Deadline: Finks bikie gang to follow Mongols up highway

The Finks are set to follow their bikie rivals up the highway. And which AFL player was spotted sleeping one off in fernery? Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Melbourne’s top crime writers Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

SMILE WHEN YOU SMELL THEM

Last weekend was the Mongols’ turn to feel the wind where their hair used to be.

Selfie-photographer and cat lover Toby Mitchell and his Mongol horde did a nicely-curated run from north to south, Bendigo to Melbourne.

It was hardly Genghis Khan revisited. No shots were fired, to the relief of everyone except, perhaps, highly-trained police who might get to fire back if trouble breaks out.

Now it is the Finks’ turn.

It seems their run will start in Finks home territory around their Cranbourne clubhouse, and head north to Wodonga.

Mongols arrive in Port Melbourne after riding down from Bendigo. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Not only the reverse direction to the Mongols but further.

Apparently sharing the Hume Freeway with several hundred semi-trailer drivers who use their product doesn’t worry them.

It’s good that there wasn’t a calendar clash. To have both club runs the same weekend would have been like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath playing the same day.

And if, by chance, they’d ended up in the same area, it might have led to old animosities flaring up.

The Finks and the Mongols have not always been on great terms.

Toby Mitchell. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Many Finks were patched over by the Mongols some years ago when the uber-aggressive So Cal outfit came to Victoria.

Diehard Finks who didn’t fancy a club transfer were bashed.

The Finks have since rebuilt themselves as something of an outlaw motorcycle gang force.

A founding member advised Deadline in 1975 never to forget the club’s motto: “A Fink stinks — but smile when you smell him.”

But things change. Maybe the grubby old Easy Rider types go in for tubbing up more often now so many of them go to the gym to bulk up the guns and wheels.

If so, cleaner bodies doesn’t mean cleaner records.

The Finks will hit the road to Wodonga this weekend.

About 18 months ago there was an outbreak of hostility between the two clubs, with shootings of members on both sides, drive-by attacks and firebombings.

There now seems to be an uneasy peace in Victoria.

Meanwhile, in the wild west, police are steeled for reprisals over the sniper shooting of former Rebels boss Nick Martin at a suburban speedway.

A former special forces soldier has been arrested and is under high security in case aggrieved parties can’t wait for courtroom justice.

The alleged shooter might be a handy shot — not that hitting a 120 kilogram gorilla at 300m is exactly sharp shooting — but perhaps he isn’t a deep thinker. Keeping the alleged murder weapon is something a teenage car thief would know not to do. The late hitman James “Iceman” Bazley made the same mistake, keeping his French-made Unique .22 pistol after using it to kill maybe three people, which is one reason he spent half his life in jail.

ALL YOURS, SON

Conscientious parents invest in their children, either through education or by providing a financial start to help them buy a house or establish their own business.

In a particular Victorian country town, a loved son who turned 18 recently was given a coming-of-age present by the Bank of Mum and Dad.

Only five grand cash, but it’s the thought that counts — the thought being that he would use it to buy a stash to start his very own dope dealer business.

Sadly, inconsiderate police inquiries have stopped their dream coming true.

Sadly, inconsiderate police thwarted the youngster’s dope dreams. Picture: Stock image

ANOTHER SERGI BITES THE DUST

Sergis are as common as rats in Griffith — there’s some in every other street and shop.

Not all, of course, are involved in the criminal branch of the family that has attracted publicity, but not enough police attention, ever since the conspiracy to hire Jim Bazley to murder Donald Mackay in 1977 (see above).

Mackay was a brave businessman and political candidate who took a stand against the entrenched corruption linking cannabis crop growers to dodgy police to the bent politician Al Grassby.

Tony Sergi was a stunted man who wore built-up heels and built up a suspiciously profitable winery.

Anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay in the 1970s.

“Aussie Bob” Trimbole.

You could call him a built-up heel himself, a poison dwarf with a Napoleon complex.

But stumpy Tony was tall when he stood on his wallet and so he was a big deal in the Calabrian crime syndicate, ’Ndrangheta.

Stumpy died rich in 2017, still laughing at the toothless system that let him and various inbred relatives get away with murder.

One of Tony’s criminal relations, Domenic, known as Mick, died last October. Now the good news continues: another “blood brother”, Joe Sergi, died last week, aged 84.

Joe is remembered for working closely with “Aussie Bob” Trimbole to run cannabis to markets then launder the proceeds for the Griffith families that locals still call “the 10 Sopranos”.

A name that has nothing to do with singing and everything to do with arranged marriages between cousins.

DIRT FILE

The pub is in Tigerland but the player seen sleeping it off in the fernery in the beer garden is not one who plays in the yellow and black.

More a traditional rival.

Take your pick from Magpies, Blue and Demons. Anyone who fancies writing a limerick about this is welcome.

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