Riding low: the world of Bikie Inc

John Silvester
June 23, 2007

THE bikies had every reason to hate Don Hancock. They knew the country publican and former senior Perth detective had shot dead Gypsy Joker member Billy Grierson after a minor dispute in October 2000.

Investigating police were also convinced Hancock was the sniper who had shot Grierson that night in the West Australian goldfields town of Ora Banda. But they never charged him. By the time officers had reached him, Hancock, a former head of the CIB, was showered and changed; he refused to hand over his original clothing, defied instructions to stay at the scene and then ate an orange to remove gunshot residue. He went free.

The Gypsy Jokers vowed revenge. They repeatedly bombed Hancock's pub and home — concealing the explosives before one attack in the coffin of a teenage boy. Hancock — known as the Silver Fox — returned to Perth, where a state of the art security system was set up in his home. It was not enough. The bikies found out he regularly went to the races with an old mate, retired bookie Lou Lewis. When they were leaked the details of the bookie's car by a tame source within the West Australian Transport Department the rest was easy. They walked around the Belmont Park racecourse until they found the unlocked car and placed a bomb under the passenger seat.

As Hancock and Lewis drove home on September 1, 2001, one of the bikies used a mobile phone to trigger the ammonium nitrate bomb. "Rest in peace, Billy," he said. The explosion that killed both men was heard more than eight kilometres away. Don Hancock had been their enemy but Lou Lewis was not. To the bikies he was just collateral damage.

Welcome to the world of outlaw motorcycle gangs, where violence is often the first and only resort.

The shootings in the CBD that this week resulted in the arrest of Hells Angels member Christopher Wayne Hudson graphically exposed what happens when Melbourne's underbelly of guns, drugs and vice collides with the mainstream on a busy city street.

And while the rampage cannot be blamed on the Angels — it appeared to be a squabble gone mad — it raises questions about the bikie culture and the community's response to the ever present threat.

The Australian Crime Commission says there are 17 outlaw motorcycle gangs in Victoria, and 35 throughout Australia, with a total of 3500 fully patched members and perhaps as many again who are associates.

The ACC is investigating bikie groups as established criminal networks, for money laundering and tax fraud, firearms trafficking and drug manufacturing. The commission has found that the "size, profile, geographic spread and level of sophistication of OMCG (outlaw motorcycle gangs) criminal activity presents a significant threat to Australia and its interests".

It says gangs can affect legitimate businesses, "including finance, transport, private security, entertainment, natural resources and construction".

There is nothing subtle about outlaw bikies. While many gangsters try to conceal their underworld connections behind closed penthouse doors, bikies wear their colours to show their criminal spots. It is a strategy designed to forge military-style loyalty between members while simultaneously intimidating outsiders. Some brag they are like a swarm of bees that will attack (and die) to protect the hive.

Bikies have also moved into debt collecting, using their fearsome reputations to stand over parties in civil disputes. They have also been known to wear their gang colours when at auctions — a move designed to intimidate rival bidders.

The outlaw bikie world remains in a constant state of tension, with smaller clubs at risk of violent takeover by the Hells Angels, Bandidos, Rebels, Outlaws, Black Uhlans and Nomads.

Police in Sydney are facing bikie violence as gangs battle to gain control of the lucrative nightclub drug scene. Just this week a bomb exploded outside a Hells Angels clubhouse in Sydney.

Similar battles have broken out on the Gold Coast. Unlike the Melbourne underworld war, in which victims were shot in ambushes, the Finks and Hells Angels went to war in a crowd of 1600 people at a kickboxing event on the Gold Coast.

In Geelong the Rebels' headquarters was fire-bombed in April and the Bandidos' clubhouse was sprayed with bullets. Earlier this month two gunmen shot four Rebels gang members in an Adelaide nightclub.

Police say outlaw gangs in Australia have been pushing their way into nightclub ownership, club security, strippers, entertainment, modelling agencies and prostitution. They have attempted to buy a legal brothel using associates with no criminal records as a front.

In Melbourne, while bikies do not appear to own nightclubs — at least on paper — police intelligence shows gang associates own, run and control security at some venues.

Police say rival bikie gangs are trying to gain control of security at popular venues so they can green-light the distribution of their drugs through sanctioned dealers.

"Control the front door and you control who gets in. Control who gets in and you control the distribution of drugs," one senior policeman told The Age.

In Victoria, bikie headquarters are easily identified and heavily protected. The Special Operations Group has used bulldozers, a ram truck and explosives to gain access.

In Western Australia special anti-fortification laws have been passed to try to stop bikies building domestic forts in Perth. Police in Victoria may soon lobby for similar laws.

In the 1980s an Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence investigation into bikies codenamed Wingclipping found the gangs to be a serious organised crime threat.

The problems have only escalated in the past two decades. In Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers Global Crime Empire Canadian experts William Marsden and Julian Sher, say Australia has the highest number of bikies per capita in the world.

Marsden and Sher found that Australian bikies remain locked in a decade-long battle to control the country's slice of the massive amphetamine market that began in the mid-1990s. "Over the next five years, 32 bikies would die and many more would be beaten as the Hells Angels, Bandidos and other clubs fought over the amphetamine trade."

In fact it was in the mid-1970s that the Hells Angels pioneered the trade in Australia — and first established the international nature of Bikie Inc.

PETER John Hill was not an average bikie. The former private school boy and son of a bank executive loved motorbikes and became an original Melbourne Hells Angel.

Hill became friendly with senior Californian Angels, including hitman James Patton "Jim Jim" Brandes. When Hill visited the Oakland Chapter, Brandes took him to prison to meet the gang's amphetamine expert — Kenny "KO" Walton.

Walton told Hill how to make speed and later mailed him a detailed recipe. In return Melbourne Hells Angels organised to smuggle a vital ingredient for amphetamine production to the US gang.

At the time the chemical P2P was difficult to source in the US but remained freely available in Australia. Hill and his team filled three-litre Golden Circle pineapple tins with the chemical and mailed them, two at a time, to the Oakland chapter. After 50 deliveries the Californian gang had sufficient to make $US50 million in speed.

Bob Armstrong was the Victorian policeman who would spend half a career in investigations, surveillance and undercover work that centred on the bikies. His original team smashed the Hells Angels Greenslopes amphetamines lab in 1982, finding three kilograms of speed, cash, handguns and a machine-gun.

Later he received a call from Peter Hill's mother, Audrey, telling the detective that a US hitman was on his way to kill him. The suspect was grabbed as he walked from his plane into Melbourne Airport. He was Jim Jim Brandes.

Peter Hill later fell out with the Angels and in an act of revenge he sold the original speed recipe to a rival gang for just $1000. That gang was the Black Uhlans, whose founding members included the ambitious John William Samuel Higgs, later to become the biggest speed producer in Australia.

Higgs was in constant trouble with the police as a teenager, with his first conviction recorded at 13. He later gathered convictions as varied as manslaughter and the illegal possession of a stuffed possum. Higgs was to become wildly rich and showed his gratitude to his gang by donating its Melbourne clubhouse. In return he was made a life member.

Higgs was the target of eight National Crime Authority, federal and Victorian police operations from 1985, including Australia's longest-running drug investigation, codenamed Phalanx. This eight-year inquiry led to the arrest of 135 people and the seizure of chemicals with the potential to make amphetamines valued at $200 million. The money made by some bikies places them squarely on the A-list of crime. The investment portfolio of some gangs is vast. Police say some have invested heavily in natural resources, including Australian mining and Indonesian oil rigs. One illiterate ex-labourer and former bouncer known as the "Maltese Falcon" controlled a real estate portfolio worth $3.3 million, 70 motorcycles and two Rolls-Royces.

Bikies have also infiltrated government departments to access confidential computer records.

Investigating hardcore bikie gangs is notoriously difficult. They are usually security conscious, rarely trust outsiders and use expendable "hang-arounds" and "prospects" to complete low-end criminal activities.

They often have signs plastered on phones to remind them they may be bugged — although recently several forgot and used the phone to try to organise a quick insurance scam. The slip-up resulted in a successful prosecution.

They also have professionals electronically "sweep" their clubhouses after police raids looking for listening devices.

Routinely police find witnesses go cold. A tow truck driver who removed a bikie's vehicle seized by police was later bashed. A safe expert who opened a bikie safe after a police raid found his business badly damaged by fire.

One man who made a statement against a bikie was at first forced to move from Melbourne, and when he was told he would end up in the cemetery, fled the country.

One man who woke up in hospital after being tortured told police he had no idea what had happened.

Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon this week defended the police response to bikie crime saying the problem was greater in some other states. "We are, in fact, working on these different bikie gangs. We are part of a whole national approach working on these bikie gangs."

But some police disagree. The specialist bikie unit in the organised crime squad has been closed during a restructure. Some senior members of the crime squad want the decision reviewed.

It is difficult but not impossible to infiltrate bikie groups. Ten years ago two Victoria Police code named Wes and Alby went undercover for 13 months to infiltrate the Bandidos as part of Operation Barkly.

Alby and Wes were involved in more than 30 deals buying marijuana, amphetamines, LSD and ecstasy from Bandidos in three states.

They were so trusted that Alby became the secretary-elect for the Ballarat chapter, giving him access to the club's financial records.

Police eventually arrested 20 bikies as a result and uncovered plans for the gang to open nightclubs in Geelong and Ballarat as fronts for drug dealing.

Operation Barkly was closed because of the danger to the undercover police. During the investigation three Bandidos, including president Michael "Chaos" Kulakowski, were murdered.

Bikies pride themselves on protecting and dealing with their own, but there is a limit.

Earlier this year a senior member of the Hells Angels was expelled and tortured. All his gang memorabilia was taken from him. The gang tattoos were said to have been removed with a steam iron. His crime? He was out of control and bringing too much attention to the gang. He was also alleged to have broken the sexual rules of the Angels. For years the man was untouchable to police. A suspect in three murders and a raft of serious crimes going back over a decade, he had intimidated witnesses to the point that each case collapsed. But after he was cut loose and the Angels made it clear he was on his own, witnesses were prepared to stand up against him. He has now been charged with extortion, sex offences and making threats to kill.

On Wednesday Christopher Hudson walked into the Wallan police station after hours of negotiation, a frightened and relieved man. He knew that his former associates in the Hells Angels had cut him loose — and without their network he realised there was nowhere to hide. He also knew that if he tried to run he would have had the police and the bikies chasing him.

Police would have tried to take him alive. The bikies may not have been so kind. Hudson's guilt or innocence will be decided by a jury selected from the broader community. He is perhaps lucky to have avoided judgement by his peers in the bikie world.

John Silvester is senior crime reporter.

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