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BANDIDOS IN CASTLE HILL – Bikie Clubhouse
The Bandidos bikie gang – participants in the 1981 Milperra massacre that claimed seven lives in a shootout with the rival Comancheros – has set up a clubhouse in Castle Hill.
Detective Sergeant Graeme Wright, the crime manager of Castle Hill Police, who transferred to Mt Druitt on Friday, confirmed the clubhouse’s existence in an industrial unit on Carrington Road.
“We were alerted to the Bandido’s presence by businesses in the area about two weeks ago and are well aware of the clubhouse,” he said. “No offences have been committed but police at Castle Hill will be pro-actively patrolling the area. If any illegal activity is discovered it will be dealt with quickly.”
When the Hills News called on the unit late last week, the premises was barred and locked. But a local businessman said the place came alive late on Thursday when 30 bikes were parked in the complex.
“Normally you only see a few people – they’re hardly ever here – and they seem like ordinary tradesman, electricians, plumbers, etc, though some wear their jackets. They started setting the place up a couple of weeks back.”
The businessman, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said no one had any complaints “so far”.
However, a long-term resident of Carrington Avenue, who also declined to be identified (“too fearful” she wrote), has written to the Baulkham Hills Mayor, Sonya Phillips, and the News outlining her grave concerns. “I am very distressed and full of fear that the Bandidos motorcycle gang have taken occupation of the unit almost adjoining council and in the same block as the pool hall that young people frequent,” she said. “This is an organization that has a reputation for drugs, violence and anti-social behaviour.
“They have already started meeting, as of last night [Sunday, August 22], making plenty of noise with their bikes and cars and [being visible] in groups. Very intimidating, even from inside my home.”
Cr Phillips said she had asked council staff to investigate. The Milperra Massacre of Father’s Day 1984 took place in the car park of the then Viking Tavern.
In a murderous shootout between the Bandidos and the Comancheros, six gang members and a 14-year-old bystander, Leanne Waters, were gunned down in the long-running feud.
The Bandidos had broken away from the Comancheros and there was intense rivalry between them and other outlaw gangs for control of the cocaine trade and the manufacture and supply of speed (amphetamines) – plus car-stealing, rebirthing and money laundering.
Three years after the massacre, 31 bikies – 18 Bandidos and 13 Comancheros – were found guilty of murder, manslaughter and affray.
The depleted Bandidos moved to South Australia but came back, stronger than ever, to set up a new chapter in Blacktown with a country chapter in northern NSW. They have spread their wings since then. In the intervening years, most of the gangs have been raided by police taskforces on numerous occasions after murder, tit-for-tat shootings, baseball bat beatings and other mayhem.
On May 26 this year, more than 350 police officers targeted 30 homes in NSW, Queensland and South Australia, and arrested 20 members of five different bikie gangs (Hell’s Angels, Rebels, Gypsy Jokers, Nomads and Finks) over an amphetamine racket worth $22 million.
At the height of the second Bikie War of ’93 – ( how come I never heard about it????)in which several men were killed, others went missing, clubhouses shot up in drive-bys, and about 30 Harley riders left maimed as walking-wounded – police estimated that 700 members of the main gangs in NSW, including the Bandidos, wore their club “colours”.
Bikies are intensely loyal and don’t talk, thanks to an often savage ritual initiation, making police intelligence-gathering all but impossible.WANK WANK WANK
