Behind the doors of Australia's bikie gangs

Andrew Rulers's Life and Crimes. I was recently discussing things with my colleague Mark Butler, and he said, you know, there's been a big murder trial in recent times involving an outlaw motorcycle gang which can't be named. And he said, there's been a remarkable amount of evidence led in that trial, with testimony from insiders witnesses who have been members of this notorious biker gang, who are in many ways typical of the sort of guys who are in all the

biker gangs. You know, this may or may not be a Hell's Angel or an outlaw or a rebel or any of the big outlaw gangs, because essentially they're similar in many ways, and we discussed all list, and he showed me the notes he'd taken from that trial. And I've sat down in the last couple of days and written a reasonably long story based on filleting out the most interesting bits of the evidence given by insiders in a murder trial. And these are people who know what

they're talking about, and they've been cross examined. And I think some of them, these witnesses who cannot be named and will never be named, some of them have decided that they be better off to tell a truth or their version of the truth in court and be quit of the whole thing, then to stay tied down to the biky world, because they realized that at some point it would consume them. It's a dog eat dog world.

In the pressure cooker of an outlaw motorcycle gang, the patches and place names change, but the punchline stays the same. Every dog has his day, but when the sun sets, he's roadkill. That means, when the sun sets for him, he's roadkill. In the ruthless hierarchy of the pack, the big dog stands over the rest right up until they

turn on him. In one notorious gang, the one we're talking about the top Dog's authority was tested some time ago when a rank and file member got a bit dirty and he called the president exactly that, He called him a dog. That tiny little three letter word can be a death warrant, at best, a ticket to the intensive careward. In this case, the gang men are concerned was subjected to punishment that she might associate with something like an IRA terror squad. I'll tell you what they did.

I think there were three of them. While two heavyweight bikers grabbed the offending associate of theirs and held him down by his arms on the ground. A third one, a man who weighs something like one hundred and twenty kilos, a really big heavy guy, jumped all over his legs with boots on and scrambled his legs to bits. He kicked them to a pulp. He broke bones everywhere, and in fact, there's a name for it. They called it spaghetti legs. They turned his legs into sticks of spaghetti

after the spaghetti's been broken and cooked. That is the sort of stuff they do. That was because he said something like, oh, he's a dog about the president of their club. Imagine what they do if it was a more serious transgression. So these outlaw gangs run on these savage displays of violence for two reasons, reasons that are

closely linked. First of all, the few at the top of the food chain want everyone below them to be compromised by committing the sort of serious crimes that an undercover agent or informer or undercover police operator cannot commit. So if I'm in the Hell's Angels, let's say, and I take a gun and shoot somebody, or I do some really bad stuff, highly illegal, the sort of thing that's going to get you ten years in jail or more, it means that I've shown that I'm willing to do it,

and it also compromises me. I'm incriminated forever. So they really do want the people around them to do serious violent crimes and also serious drug crimes, because it incriminates them.

And not only it's useful for the bosses to have people doing what they want them to do at no risk to the boss, it means that the people that are doing the dirty work and spilling the blood and running the drugs, those guys are in a position then that they probably can't blow the whistle on the rest because they themselves will end up in court and in jail.

The second part of this, and it interlocks with that first one, is that those at the bottom of the food chain are very keen to catch the selector's eye. They're a bit like rookie footwalls who lay really hard tackles and kick goals at training because they're desperate to prove themselves worthy of full team status and of course the rewards that would bring well the dubious rewards in

the case of the Biki Kings. So these hungry, ambitious, anxious youngsters do the dirty work and dangerous work for those who use them to create fear, recavoc, shoot people, break bones, and all the rest of it, ultimately to make money for the bosses at the top, not for themselves. The result is an organization run rigidly on fear of punishment and reprisals. That is, as long as each soldier is willing to obey the hierarchy, even if it's against

his own future interests. After this recent marathon court case in which outlaw gang members provided a rare glimpse into their gang culture, one long time observer who might have been a reporter, said to me, it's tough at the bottom, and I think that's a very wise line. It's a wise crack, but it's true. Those low down in the gang ranks, or those hanging around the fringes, if they're smart,

might realize a bitter truth. They might realize that they're expendable pawns in a ruthless racket that protects the powerful, the manipulative, and the greedy. These once trusted members insiders gave an extraordinary insight into the secrets of one of the world's most feared outlaw gangs. They exposed a crime machine that runs on intimidation, heavy drug trafficking, and deck collection, its code of greed enforced with guns and acts of

savagery like the leg breaking we just described before. These were totally frank accounts or appeared to be from men who had finally turned on their so called comrades and spoke candidly about how the gang operates and the rules that applied to them. So much for bang outlaws, They are governed by more rules in biker gangs than they

ever were out in the street. One witness told the court that during his time in this particular club, well known club, this one, he had bashed stabbed and shot people for the club on orders for the club, not for money. He even outlined how he'd agreed to carry out a contract killing. Now he didn't actually do the killing, but he agreed to do it, and he took steps.

This witness telling this story says he put a tracking device on the proposed victim's car, and he was able to work out where this guy was at any one time so that he could follow him and ambush him and kill him. But he or they ultimately abandoned the plan, the hit plan, because the target rarely left the city the CBD, where if the hit was done, it would be hard to get away because of all the security cameras that are set up in the city. So there's

an interesting point. If you want to stay clear of someone who wants to kill you, you know a professional hit man scenario, hang around in the casino where there are many many cameras, and then get over in the CBD where there are many more cameras, and do not go floating around out in the outer suburbs where there are no cameras, because that's when you might hit your troubles.

It was fortunate for the target that he'd hung around the city at this point, because the man telling the story made it clear he was only too willing, as they say in the trade, he was only too willing to shoot somebody even before he joined the gang, the Biki gang. In fact, he was cross examining court about how he'd shot a man who owed him money for drugs. But this is back in the days when he was just running around being a bad guy and not even a Biki And he said, oh, yeah, I did that.

This fellow owed me money for drugs, and I caught up with him and he starts to run away, and I said stop running, and he didn't stop running. He kept running. So I shot him twice. I shot him in the buttocks and in the legs as a warning. And that was just his idea of doing business. One year he said he was paid to shoot two people, but not to kill them. He wounded both of them

with a gun, exactly as requested. Another aspect of this interesting trial, with all this evidence from these insiders, is that it underlined how all these teenage car thefts that Melbourne is full of currently tie into serious organized crime, especially arson i e. Tobacco war and shootings. Also tobacco war most of it. Gang members said that stolen cars, which they call hotties, are vital for anyone who wants

to torch buildings or shoot people. These cars are generally supplied by others, notably through exploiting these mad teenagers who are willing to do aggravated burglaries to get the keys to steal cars in return for drugs or small amounts of cash. So these kids, and we've discussed it in this very studio with the mother of one of these kids, out there pinching Oudis and Porsches and all sorts of BMWs and merks, high end cars that go fast and go around corners, and they do it almost for the

thrill of it. They get a little bit of money or a little bit of drugs, and they hand the cars over to middlemen or criminal middlemen or bad guys who then supply them to these bikis and serious, serious crooks who are going to use them to do murders or do arsons, which are potential murders. So those guys that burnt down the house at Trauga Nina the other night and burn to death that young woman, she was

just a new bride, essentially totally innocent person. Those guys were driving what police described as a vehicle similar to a BMW X three, which is code for it probably was a BMW X three. It will have been stolen by some lunatic kid out there in the urb some fifteen or sixteen year old probably and handed over to some for three points of ice or something, or three

hundred bucks or whatever. And those guys have used that car to go and burn down a double story house which has got a totally innocent woman in it, and she's burnt to death. I hope those kids are pleased with themselves. To be honest, the gang mainly is stolen carst to shoot people, to kill people. That's because stolen cars are disposable, which makes committing crimes easier to plan.

Because the gunment or arsonists just torched the car. When they abandon it, it gets rid of the fingerprints, it gets through of the evidence, gets rid of DNA, they torture it. Funny little PostScript to that is this guy pointed out that not every car is a stolen car

or a hottie. He said, in one case, we were going to do a job, meaning an arsenal or a shooting, and they were delivered a car to a particular venue by the owner of the car, who said, I'm happy for you to use it, providing your burnet straight afterwards because I want to collect the insurance. So an owner had delivered his own car to the gang because he wanted to collect the insurance. And so on top of all their other crime shootings, arson bashings, major drug dealing,

their insurance frauds. These witnesses told the court that the gangs used a network of encrypted devices, generally known as cipher phones. This is the short version of the word used for a particular brand, CEIPHR. These are no longer legally sold in Australia, but they're un doubtedly silly news, I guess while as a demand for them, there will always be a supply of them. Sometimes the members of the gang would meet in person, not just over the phone.

These ones would meet at an outer suburban gym right out east of Melbourne well out. They would meet at say a strip club in Dandyknong or something like that. They would meet at a nature reserve somewhere where they could just pull up and walk around and have a chat, or certain restaurants where they liked the food I guess and imagine that are restaurants where they'd be hard to

be watched by police. You'd think their security was tight the way they tell it, But so was the surveillance that the police mounted on the gang and on its associates. What the members imagined were confidential discussions occasionally reached the police's ears. In one instance, there were two members of the gang sitting in a BMW car belonging to one of them, and they were discussing, in a private discussion, just to chat between mates, the future of their gang president.

Now this is dangerous stuff. This is the guy. If you call him a dog, you get your legs broken the first time, and if you did it again, they'd probably should you. So this is pretty tricky stuff. And they're having a bit of a chat about the big fella, and this is all being recorded on the police listening device in the car, and they're tuning in and taping this. The first witness says, how do you reckon it's going

to end? Do you reckon he'll retire or do you think he puts in a word here that we won't repeat are going to kick him out? Second witness says, I don't see him retiring. First witness says, you reckon, he's going to be like sixty years old and trying to tell us what to do. Second witness, Nah, because if he retires, remember he's going blind. If he retires, he loses all power. No one will be his friend.

And of excerpt. Now, when these guys were asked in court about where that conversation was heading, the first witness was very keen to play it down. He said, that's just a hypothetical. He said, that's frustration. We're saying, what do you think will happen in the future. He is very keen to duct the inference that they were considering getting rid of the boss, because that could be fatal.

The other thing they said was that junior members were regarded as totally unproven, so the less they knew, the less they might reveal if they were indiscreet or arrested and started talking to police. Not even all patched members were fully trusted. But one of these key witnesses, and there were probably three or four of them in the case, one of the key witnesses pointed out there was more to being trusted than just the ability to keep quiet.

There was constant motivation to admit violence to curry favor upstairs upstream with the bosses, and those most willing to commit violence were trusted most. He said, the very willing could rise through the ranks pretty swiftly, not that the reward for rising through the ranks meant a lot more than a constant supply of strippers and cocaine, was the way he put it. The nominees or prospects that were made into full members were usually given what they call

a patch party, I think at the clubhouse. At the gang clubhouse, the witness said, the gang president control debt collection, often done for commission on behalf of others who were owed money. So Joe Blogs might be in the building game or whatever it is. He's owed a lot of money by somebody and he can't get it. So he goes along to these bikies and says, Joe, the guse's may half a million. What will it cost to collect it? And they say they might go halves. I don't know,

they might sixty forty. They take a very large chunk. But the recipient, the client, is keen to get some money back, even if it's only half, or maybe a bit more than half. Because it's a lot better than none. And there's no doubt that Bikey's trade on the fear that the patch inspires in the general public in order to collect debts, because it's very easy money for those who are doing it, and it's not overly dangerous. You get cash from scared people and you take half it

in your hand. The rest of the other way easy. The witnesses pointed out that members could not just go and do whatever they liked. It's a very well been called outlaws, but once you're in the club, you're not an outlaw. Really, You've got to do with the president or the Sergeant at arms orders and disobeying could be fatal. Now there's an example of this, a bloke called Kerry chiacumas he was a hell Angel associate from Adelaide. He

comes across from Adelaide. I think he flew over. He walked into the Gang's Nomad's Chapter clubhouse in Thomastown in the early hours of June tenth, twenty twenty. Now this is very early in the COVID times, so whether he flew over or drove over, I'm not sure actually, but it was that first few months of COVID. The theory is that his body was removed some time later after an attack by a senior Hell's Angel with a long

history of violence. Now, the circumstances about this murder are totally unclear because no one's talking but the dead man's South Australian comrades, some of whom came across the Melbourne with him, are known to be angry. So far, that's not translated into anything to help police, and no charges have been laid. Kerry Geacumus's killer is protected by soldiers sort of low rent members, gang members whose lives he

the killer, undoubtedly considers equally disposable. In other words, the big boss that ordered the killing or did the killing of this Fircomis guy is been protected by other individuals in his club who he would be quite happy to dispose of if it suited him. This is the unequal in built inequality of the gang structure, that the guys at the bottom take all the risks for the benefit of a few guys at the top. It's the same

in all the one percent of gangs. The only real loyalty is to the dirty money that flows to the top. He is another thing these gang members. These witnesses in this trial, they disagree with the legal and sociology theorists who state that criminals ignore consequences. They say that, you know, punishments don't mean anything to young criminals because they don't care about consequences. But apparently, in the real, real world of the motorcycle gangs, consequences matter a lot because they're

very big, they're very serious. It appears, in fact, that these heavyweight crooks do not ignore them if the consequences are frightening enough. When one of these spokes was asked in court, who be directed to carry out violent crimes on behalf of the president, he said, well, whoever he asks, whoever is a sign to it, or whoever's around, I guess ask why they did not carry out work without direction? He replied with one word, consequences. So there we have it.

You don't do anything that you're not told to do, or else you'll be on the receiving end of the flogging or the shooting, or the burning, or possibly all three. This trial also provided insights into how the justice system

can be gained or roughted. One witness testified that gang members, like other criminals, stashed guns ahead of time to use as a bargaining chip if they were later charged, the idea being that they quote recover the guns for the police to win a lighter sentence for helping the authorities locate weapons. It's the perfect rout. You get arrested, you

go into the talk to the police. They say, you've got anything for us, And a matter of fact, I guess I could help you with something and play the long game and hard to get and all that, and ultimately lead the police to a stash of guns that you've put there two years before, and by yourself a bit of breathing space, say well, that's got to be worth years off. That's going to be worth a letter of comfort from the judge or whatever it might be.

The same witness that talked about salting the mind with the guns said that the system could also be stooged through lengthy overseas stays. And he said that he'd gone on an overseas holiday at some time in the past and he was about to come home when he got news that an extortion charge was being leveled against him back here in Australia, and so he thought, oh, I don't think i'll fly home and he brought another ticket

to another destination overseas. He stayed over there. He obviously had enough resources, had enough cash to stay overseas for a fair while, and eventually the heat wore down. He must have had lawyers and others back in Australia keeping an eye on things, and eventually he thought it was safe to return, and indeed it was. He flew back to Australia and the extortion charge had been dropped. It just never went anywhere, so he was able essentially to wait it out, not so much stare it down as

waited out, which is intriguing. Although you do wonder if someone somewhere might have been helping him there. It's hard to say. The same blog had a few other tricks

to beat the system. He says that he was making a bail application using a drug counselor's report, and the idea was that his bail application depended on him appearing to be a very serious drug user who needed help with his drug abuse, and he needed to talk to his drug counselor every day and all that good stuff, and the drug counselor who's good at playing the game, because this is what they do for a living told him to say that he was using cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, methemphetamine,

and pills. The reality was that this report was grossly and deliberately exaggerated. This is what the witness said. The drug counselor told me to say it because he said, I can't use a drug counselor if I don't have a bad drug habit. So I had to, you know, make the story more colorful. This is what he stole the court. Another witness told the court that his journey into the gang began when he talked to the gang

boss about his prospects. The boss told him that joining the club was not going to make him rich exactly, but it was more about being part of a brotherhood. Oh yeah. This witness had become what they call a nominee to be assessed by the gang while he decided whether the outlaw life was really for him. As a nominee, he stepped up at the request of the president of the club. He stood in a suburban driveway and he shot up a vehicle with a high powered weapon to

scare someone who owed money. Now that's a crime that could get you many years in jail. To stand in the middle of a driveway in a busy suburb where people are living and sleeping and eating and driving past, and to shoot up a car with essentially a military weapon. If you caught doing that, you are going to go away for a farewell. This guy played the card and it worked. He was patched into the gang for that

one brazen criminal act. It was only later he thought about how much jail time he risked just to collect the debt for people who were taking no risk at all, and he realized that he was being treated like a patsy, like a pawn, like a dill, like a mugget. And that's when he started to think about how it was even harder to get out of the gang than it was to get into it. He decided he wanted out when he realized he was a pawn in someone else's game.

He was a clown in someone else's circus, really, and he could be sacrificed at any time, just as he'd seen other people sacrificed. He could be the one with his head on a chopping block. But he knew that leaving the club could invite terrible repercussions. At the very least, having his legs broken but possibly being shot. Because people that leave the club go out with certain knowledge and secrets and things, and the club doesn't encourage that sort

of thing. They'd rather have people inside the tent with them than outside. But this guy noticed a loophole. He noticed that occasionally there'd be members with obvious drug habits drug problems, who were using drugs more and more, becoming a ratic and unreliable, and he noticed that those guys were just kicked out of the club because they were

sort of embarrassments. Although therese gangs want a deal in drugs and run them up the highways and distribute them to country towns and cities and all the rest of it and ruin everybody else's life, they're not so keen on their own members ruining their lives and screwing up the club business. And so when one of their members does that, they quietly kick him out the back door. They get rid of them. And this bloke thought there's

a loophole. So what he started to do was post stuff online on social media of himself with drugs, himself with drug paraphernalia, and he made sure that he sounded loose as a goose, out of it and all the rest of it. And that was his trick to unhook himself from the club without actually it being a fatal engagement. And he lived to tell the tale, but others might not have because ladies and gentlemen in the outlaw biky world, it's tough at the bottom. Thanks for listening.