Armed and dangerous: Inside Melbourne’s outlaw bikie gangs
VICTORIA’S outlaw bikie scene has seen old leaders toppled and a new set of bosses ushered in. And while they may be retreating back beneath the radar, the new breed of bikies remains armed and dangerous.
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THE changing landscape of Victoria’s outlaw bikie scene has seen old leaders toppled and a new set of bosses ushered in.
But the new breed are not following the lead set by retired bikie Toby Mitchell, who flaunts his flashy lifestyle on social media.
They are armed, dangerous and retreating back beneath the radar.
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Fortified clubhouses are becoming less common. Clubs now opt for plain industrial warehouses unadorned with large logos.
Victoria has also shaken its tag of “Switzerland” — a safe haven from tough laws that were created to crack bikie clubs.
It has been years since any of Australia’s five big clubs have roared through Melbourne’s CBD in a show of strength at the end of a national run (a convoy of bikies riding in formation to convene for a booze-up at a clubhouse).
A series of clubhouses — many of them raided by police over the past decade — have closed as the bikies congregate more secretly.
The gangs are now booking properties through Airbnb — mostly with large garages to store their Harley-Davidsons — to hold club meetings, known as “church’’.
Their traditional strongholds were, in some cases, deemed to be an expensive burden to maintain and an easy way for police to find where the riders were.
There are also indications members have retreated en masse from open social media.
Regardless, the “big five’’ gangs remain the same — the Comanchero, Hells Angels, Rebels, Bandidos and Mongols.
And there are other gangs such as the reunited Finks, old-school Coffin Cheaters, Bros, Gypsy Jokers and Iron Horsemen, that still command police attention.
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton this week stated the number of outlaw bikies in Victoria hovered between 1200 and 1400 members.
That figure shows that despite the arrests and convictions of hundreds of gang members and their associates, many of them jailed, bikie ranks have not dwindled.
Comanchero
Main interests: Security, gyms, tattoo parlours, brothels, standover tactics, debt collection and drugs.
Prominent members: Mick Murray and Hasan Topal.
THE Comanchero are regarded as the most powerful gang in Australia, and the most problematic by law enforcement officials.
Victoria Police’s anti-bikie Echo taskforce has a unit dedicated to them and at least half the gang’s members and associates have been imprisoned in the five years that dominant figure Mick Murray has been at the helm, commanding them from Melbourne’s southeast.
Murray, indeed, is currently in jail after telling a secret commission he would not answer their questions. He has learned the art of negotiation from the likes of Mick Gatto and former Victorian president Jay Malkoun.
Sources say the Comanchero are a criminal organisation rather than a fully-fledged bikie club.
They have legitimate and illicit money-earning activities, relying heavily on security, debt collection and illicit drug and gun trafficking.
During 2016, Murray — a multi-millionaire facing bankruptcy as the Australian Taxation Office pursued him for $3.72 million — was meeting a wide array of friends and associates.
Among them was controversial biochemist Stephen Dank, who had become synonymous with the Essendon drug supplement saga.
Months before the Sydney meeting, Dank’s face was injured when a drive-by shooter sprayed his house with bullets.
Despite the Comanchero being prime suspects over the incident, it remains unsolved.
Murray, since being sentenced to eight months’ jail in March, has handed the reins to an underling and former Chadwicks model in his absence.
Hasan Topal, 28, has gone from “blue steel” poses to being captured on CCTV in a Canberra strip club smashing a glass on his own head and punching on with other “Como” bikies.
Since Murray’s jailing, his former right-hand man, Robert Ale, known as the “Crybaby Comanchero” after weeping in court during a bail hearing, has been shot in a tattoo parlour.
Police suspect it was an inside job. A warning to keep his mouth shut.
Comanchero members and their associates remain key suspects in murders and attempted murders.
They include the fatal shooting of two people wrongly identified as Mongols members.
Rebels
Main interests: Construction, transport, tattoo parlours.
Prominent members: Dean Martin.
DEAN Martin, the president of the Victorian Rebels, handed over leadership of the gang in a “peaceful” changeover on April 14.
Martin, the brother of exiled former Rebel bikie Shane Martin and uncle to star Richmond footballer Dustin, has been a long-term Rebels leader and is understood to have remained within their ranks.
The handing over of the president’s badge occurred at a Whittlesea clubhouse followed by a party.
The Rebels are considered a “stable club” and boast the most members in Australia.
The Herald Sun understands the top spot at the Rebels has been taken up by the cousin of Norm Meyer — a prominent Comanchero and union figure.
An attack on Comanchero boss Mick Murray by the Rebels in Darwin sparked violence, raging from 2016 into last year involving bashings, drive-by shootings and fire bombings. Peace talks attempted to be brokered by Victoria Police were refused.
Tensions have since simmered between the “Comos” and Rebels, mainly because a series of raids last year on Murray and his crew resulted in significant charges and remands.
Finks
Main interests: Tattoo parlours, bars, standover tactics and drugs.
Prominent members: National president Kosh Radford, enforcer Brent James (BJ) Reker.
THE national president of the Finks moved to Victoria earlier this year from NSW, with the gang looking to re-establish a foothold in the state.
Kosh Radford, aka Koshan Rashidi, appeared in Parramatta Local Court late last year agreeing to post a second $10,000 surety so he could move to Endeavour Hills.
Radford’s lawyer, Asem Taleb, told the court his client had been forced to go back to look for work in the construction industry in Victoria, having previously held jobs there in the past.
Radford was in court facing six charges including resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer after he allegedly set his dog on two male constables at his home in Sydney’s northwest last November.
Just a few days earlier, on November 8, Radford was barred from entering Bali and sent back home to Sydney after Indonesian Police received a tip-off from Australian intelligence sources.
The Finks hit the headlines last week when the Frankston home of enforcer Brent James (BJ) Reker was a target in a shooting.
Following initial suggestions the Hells Angels might have been involved, the Herald Sun understands police are moving away from the theory that another outlaw motorcycle gang was involved in that incident.
Radford took control of the Finks motorcycle club following their 2013 merger with the Mongols.
Reker’s house was sprayed with bullets while his baby slept inside. It is not known who shot at the house, but Reker was allegedly attacked at a Frankston pub weeks before the shooting.
Mongols
Main interests: construction, tattoo parlours, standover tactics, drugs.
Prominent members: Mohammad Keshtiar, Shane Bowden.
IN-HOUSE issues and the threat of Comanchero violence have plagued Mongol unity. The new gang on the block after the 2013 national “patch over” of the Finks has hit some bumps.
Their former Victorian leader, Frank Dieni, was ambushed in a Sydney meeting in 2014 and subsequently left.
The new regime, led by figures such as Sergeant-at-Arms Shane Bowden — a former Olympic cycle hopeful — and Greg Keating, made their presence felt but a lack of discipline hurt the gang.
Not even getting Toby Mitchell down to their Port Melbourne chapter for the odd party helped their cause.
Bowden has served a stint in prison over a 2015 violent aggravated burglary in South Yarra that he committed with a celebrity nutritionist, Aysen Unlu. It involved Bowden being dressed in camouflage gear and using night goggles.
An alternate leader of the gang, Mohammad Keshtiar, was paroled last year but was almost immediately returned to jail amid fears he was a target for a hit.
He is believed to have driven a recruiting boom from behind prison walls before his release but his standing within the club is unclear. It is also speculated he pushed for a quota system for gang members dealing ice.
It is suspected a bullet meant for him killed 26-year-old plasterer Zabi Ezedyar, who was walking to the front door of the Narre Warren house where he was living. The murder remains unsolved.
It was the second case of believed mistaken identity in which a man was shot dead.
The fatal shooting, three months earlier, in Keysborough of Mohammed “Mo” Yucel also remains unsolved. Mr Yucel emerged from a garage to a hail of bullets.
That is believed to be another Comanchero-ordered killing in which the gunman identified the wrong target.
Other significant figures have either been jailed or left the club.
Founding Melbourne Mongol member Lachlan Floyd, who left the club in 2015, has been jailed for manslaughter.
Hells Angels
Main interests: Heavy haulage industry, guns, standover tactics, drugs, bars and security.
Prominent members: Peter “Skitzo” Hewat.
MELBOURNE’S original outlaw bikie club still has clubhouses and bike “runs”.
But it is understood numbers in recent runs, including the national run at Lorne earlier this year, have been lower than usual.
Unlike other clubs, the world’s most infamous club refuses to have any dialogue with police.
There was also the loss of former founding member Chris “Ballbearing” Coelho, who rockers Midnight Oil referred to as “Mr Ballbearing”.
Coelho was retired, leaving the club he had spent his life serving after noticing a more vicious breed enter the club’s ranks. He died after flipping his car near the Eastern Freeway earlier this year.
The Angels, of late, have kept out of the headlines. They are no longer believed to be on the list of suspects of putting the sergeant-at-arms of the re-emerging Finks gang in a Frankston hospital last month.
In Melbourne’s north, East County chapter’s most notorious member, Peter “Skitzo” Hewat, remains an ominous player in the towing industry.
Sources tell the Herald Sun Hewat has acquired a new heavy-haulage tow truck — despite not owning a heavy-haulage licence — and intimidates rivals.
The Hells Angels’ links to a prominent Middle Eastern Melbourne crime family have now ceased. That partnership was evident at funerals and gatherings and detected by police in phone taps.
Bandidos
Main interests: Extortion, drugs, tattoo parlours, gyms.
Prominent members: Australasian president Jason Addison, previously Toby Mitchell.
THE Bandidos earlier this decade made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Their most notorious member, Toby Mitchell, was shot twice in a matter of years.
The ambush attack on him in Melton by members of the Hells Angels led to some tit-for-tat attacks, but was quickly quashed by police.
Mitchell left the club about five years ago in “good standing” but is believed to have harboured some disillusion at the direction of the Bandidos.
Four years ago a young man named Michael Strike was brutally bashed and died, his body dumped outside a cemetery.
His crime was to annoy a club member’s dog, named Trouble, tied up outside the Brunswick clubhouse.
But the Bandidos have had other troubles, too.
Among the most recent was the drive-by shooting of one of their gang in 2017.
In an attack that remains unsolved, a Bandido riding in a convoy became a victim of a drive-by shooting as he crossed the Bolte Bridge.
Other issues have caused tensions within the club, including the suicide of a member inside the Brunswick clubhouse.
But one thing the club has relied on is stability.
Veteran member Jason Addison, a stonemason from Echuca, has moved up in the ranks to be the club’s Australasian president. His sons have also joined him, the young Bandidos becoming nomads of the gang.
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