited in Brisbane and tasked with returning to his hometown to sort out the gang’s messy drug operations.
Within months, the lucrative drug trade based out of the town had gone from a shambles to being run with military precision, regularly sending shipments to Sydney in a van with hidden compartments.
The town has also hosted big contingents of Rebels and Hells Angels.
Baby-faced Mildura lad Andy Summerfield was dispatched by the Rebels to run its small but lucrative Darwin chapter, only to end up serving jail time after being filmed shopping for machetes, tomahawks, and balaclavas in the hours before he ordered three unknown men to viciously attack a low level drug dealer, only for the henchmen to accidentally attack the dealer’s housemate.
The impact of the Rebel’s criminality ruined the lives of innocent mates.
One of Summerfield’s pals from Mildura, Nick Wise was staying on his couch at the time of the machete attack, and went along to Bunnings with Summerfield as he bought the weapons.
Wise, who had no criminal record, was found guilty of a minor role in the attack and served a year in jail before an appeal court tore up the jury’s verdict.
Mr Wise, who always denied any wrongdoing and any association with the gang, was left with a six-figure bill for legal expenses, spent a year of his life behind bars, and said the trouble caused by hanging out with his old footy mate was something “I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”.
THE OUTLAWS FAILED PUSH NORTH
With strongholds in Shepparton and Kyabram, the Outlaws have shown how ambitious they are to expand.
But their failed forays into would-be new markets show good help is hard to come by.
In mid-2019, a member of the gang’s Shepparton chapter flew to Darwin to set up a chapter in the Top End, where the Rebels and the Hells Angels had long dominated.
The plan was for the Outlaws to take advantage of most of the local Rebels chapter being locked up, to take some turf off of them.
Among those involved with the Outlaws contingent was notorious hard man Shane Mulhall, a towering fishmonger who had previously served time for manslaughter over the shooting death of a man at a crabbing camp.
But sadly for the Outlaws, two brothers plucked from obscurity to run the gang’s chapter, were far from up to the task.
Rookie gang members Shannon and Paul Bonner handed police all the intelligence they could ask for by plastering photos of themselves on Facebook in club gear.
Within a month of the gang’s arrival in the Top End, one of its members, former soldier Sakellarious Tsagaris, found himself behind bars after police found what a judge described as “drugs from one end of his roomsto the other”.
The Outlaws push north ultimately failed, not for lack of ambition, but because of lousy recruiting and some of the country’s most dedicated anti-bikie police.
BIKIES ARE ON THE RISE: POLICE
A Victoria Police spokesman said outlaw bikie gang numbers were on the rise amid a recruitment push across Victoria, including in regional towns.
“OMCGs are continually looking to increase their numbers, and their recruiting is evolved to a broadening of prospects who are no longer simply motorcycle riders,” the spokesman said.
“OMCGs recruit from rival groups, criminal networks, and vulnerable younger community members.
“OMCGs often target and recruit these vulnerable individuals who become trapped in a criminal lifestyle, they often can’t escape the club due to fear and threats of violence.”
The spokesman said bikie gang members were involved in serious and organised crime involving drugs, extortion, threats, motor vehicle crime and assaults against rival groups and community members.
He said bikie gang members were often also domestic violence offenders.
“Many individuals wouldn’t join such a gang if they knew exactly what they were getting into,” he said.
A network of specialist detectives, including regional detectives, interstate police, the AFP and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission work day and night to fight the bikie scourge.
The spokesman said a “significant number of recent prosecutions that have resulted in lengthy prison sentences” and the deportation of some key gang figures.
Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000
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