Secrets of the missing Joker: Finks link and the final meeting of missing bikie Steve Williams

Stunning new evidence breaks down the final moments of bikie Steve Williams before he vanished without a trace.

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Steve Williams may have been set up by rival Finks bikies – under the guise of collecting a debt – before being executed, it has been claimed.

In the second of a three-part series, Secrets of the Missing Joker, insiders allege a moneylender who employed the high-profile Gypsy Joker as a debt collector met at the Gepps Cross Hotel just hours before Williams’ suspected murder in 2005.

WATCH SECRETS OF THE MISSING JOKER EPISODE ONE

At this pub, the moneylender is believedto have explained that two men who were Finks members owed the moneylender a substantial sum of money – and were waiting at the Gillman trucking company.

He said Williams, who had also recently been voted out as the Jokers’ SA president and was known for his “erratic behaviour”, believed he was going to a “meeting” only to discuss the debt.

But police say he likely died and was removed from the premises of the business by unknown assailants in the rear of a white utility, covered by a tarp.

“He knew that the guys owed a debt, and he knew that it was going to be a tense meeting and was going into enemy territory to collect it,” one bikie insider explained.

“But he didn’t believe or hadn’t taken into account just how dangerous that meeting would be.”

SA Star Group police and CFS officers searched the Southern Waste Disposal dump for missing former Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club president Steve Williams. Picture: 7NEWS

The Advertiser has learned that six years later, it was revealed that the same moneylender who organised the meeting was alleged to be a “Finks associate member”.

However, at the time “Williams regarded the moneylender as a friend”, the insider explained.

Veteran criminologist Dr Allan Perry, who lectures at Adelaide University Law School says the “most likely explanation to me is that the death had something to do with money lending, drug dealing, extortion — or, less likely, because in his media role, he was seen as breaking the bikie code of silence.”

“I would say he came into contact with another motorcycle gang (other than the Gypsy Jokers and) it was either a non-premeditated event that just arose out of an argument – or it might well have been a premeditated set up to kill him.”

A financial services professional who was later tasked with liquidating the assets of the men Williams was said to be meeting confirmed to The Advertiser, on the condition of anonymity, that the pair had significant debts at that time, but that there was no evidence of any “bikie activity” in their financial documents.

Steve Williams disappeared without a trace.

He was last seen at the Gepps Cross Hotel. Picture: Chris Walls

Another former bikie told The Advertiser that while he knew who killed Williams, he was unclear whether this was the result of a spontaneous dispute or whether he was set up and killed execution-style.

He added that he believed Williams’ killers used “water-based” methods for body disposal.

“Current moves fast and fish move faster.”

SAPOL have yet to establish a clear motive for the killing, but have speculated it was about the book he was supposed to be penning or the debt.

However, they did not respond to The Advertiser’s questions related to the moneylender meeting and any criminal affiliation the lender may have had at the time.

Dr Perry rejected SAPOL’s earlier speculation that the murder may have been related to the book Williams was writing.

Despite extensive searches of land surrounding the relatively isolated industrial precinct and further north at Port Gawler and Middle Beach, no trace of Williams, 38 at the time of his disappearance, has ever been found.

Like other bikies, Senior Finks member Frank Condo, who recently served a nine-year and 10-month sentence in Yatala Labour Prison after being convicted in 2011 of the bashing of another man, declined to answer police questions over Williams’ disappearance.

Note: The Advertiser reporter Luke Williams is not related to Steve Williams.

Originally published as Secrets of the missing Joker: Finks link and the final meeting of missing bikie Steve Williams