The deadly shootings that shook the bikie world
When you sign up as a bikie, you’re signing up to a world of violence and risk. Police and rival gangs are now your enemy, but sometimes — as a few have found out the hard way — the threat comes from within your own club.
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The outlaw motorcycle gang life comes with some significant risks.
Bikies have become an increasing policing priority Australia-wide in the past decade as their significance in organised crime networks has been fully recognised.
Some major players have found themselves under fierce scrutiny.
But law enforcement attention and the hazard of jail is one thing; the other side of this criminal coin is the threat of violence.
That usually comes from conflict with other gangs but sometimes — as a few have found out the hard way — it can be generated from within their own clubs.
ROBERT ALE
Not many survive a bullet to the head.
Comanchero bikie Robert Ale was relaxing at the bikie-linked Nitro Ink tattoo studio in the Melbourne suburbs of Hampton Park when he was critically wounded by a hail of bullets.
Witnesses ran for their lives as two masked hit men burst into the shop and opened fire on the drug lord last February.
He was shot nine times, including once to the head, in what police were later to suspect was an ambush linked to internal Comanchero ructions.
Remarkably — he survived the attack.
CCTV footage released by the Echo Taskforce at the time showed a stolen silver Audi pull up outside the tattoo parlour.
The driver stayed put as the hooded men stormed in and peppered Ale with bullets before speeding off in the getaway car.
Police are yet to arrest anyone over the assassination attempt.
Ale was free on bail over 30 charges at the time of the shooting, which came as major troubles brewed within the feared outlaw motorcycle gang.
He has since been locked up for ordering underlings to commit assaults, arsons and aggravated burglaries as leader of The Last Kings, a brutal Comanchero subgroup.
His first chance at freedom will be in late 2032.
TOBY MITCHELL
Notorious underworld figure Toby Mitchell has lived through two shootings, the first of which he was incredibly lucky to survive.
The former Bandidos bikie gang enforcer spent months in the Royal Melbourne Hospital after he was shot five times outside Doherty’s Gym in Brunswick, near his gang’s clubhouse, in November 2011.
The brazen attack unfolded outside a busy shopping centre in front of terrified schoolchildren and families.
A stray bullet hit a car with two kids inside.
Mitchell was put on life support and had half a kidney removed.
Almost two years later he was again at the centre of a gun ambush, this time on another outlaw outfit’s turf in Melton.
Mitchell was shot in the arm as he walked into the clubhouse of the Diablos, a Bandido affiliate, in March, 2013.
Another man was injured by an explosion of gunfire directed at the men by three cars.
The strongman, now a patched Mongols member, was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to be stitched up.
Police at the time investigated whether the shooting was linked to an outstanding contact on his life or the result of fresh tensions between warring gangs.
ROCCO CURRA
Mongols bikie Rocco Curra was sitting in his car in suburban Melbourne when he was targeted by a hail of bullets.
The 32-year-old miraculously survived up to 10 bullets shot at him at close range at Bourke St, Bulleen earlier this month.
He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition.
Echo Taskforce detectives are working to track down the gunman responsible for the execution attempt.
The offender drove a BMW getaway car which was found incinerated nearby a short time later.
Curra is a close associate of Toby Mitchell, a new recruit for the Mongols.
Police revealed they were monitoring tensions between rival outlaw motorcycle gangs following the shooting.
Weeks earlier a senior Finks member had been shot at a pub in Melbourne’s southeast.
Sione Hokafonu, from Sydney, took himself to hospital after he was shot in the foot while watching the State of Origin with associates at the Fountain Gate Hotel in Narre Warren in July.
No charges have been laid against the shooter.
MAHMOUD “MICK” HAWI
Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi was no stranger to violence.
A former senior Comanchero, he had done time over the infamous Sydney Airport brawl in which Hells Angels associate Anthony Zervas died.
Zervas was bashed to death in horrifying scenes as members of the gang clashed, arming themselves with bollards and whatever else they could get their hands on.
Nine years later, it was Hawi’s turn.
The hulking bikie was sitting in his luxury vehicle outside a Fitness First gym in the Sydney suburb of Rockdale when a hit team pounced.
Hawi had previously been known to travel in bulletproof cars, a decision reached after an attempt on his life in 2007.
He would often travel with a bodyguard, acutely aware that years of operating in the bikie underworld and its periphery had earned him plenty of enemies.
But he was all alone as he pulled up at Fitness First.
As he wound down his window, a hooded shooter dressed in black stepped up and took his chance and fired six times into Hawi’s head and neck.
The kill team’s getaway car was torched in a nearby lane, CCTV allegedly catching them running away to get into another vehicle.
Three men have been charged in connection with the murder of Hawi.
VINCE FOCARELLI
There couldn’t be many gangland figures who’ve survived four attempts on their life.
But Vince Focarelli — who once claimed to have been the South Australian president of the Comancheros — holds that dubious distinction.
At one stage in 2012, Focarelli was rushed to hospital twice in the space of six weeks after being shot.
Given his number of enemies, those investigating the shootings were up against it from day one.
Police were to later link some of the attacks on members of the Comancheros and Hells Angels.
Focarelli’s son Giovanni was not so fortunate.
He was shot in a street ambush in the northern Adelaide suburbs of Dry Creek seven years ago.
Giovanni died on Prospect Rd as his father — who was wounded in the same incident — drove him to hospital.
Vince Focarelli has more recently tried to project himself as a reformed man.
He last year appeared in an advertisement for something called “sharia-compliant cryptocurrency.
BILLY GRIERSON
Bikie hits are not always the work of rival gangs or disaffected insiders.
And there was always suspicion the sniper-style shooting of Gypsy Joker Billy Grierson on the West Australian goldfields was the doing of an ex-cop
Mr Grierson, a fully patched member of the Kalgoorlie chapter of the Gypsy Jokers, was sitting around a campfire at Ora Banda on the night of October 1, 2000, when suffered a fatal gunshot wound.
Suspicion quickly fell on Don Hancock, a former senior police detective who had retired to Ora Banda to run the tiny settlement’s pub.
There had been friction between him and the Gypsy Jokers before the fatal campfire shooting.
Mr Hancock was reportedly angered when two members of the gang allegedly abused his daughter, who was working as a barmaid.
Coroner Alastair Hope later suggested Mr Hancock was a logical suspect but stopped short of pinning the crime on him
“There is a significant body of evidence which suggests Mr Hancock may have been the shooter,” Mr Hope said.
“(But) much of that evidence is circumstantial and in my view is not so overwhelming that the only available inference is that Mr Hancock was the shooter.”
But someone was in no doubt.
In the period after Mr Grierson’s death, Mr Hancock’s business and home were destroyed in firebombings.
In 2001, Hancock and a mate, Lou Lewis, died when a car bomb exploded after they had enjoyed a day at the races.
ROSS BRAND
Bandido Ross Brand found himself in exactly the wrong place at wrong time when hotheads decided to get square.
It was Geelong Cup Day of 2008 and Brand — known as a hardman of the city’s tight OMCG scene — would pay for a racetrack punch-up that had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Members of Death Before Dishonour, an affiliate of the rival Rebels outfit, had a minor scrap with a Bandido nominee at the Cup meeting.
Derek Bedson, who was not a member of either gang, was livid that a Bandido involved in the fracas was not arrested.
After stewing on it, Derek met up with his brother John and another man who would serve as their driver.
While the harebrained plot was hatched, Brand and three other men were enjoying a drink at the Bandido clubhouse in the suburb of Breakwater.
They were just leaving when six shots rang out from the back passenger window of a twin-cab ute outside.
One hit the 51-year-old Brand in the head, fatally wounding him, and seriously injuring another man.
John Bedson fired the shots but was to later contend he had no intention of hitting anyone.
After being found guilty of murder and intentionally causing serious injury, he was sentenced to a maximum 23 years jail term.
Derek Bedson received a maximum stretch of 12 years after pleading guilty to manslaughter and reckless conduct endangering life.
MICHAEL KULAKOWSKI, SASHA MILENKOVIC AND RICK DE STOOP
The basement of a Sydney nightclub was the scene of one of Australia’s most notorious bikie homicides.
When the bullets stopped flying that night in 1997, Bandidos club president Michael Kulakowski was dead, along with sergeant-at-arms Sasha Milenkovic and younger member Rick De Stoop.
Two of the dead had been shot execution-style.
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Kulakowski — who has once served in the Army — was one of the OMCG scene’s most influential and innovative figures.
But it was his relationship with a woman connected with the rival Rebels MC gang which is suspected of leading to his death.
The killers, Rebel member Constantine Georgiou and Bruce Malcolm Harrison, fled the scene in a luxury Porsche, throwing weapons from the windows as police gave chase.
A wounded Harrison was arrested soon after their car was dumped and Georgiou detained the next year as he tried to ride a cargo ship to Japan under a false name.
Both are serving long jail terms.