Deadline: Shane Bowden’s journey from promising cyclist to dead bikie

Some say he could’ve been an Olympic cyclist, but former Mongol Shane Bowden chose to ply his trade on the wrong kind of bikes. Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Shane Bowden could’ve been a contender, but chose the outlaw life.

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

Mongol coodabeen a contender

There’s not a lot of obvious crossover between organised crime and professional cycling except, of course, for the matter of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

One player with expertise in both crime and cycling reckons that former Mongol Shane Bowden — gunned down on the Gold Coast last year — should have been an Olympic hero rather than just another dead outlaw bikie.

Shane Bowden outside the Southport courts. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Young Shane “wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed,” the observer acknowledges, but would have been a world-class cyclist if he had been able to apply himself as a talented teenager. But he didn’t — “and you can’t keep doing it on natural ability.”

Another “natural” who didn’t apply himself to using his ability with numbers to make a legitimate living turned instead to the risky business of pulling horse racing rorts.

Instead of being a share market speculator or professional punter, our man might be heading for a maximum security spelling paddock for a very long break.

“If only he had used his genius for niceness instead of evil”, as Maxwell Smart once said of the wicked Dr Zharko.

The same might apply to the senior figure of a certain crime gang who is rumoured to be on the outer over internal financial shortfalls.

Police at the murder scene where Bowden was gunned down in his driveway. Picture Glenn Hampson

The gang is up for anything, from standover to drug-dealing and a spot of homicide, but stealing from a brother member is viewed very seriously.

Deadline got in touch with the said figure, an imposing fellow who can’t be named because of legal reasons — and our abject cowardice.

He assured us no funny business has gone on and that everyone is on great terms.

Who are we to argue?

THE DIAL-A-GRAND RORT

Love them or hate them, you have to admire rorters’ reflexes. They are faster off the mark than Usain Bolt.

It hadn’t even stopped raining in NSW when an old crook called his mate north of the border to tell him to get onto the flood relief rort.

Just ring the Federal Government helpline, he said chirpily, and put in a claim for a one-off flood relief payment.

“Dee and I have already got a grand each and I’m putting all the kids onto it. Just put a bit of a stain on the ceiling and send them a photo — and it’s money in the bank!” the old scallywag urged.

He even supplied the number. Readers might like to make a note: it’s 180 2266.

Dial-a-grand isn’t the rort of a lifetime but the characters concerned share a lifetime of rorts. They were involved in one of the most notorious race-rigging scams of all time, not to mention bird smuggling and more serious contrabanditry.

Having got the flood rort tip, the retired race rigger and bird smuggler passed it on to his mate Doug, who has handled millions of dodgy dollars in his time, some of it spent as a guest of Her Majesty.

Doug is semi-retired from bigtime rackets so was delighted to hear of easy pickings with no real chance of being pinched. Nice to see the Government managing taxpayers’ money so carefully.

SNAKES ON A PLAIN

Reptiles are not unknown at greyhound meetings but they mostly have two legs, or occasionally four. The one that stopped the Capalaba Cup meeting straight after the main event last weekend was of the scaly, venomous variety and didn’t have an entrance ticket.

It was a red-bellied black snake that slithered into box 5, known to aficionados as “the yellow”.

This was too much for the dishlickers and their handlers and the meeting was abandoned — but not before Columbian King took out the Cup down the straight, turf course outside Brisbane. Omen punters might note that Columbian King is a black dog and wore the pink jacket.

Columbian King in full flight. Picture: justgreyhoundphotos

Snakes and racing go back a way. When stewards raided a race meeting at Bombala to do random drug tests once, local trainer Dick Ubrihien knew he had a problem if one of his gallopers was swabbed.

He also knew where he could catch a snake, and did, then quietly brought it into the swabbing box in a bag and let it go. There was no more swabbing that day.

Ubrihien’s quick thinking didn’t stop him being shot dead by a jealous husband on Melbourne Cup eve, 1987. A memorial race at Bombala is named in his honour.

Tricky Dick was a gentleman compared with the late billionaire Robert “Hacca” Holmes a Court, the twisted toff whose insurance underwriter Brian Coppin eventually refused to insure his many thoroughbreds in Western Australia because of the unnaturally high number of claims for death by snakebite.

Slow or broken down horses or infertile mares kept dying of verifiable snakebites. Coppin did the sums and deduced that Hacca was paying for snakes to be put in certain horse feed bins.

Where there’s a dishonest dollar there’s a snake in the grass. Or the chaff.

Daniel Hayes in action at a Belmont auction. Picture: Peter Ristevski

LOOSE CANNON ALL PRIMED

Geelong estate agent and former sailor Daniel Hayes is a livewire, all right. The man billed as a “loose cannon” living “on the edge” in publicity for his upcoming Big Brother segment, doesn’t quit being controversial when the cameras are off.

The self-proclaimed “Million Dollar Bogan”, motorcycling enthusiast and managing director of the Hayeswinckle estate outfit has struck a bit of legal bother in his time. All part of his edgy persona, such as when he pleaded guilty to punching rival estate agent Tom Butters after a minor car prang a while back.

It’s an exciting life in real estate down at Sleepy Hollow. The Million Dollar Bogan’s professional partner, the excellently-named Michelle Winckle, recently hit local headlines when pelted with rotten eggs by a mystery woman furious at the amount of “junk mail” in her letterbox.

DIRT FILE

The small but strongly-made pig-shooting enthusiast who briefly tried solo photography seems to have survived sending a “dick pic” to a young woman in stable employment. It seems the shooter is home and hosed after narrowly avoiding a nasty fall. Perhaps his target has scored a windfall.

HEARD SOMETHING? LET US KNOW AT [e-mail]