Major figures in the Bandidos motorcycle club
MEET the characters behind the bikes, brutality and tattoos. They’ve been the major players in the Bandidos motorcycle club, who live by the motto “we are the people our parents warned us about”.
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MEET the major players of the Australian arm of the Bandidos bikie gang, who live by the motto “we are the people our parents warned us about”.
Across Australia the Bandidos have made headlines for their violent feuds with other bikie gangs — including Australia’s most famous bikie shootout.
These are some of the Bandidos major figures through the years.
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ANTHONY “SNODDY” SPENCER
Former Comanchero “Snodgrass” Spencer formed the Australian arm of the Bandidos after falling out with his former mentor, Comanchero boss Jock Ross in 1983.
The US club wanted to expand their drug business and gave Spencer their blessing, with his group becoming the first international chapter, and he the national president.
But hostilities between Spencer’s new and old clubs erupted a year later, resulting in the 1984 Milperra ‘Father’s Day’ Massacre.
Spencer took his own life at age 30 awaiting trial over the massacre.
TOBY MITCHELL
The former national sergeant-at-arms — one of the Melbourne underworld’s most prominent figures — has survived two attempts on his life.
The heavily-tattooed former enforcer, 43, survived a botched hit in late 2011, after being shot five times in the back outside a Brunswick gym.
Mitchell’s girlfriend at the time Danielle McGuire — drug kingpin Tony Mokbel’s former de facto wife — kept a hospital bedside vigil as Mitchell lost a kidney and part of his liver.
He spent months recovering, reportedly undergoing 21 surgeries to save his life and nine more to deal with complications.
The police have never charged anyone over the shooting.
Less than two years later, in early 2013, Mitchell survived an ambush at another bikie clubhouse in Melton, and was shot in the arm.
Mitchell later quit the Bandidos, and his lawyer recently claimed his client suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the shootings.
These days, he’s taken it down a notch, appearing to enjoy photographing himself for Instagram to some 30,000 followers.
He has a penchant for designer clothes, gold teeth grills, diamond stud earrings and a shiny gold and diamond studded Rolex.
The ex-kickboxing star turned tattoo parlour owner, founded City of Ink in South Melbourne, which is run by best mate and Richmond football star Jake King.
Mitchell may have left the Bandidos, but hasn’t escaped trouble.
He was jailed for 20 months in 2016 after being busted with ice, cocaine and a baton in his Range Rover hire car.
At the time, Mitchell had been on bail for assaulting a cyclist in a road-rage incident at Docklands.
Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to an unlawful assault at a Southbank restaurant which he claimed was an act of self-defence.
ROBERT KIM SLOAN
The national secretary and high-profile Geelong chapter member was sentenced to three years’ jail in 2001 for drug trafficking but was set free five months later when he won an appeal.
The charges were eventually dropped amid corruption claims against the drug squad.
Sloan accused police of setting him up, and claimed that former detective Stephen Paton had planted drugs in his kitchen during the Geelong raids in 2000.
After Paton was charged with drug trafficking, Sloan successfully lobbied for his sentence to be quashed and the charges dropped.
Sloan went on to lodge a lawsuit against three officers, then-Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon and the state of Victoria, while his children and partner also launched civil actions against police.
In 2006, he received a $385,000 secret payout.
Sloan went on to sue disgraced Melbourne lawyer Andrew Fraser for defamation allegedly published in a bestseller about corrupt cops, Snouts in the Trough.
ROSS “ROSCO” BRAND
Brand, a long-serving club enforcer, was shot dead in a hail of bullets outside a Bandidos clubhouse in Geelong in late 2008.
A member of Rebels affiliate group Death Before Dishonour, John Bedson, fired the shots as retaliation after an altercation between Bandidos and Rebels members at the Geelong Cup.
Brand, 51, of Torquay was shot in the head and another Bandido injured as they stepped outside the building.
The bikie who lived by violence died in hospital seven hours later.
Brand’s criminal history is littered with drug convictions and firearms charges.
He was no stranger to jail or to the Geelong police station holding cells, and was known far and wide as a standover man, sometimes indulging in violence not condoned by the Bandidos. Even so, his Bandido mates said he was a loving sort of bloke.
In a statement released to the Herald Sun after his passing, they said: “It’s going to leave a hole in the hearts of his Bandidos brothers. He was a much-respected member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. Ross was a loving father, brother, son and grandson.
“And an altruist.
“Rosco was the right person for the right job and was always there to lend a hand and help out in any way he could,” the Bandidos said.
Comments posted on the Herald Sun website said Brand was a “man of honour and integrity”.
Brand was due to face court to answer a federal charge of refusing or failing to answer a question.
He had faced dozens of other charges, including being a prohibited person possessing a firearm, possessing amphetamines and cannabis, possessing the proceeds of crime, drink-driving, and driving while disqualified.
STEVE UTAH
The former Bandido insider is now living overseas in exile after turning informer and lifting the lid on alleged club violence.
Utah claimed in a book that the Bandidos killed Geelong father-of-four Earl Mooring in 2000.
He also detailed Mr Mooring’s grisly demise in a TV interview.
Utah claimed two Bandidos tried to extract $160,000 from Mr Mooring by torturing him with a hammer for hours before he was killed.
Utah was charged with the murder in 2004 but the charge was later dropped.
A coroner found remains located in NSW were those of Mr Mooring, but was unable to find anyone responsible.
In 2013, in an interview with New Corp, he spilt the beans on the culture of bikies and the rise of gang wars.
He said he was living in exile because of police, political and systemic failure in helping those wishing to do the right thing and educating authorities on the inner workings of the outlaw motorcycle gang network.
He lives every day in the knowledge that if he is discovered by the Bandidos, a club whose tentacles spread around the world, it will be his last.
MICHAEL “KAOS” KULAKOWSKI
Club national president, also known as Mike K, 41, was shot dead along with sergeant-at-arms Sash Milenkovic, 33, and club member Rick Destoop, 24, in the basement of a Sydney nightclub in 1997 by Rebels bikers.
The feud was not gang-related, but over a woman.
Kulakowski was sent to help broker peace talks between warring European arms of the Bandidos and Hells Angels in the mid-1990s.
BRONSON ELLERY AKA ‘LIZARD MAN’
Former bikie and wannabe death metal rocker dubbed Lizard Man by police killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in a murder-suicide on the Gold Coast in 2016.
Notorious criminal Bronson Ellery, 24, was found dead alongside former partner Shelsea Schilling at a Gold Coast apartment.
Ellery, dubbed Lizard Man for his terrifying appearance and confronting facial tattoos, claimed to have turned his back on the Bandidos bikie gang and believed he was destined for fame as a heavy metal rock star.
Using the performing name Solitary Son, he released an amateurish heavy metal album called Searching Souls.
Regularly in trouble with the law, Ellery endured several stints in custody, the most recent ending in March, 2015.
He pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice by bullying a man to withdraw a police complaint against an associate.
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