Deadline: The very long history of Melbourne’s bikie wars
Outlaw bikie gangs the Finks and Comancheros are at each other’s throats over patching over members. These fiery flare-ups have a long history of turning deadly — and not just for those who sign up to live the thug life.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Mark Buttler with his weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
Hits, rips and firey fallouts: Melb’s bikie feuds
Finks and Comanchero butting heads with fiery fallout is the latest in a long line of Melbourne bikie conflicts.
The Sunday Herald Sun revealed on the weekend that recruitment friction between the two outlaw motorcycle gangs is suspected of being the catalyst for some big recent arsons around town.
At the root of it all, allegedly, is the Finks “patching over” Comos into the club.
There is a long history of such disputes and the good news is they usually fizzle out after a while, often because letting such things drag on for too long is bad for business.
One former organised crime investigator tells us that the Hells Angels and Coffin Cheaters went hammer and tongs as far back as the 1980s but would later become aligned.
The Rebels and the Bandidos have long held influence in Geelong and when they fell out in 2008, things turned ugly with fatal consequences.
There had been an extended period of hostility before a group of men with connections to Rebels affiliate Death before Dishonor duked it out with members of the Bandidos at the Geelong Cup race meeting of October that year.
Later that day, respected Bandido Ross Brand suffered fatal injuries and another man was wounded outside the gang’s Geelong clubhouse.
Five years later, Hells Angels members were implicated in the firebombing of a Hallam gym linked to the Comanchero OMCG.
In 2015, relations deteriorated between the Rebels and Comanchero, ushering in a period of bashings, shootings and firebombings.
Senior police were forced to intervene and negotiate a ceasefire with senior players from both gangs to stem the chaos.
Two years later, The Comanchero aggressively went after Mongol-linked figures, resulting in two botched hits.
One of the intended victims was Mohammed “Afghan Ali” Keshtiar, who survived the bungled job at the expense of Zabi Ezedyar, who died at the scene in Narre Warren.
Also in 2017, three Bandido bikies survived being shot as they rode across the Bolte Bridge, allegedly by senior Comanchero Hasan Topal.
There was animosity between the Mongols and Finks about a decade ago after a major patch-over by the former, but that was nothing compared to the events of 2019.
In the space of a few months, Fink Sione Hokafonu was shot outside the Fountain Gate Hotel and Mongol Rocco Curra somehow survived a shooting ambush as he sat in his car at Bulleen.
Tensions climaxed with the shooting by two Mongols’ murder of innocent Croydon fruiterer Paul Virgona as he drove to work on EastLink.
The blundering shooters had been intending to shoot a Fink who lived near Mr Virgona.
Those in the bikie world with strategic nous know not to let these things fester.
They are well aware that feuding, especially when carried out in public, can only sharpen the interest of police.
There will be more than a few business owners hoping that wiser heads prevail in the current environment.
‘F**king maggot’: Disorder in the court
Sometimes, those who front our courts have an unorthodox approach to proceedings.
The so-called Trial from Hell of September 2000 is the gold standard, a hearing in which jailhouse killer Matthew Charles Johnson farted into his microphone and both abuse and excrement were hurled by his co-defendants.
More recently, a chap in the dock bared his backside at a judge.
Another case in point emerged last week when Peter Johnson faced the Mildura Magistrates’ Court where he was appearing over an alleged barroom assault.
Members of the judiciary are trained to ignore such behaviour, which is just as well for Mr Johnson after he labelled the magistrate hearing his case a “f---ing maggot”.
Fools with fuel lit up
There is more reason for concern this week among those involved in the firebombing which killed Katie Tangey at Truganina on January 16.
The bunglers involved not only torched the wrong house but killed a young woman uninvolved in the tobacco war conflict suspected of being at the root of this sorry event.
That has brought fierce scrutiny onto some big players a lot more than might have been the case if they got the right target.
There would have been a major investigation if they had found the correct address and killed no one but, in the end, it would have been one of about 130 blazes linked to the illicit smoke rackets of Melbourne.
Ms Tangey’s death put it in a different category, leaving detectives from the arson and explosives squad and the Lunar taskforce to go full-tilt to get to the bottom of what happened and who paid for it.
The latest worry for those involved in the death of a 27-year-old with her life ahead of her came this week with the announcement of a $500,000 reward.
It is big money for a big crime and, police hope, it might just loosen lips to sink ships.
After all, even the hardest of underworld hearts might have contempt for the kind of imbecile who causes an innocent young woman and a pet dog to perish in a dead-of-night suburban inferno they have no chance of escaping.
Chook looks crook
A hacker may have briefly caused severe loss of appetite for customers at the CBD Marrybrown chicken outlet.
Whoever got inside their order machine replaced an array of scrumptious offerings for fans of fast-food chicken.
In their place was a range of pictures of human feet, a recent Reddit posting showed.
Hitman Hoaxers
A Melbourne man charged with allegedly messaging the United States-based RentAHitman need not feel alone with the resultant police interest.
The fellow will face court next month accused of getting in touch with the site to frame his brother for a murder.
RentAHitman was originally set up in 2005 as a service to maximise website traffic — hence the “hit” — but its operator, Bob Innes, left it unattended for years and returned only to find a mountain of messages from the people looking to pay for murders.
Mr Innes later pivoted, turning it into a spoof website offering clearly fake contract-killing services.
But, build it and they will come, and there have been plenty who have subsequently been reported to police for dead-serious requests for killings to be carried out.
In 2022, thrifty American man Leif Hayman repeatedly solicited the murder of his girlfriend’s mother through RentAHitman, offering only $200 for completion of the work.
Zandra Ellis of New Orleans also did jail time after asking for the site’s vast team of triggermen to get rid of a romantic rival in 2022.
Two years ago, Josiah Garcia was arrested after applying for work through RentAHitman.
The site has its own “careers” section and would later explain to an FBI agent that he needed money and he thought his military experience would be a good head start in the underworld murder game.
Vale Bobby
Fans of 60s Australian popular music will remember Bobby Bright from his days as Bobby and Laurie.
Bright went on to an acting career and lovers of quality television will also remember him for his role as dock worker Nipper McRea in the ABC’s Phoenix series, which graced our screens back in the 1990s.
Unfortunately, Nipper’s part ended when a shipping container was dropped on his head in the gritty crime drama.
Bright was a well-known face in the Newport area for many years where he is fondly remembered by locals.
Originally published as Deadline: The very long history of Melbourne’s bikie wars
Service Victoria app gets quietly updated after security bungle
The state government has issued an update to the compromised Service Victoria app after a security loophole allowing access to Working With Children Checks was revealed by the Herald Sun.
New twist in Lawyer X saga
There is a major update in the Lawyer X scandal after a judge threw out Nicola Gobbo’s $1 million claim for compensation.