Exit fees: Bikies pay price for quitting outlaw motorcycle gangs
BIKIES are being forced to fork out huge exit fees or risk savage reprisals if they want to turn their backs on the outlaw motorcycle world.
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BIKIES are being forced to fork out huge exit fees to quit their gangs.
They are ordered to pay up to $10,000 or risk savage reprisals if they want to turn their backs on the outlaw motorcycle world. In other cases, the price has been handing over a Harley-Davidson.
The Herald Sun has been told that bikie gang members often don’t think about how hard it is to leave when they join up and get a rude shock when they deliver the news.
The price of a ticket out frequently depends on a member’s standing or seniority, one police source said. Exceptions are sometimes made if a member has to leave due to ill health.
Former Bandido enforcer Toby Mitchell quit the club after being shot twice, one an ambush in which he was almost killed.
“He left without a scar, apart from the shooting wounds,” a police source said.
In many cases, members are also forced to have gang tattoos blacked out.
But in Queensland, police say it is common for former bikie members to have the word “retired” inked under their club tattoos.
Bikie members wishing to leave are often bashed as well as having to hand over the keys to their motorbike and a cash sum.
Many find themselves reluctant to get out and are effectively trapped by the organisation.
Cases where those wanting out are bashed rarely reach the point of a police complaint. Victims are usually too terrified of revenge attacks that they pay up and try to move on with their lives.
In one case eight years ago, a man who left the Bandidos was subjected to a terrifying beating in his home, in which a gun was rammed in his mouth.
The raiding party then stole his two Harley-Davidson motorcycles and car.