Man linked with Mongols ‘caught with drugs, cash, knife’
- Trenton Akers, Brooke Baskin
- The Courier-Mail
- February 26, 2015 5:43PM
Police will allege they a stopped the 33-year-old Carrara man in a Broadbeach car park on Thursday and found $7000, methamphetamines, cannabis and a hunting knife.
The search was a result of a Taskforce Maxima investigation.
The male was arrested and charged with three counts of possession of dangerous drugs and one count each of supply dangerous drug, possession of knife in public place, possession of property used in a drug offence, breach of bail and possession of proceeds of crime.
The man was due to appear in Southport court on Friday.
Meanwhile, the national president of the Bandidos has been granted bail after bad blood with a former friend and ex-gang member landed him in jail a month ago over allegations he extorted a Sunshine Coast business.
Jason Murray Addison, 50, from Victoria, was granted bail in the Supreme Court at Brisbane on Thursday subject to multiple conditions, including that he report to police, surrender his passport and provide a $50,000 surety to secure his release.
Justice Jean Dalton said Addison had a limited criminal history and there was no evidence he was a risk of flight, risk of reoffending or would fail to honour the conditions of bail if granted release.
Addison, a stonemason by trade, has been in the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre on remand since his arrest in January.
He was charged with stealing a motorbike from an ex-member of the Bandidos, allegedly as retribution for that person being kicked out of the gang, and for dishonestly filling out the transfer of ownership forms relating to the bike on January 20, 2013.
Detectives from Taskforce Maxima also charged Addison with extortion after he allegedly threatened the same 41-year-old ex-member from Beerwah into signing over a stone masonry business for $200,000.
Addison allegedly threatened the ex-member until the business was transferred to his name while the purchase price of the transfer was allegedly understated so that not enough stamp duty was paid.
Barrister Saul Holt, for Addison, said his client would strongly challenge the alleged victim’s credibility in court.
He said the complainant was a long-standing Bandidos member on the Sunshine Coast who introduced Addison to the club during a friendship that began many years ago.
“The complainant also confirms as recently as the time of this alleged offence he was angry at my client for essentially kicking him out of the club. The complainant was going to Melbourne to make representations to get back in to the Bandidos,” Mr Holt said.
“So, there’s a whole lot of history here and a whole lot of information about the complainant and his relationship with my client, which gives rise to real concerns about the question of credibility.”
He said the transfer of the business left a “worthless” business that had been “run into the ground” in Addison’s hands and was “a perfectly ordinary” business transaction in that light.
Jodie Wooldridge, for the Crown, argued Addison’s offending involved alleged threats of violence towards the owner of the business and his wife.
Ms Wooldridge said the complainant agreed to purchase the stone masonry business for $203,000 but when Addison had him expelled from the Bandidos he also “demanded” he hand over the business.
She said Addison was the national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Gang, an organisation allegedly involved in criminal activity, and was likely to wield significant influence.
Justice Dalton said Addison was in a show-cause position due to his membership to a prescribed criminal organisation.
She said credit issues were likely to “loom large” at any future trial because the alleged victim was also a member of the Bandidos who was in conflict with Addison at the time of the offending.
But she found Addison was not an unacceptable risk of endangering the safety of the community and could be managed with suitable bail conditions.