Brighton bikie rises through the ranks

An underworld figure with links to former Richmond footballer Jake King has been promoted to a top job in an outlaw motorcycle gang.

A big-time bikie from Brighton has been unveiled as the national enforcer of the feared Mongols gang.

Underworld figure Mark Balsillie has been promoted to national sergeant-at-arms of the growing outlaw motorcycle gang.

Balsillie’s rise to the top coincides with fresh police interest, with Echo Taskforce detectives last week raiding his bayside home in a series of shakedowns of the gang.

The 36-year-old was charged with hoon offences over an OMCG ride in July which is believed to have involved a motorbike linked to former Richmond footballer Jake King.

Jake King with Mark Balsillie (right).

Balsillie with Toby Mitchell.

The bike – with registration PSHUP – was seized by police from Balsille’s Brighton pad on suspicion it was used in the ride promoted on social media.

Footage released by police showed the muscleman being escorted into the back of a divisional van wearing handcuffs.

Two other Mongols members, including Bilal Almatrah, were arrested and a second motorbike seized.

Balsillie has been an influential member of the Mongols in recent years and is a close ally of the OMCG’s high-profile president Toby Mitchell.

He was previously a member of the rival Comancheros outfit, until around the time he was shot multiple times in Melbourne’s northern suburbs in 2017.

The man suspected of being responsible for that incident is his former Comanchero comrade, Hasan Topal.

One theory is that senior members of the Comancheros ordered the shooting.

Topal was rapidly promoted around this period but left for Europe in 2019 and has not returned.

Balsillie is a close ally of the Mongols’ high-profile president Toby Mitchell.

Topal is also suspected of two wrong-victim homicides, a Bolte Bridge shooting ambush on Bandido members and a drive-by gun attack on a Richmond auto business.

All incidents happened at about the same time Balsillie was shot and remain under active police investigation.

Balsillie travelled to Russia in 2019 as part of the Mongols’ patch-over of Comanchero members in that country.

Photos posted on social media at the time showed him posing with suspected Russian Mongols in Thailand.

Balsillie was once described in court as a right-hand man of an alleged bikie debt collection syndicate boss.

He is well connected in both the underworld and in professional circles and has been on the radar of police for well over a decade.

Last year his 2015 grey Lamborghini Huracan coupe — valued at almost $500,000 — was seized by police in a series of raids targeting organised criminals.

Balsillie was charged with cocaine trafficking offences and will face court next month.

He will reappear again in December on four charges including reckless conduct endangering serious injury over the gang’s organised ride in July.

The charges were laid the same week police busted Mongols office-bearer Joshua Eddy, his sister Jaide and father David in a major drug trafficking operation in Cobram, in northern Victoria.