Bikie gangs of Victoria: Who holds power over your town?

Some country towns are regarded to be of strategic significance in the bikie world because of its easy and less-policed access to other regions. See where each club has strongholds.

Bikie gangs have long coveted the regional centres of Australia.

The opportunity to monopolise local drug trades and intimidate rivals into submission away from the city opens the potential for big profits for the outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The Mongols’ incursion into Cobram was just one in many by the OMCGs over decades.

For years the same gang had been influential down at Echuca, via the Riverside chapter led by former national president Jason Addison.

The area is regarded as being of strategic significance in the bikie world because of its easy and less-policed access to other regions.

The Victoria-New South Wales border area has particular appeal, allowing quick and easy access to both states and acts as a halfway point between major cities.

Echo Taskforce Detective Sergeant Ciaran Duyrea said the Mongols’ stranglehold on Cobram also gave them easy access to the entire Goulburn Valley.

He said outlaw groups would operate “wherever there’s an earn”.

“Any crossing into the state is a strategic point,” he said.

“Having the Mongols up on the border, for us, is a big flag that they’re looking for an avenue to bring things through to the state.

“You get away from the highways and byways, so from Barooga through to Cobram probably isn’t policed as hard as a Hume (Highway).”

Police in New South Wales often regard the drive through the centre of their state as the “smuggler’s route”.

It once allowed drivers moving drugs to avoid tollways, traffic cameras and gantries.

The “smuggler’s route” proved quite popular among those in the Eddy drug operation.

“It’s a direct link down to Barooga,” Sgt Duyrea added.

Joshua Eddy was a sergeant-at-arms in Mongols OMCG Riverside chapter, based in Echuca.

Outlaw motorcycle gangs are active throughout most of the rest of rural Victoria.

The Finks have a strong presence in Wodonga and, during the Covid pandemic, tried a move into Bairnsdale where they set up the Kalimna chapter in the neighbouring settlement of Lindenow.

The riders came up against stern resistance from local cops and anti-organised crime officers from Melbourne.

“We cancelled their East Gippsland visas,” one officer later remarked.

The Bandidos have strong representation in Ballarat and the Rebels lead the way in Bendigo where they have a clubhouse in the suburb of Long Gully.

Rebels are also prominent in Mildura, despite a fierce push into the Murray River town just over a decade ago by the Comanchero MC.

Former Army sniper Josh Faulkhead – a Comanchero known by the nickname “White Devil” – would later be sentenced to nine years in jail after a major police investigation into his ice dealings and violent crimes.

The Rebels still have a strong hand in Mildura and recent police operations indicate they are active further downriver in Swan Hill.

Comancheros had made a fierce push into Mildura. Picture: Supplied

The Outlaws have a chapter in Shepparton, where the Mongols are known to have also had a presence.

One seasoned regional investigator who worked on a gang based in a major country town told the Herald Sun bikies had long eyed the bush.

“They see money and having a bigger club. The recruits see street cred,” he said.

The detective said OMCGs also viewed rural centres as being less scrutinised but there is a flip side.

“They think there’s less cops but there’s also less people so we see a lot more and the community tells us,” the investigator said.

Both the Hells Angels and Rebels were allegedly caught up in separate police stings in both Mildura and Colac in recent times.

Hells Angels were caught up in separate police stings in Colac and Mildura in recent times.

Current and former members of those two clubs were in April arrested accused of trafficking methamphetamine in those regional centres.

More than $1m worth of the drug was allegedly found during a routine traffic stop in the Mildura suburb of Red Cliffs which led investigators to a patched member of the Rebels.

The 35-year-old was later charged with trafficking a large commercial quantity of meth.

In a separate raid in Colac, in the state’s south west, police also accused William Armstrong, a former member of the Hells Angels, of trafficking ice.

Those investigators allegedly dismantled a clandestine laboratory at the 49-year-old Colac man’s home just months ago.

The Colac man’s allegedly collapsed clandestine lab saw police seize glassware, equipment and precursor chemicals, 25 kgs of sodium sulfate and a small amount of poison.

The Mildura man, a patched member of the Rebels, was arrested after local police intercepted another vehicle which allegedly had 2kg of ice stored inside.

Police say that amount of meth would have a value of about $1m.