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~Wolf From Atlanta~
[NZ] The long arm of the outlaws
Sat Jun 5, 2004 6:48pm
65.45.167.33
The long arm of the outlaws
06.06.2004
Australia's notorious bikie gangs are moving out of the city to
spread an ever-growing criminal network across the country and to
links overseas, including New Zealand. GREG ANSLEY reports.
Sprawling quietly around the Macquarie River in the central west
of New South Wales, the farming service city of Dubbo does not
often impose itself on the rest of Australia.
The huge Western Plains Zoo sits just outside town, with its
exotic animals and breeding programmes for endangered species,
and it was at Dubbo that 19th-century magistrate Thomas Browne
wrote the Australian classic Robbery Under Arms. But mostly the
city is outside the mainstream.
A week ago that changed. Armed police hit the town without
warning as part of a co-ordinated series of early-morning raids
across rural NSW, Queensland and South Australia, radiating out
from a big amphetamine-manufacturing laboratory at Biddon, on the
Mitchell Highway north of Dubbo.
In the days that followed, the scale of the operation became
apparent: the raids, involving 350 police and national
intelligence and co-ordination, netted amphetamines worth A$22
million ($24.4 million) and A$1 million ($1.1 million) of
cannabis. Twenty people were arrested.
Even more significant was the nature of the drug network that was
rolled up. The key players are allegedly members or associates of
the Rebels, Outlaws, Hell's Angels, Finks and Gypsy Jokers
motorcycle gangs, running a syndicate that avoided the big
cities, instead operating along the truck routes linking rural
backblocks to the main distribution centres of the eastern
seaboard.
Dubbo was an ideal base, the confluence of the Newell, Mitchell
and Golden Highways and the eastern termination centre for the
huge road trains that keep Australia moving. From Dubbo, trucks
run five hours to Sydney, four to Newcastle, and 10 hours to
Brisbane and Melbourne.
A trucking firm was at the heart of the syndicate broken by the
police of three states after an 18-month surveillance operation,
confirming suspicions that outlaw motorcycle gangs were creating
sophisticated, diverse and flexible drug manufacturing and
distribution networks.
The nature of bikie crime also appears to be evolving away from
the hell-raising image and into a lower profile that tries to
avoid the limelight, involving liaisons of convenience between
traditionally warring gangs and a range of both legal and illicit
entities.
Motorcycle gangs are now frequently incorporated, some with their
names and badges trademarked, and protected by high-priced
lawyers who construct legal corporate frameworks and represent
members in court. In at least one case in Australia, a gang's
lawyers mounted a constitutional challenge to the legality of
police operations.
Uncovering the true extent of bikie involvement in organised
crime is fraught with difficulty and danger, hampered by the
gangs' rigid organisation, discipline and a strict code of
silence.
In Sydney, Comancheros sergeant-at-arms Ian Clissold battered
another gang member to death for breaching club rules, and
informing can bring a similar death sentence.
So far, nationwide powers introduced three years ago to break the
code of silence, including penalties of up to five years' jail or
A$20,000 ($22,200) in fines, have failed to crack open the gangs.
Police accept that many bikies may be thugs and small-time crooks
but not part of serious organised crime. Gang lawyers have
pointed to the failure of the former National Crime Authority -
now superseded by the Australian Crime Commission - to clearly
establish gangs as major players.
But there is a wide acceptance that a hard core within the gangs
has established significant links to other organised crime groups
and branched out into sophisticated criminal enterprises.
Key among these is the manufacture, distribution and sale of
amphetamines, the fastest-growing segment of the Australian drug
market. The annual Australian Illicit Drug Report has identified
motorcycle gangs as important stakeholders in the booming
industry, often serviced by highly mobile laboratories.
Three years ago federal authorities reported that police across
Australia had busted more than 200 backyard amphetamine
laboratories - a fourfold increase in five years, with more than
half operated by bike gangs.
The latest Illicit Drug Report, released this week by the crime
commission, said that police uncovered 314 Ecstasy and
amphetamine laboratories in 2002-03, producing a still-rising
flood of drugs. More than 200kg of methamphetamines, worth A$300
million ($334 million), were seized.
Federal Justice and Customs Minister Chris Ellison praised a new
strategy to choke the illegal flow of chemical precursors to
backyard manufacturers - but the report noted that as local
supplies dried up, imports rose. Customs agents, for example,
found 22kg of ephedrine powder, used in illicit drug factories,
on a ship docked in Darwin.
This discovery also pointed to growing concerns of the contacts
between bike gangs and international organised crime. Although
gang leaders deny it in their rare public comments, investigators
in Australia and overseas believe outlaw motorcycle clubs are
developing sophisticated global networks between themselves and
with established crime syndicates.
Australian authorities are increasingly involved with
investigators in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Europe
and Scandinavia, with rumoured international gang summits and,
locally, plans to carve up territories and amalgamate smaller
clubs into the major gangs - by force if necessary.
In North America the Outlaws manufacture drugs in Canada and
distribute them through Chicago, and buy cocaine from Colombian
and Cuban suppliers. The club is also involved in extortion,
contract murders, robbery, prostitution and illegal firearms.
The Bandidos operate similar ventures, running drugs across
borders on aircraft flown by their own pilots, and since 1978
have operated closely with the Outlaws, even jointly owning a
nightclub in Oklahoma City.
The Hell's Angels produce methamphetamine, phencyclidine, LSD and
marijuana, allegedly use diplomats to smuggle cocaine, run
organised prostitution and operate huge car and motorcycle
"rebirthing" networks - making stolen vehicles appear
legitimate with forged identification numbers.
All three have chapters in Australia, with regular contact
between them and chapters in other countries, confirmed both by
Australian police and by an Interpol operation called Project
Rockers, which tracked international links between the gangs
themselves and with other syndicates, including the Mafia and
Columbian cocaine cartels.
US investigators have also noted the growing sophistication of
bike gangs, with members and associates gaining degrees in
computer science, finance, business, criminal justice and law.
Police also fear infiltration and corruption. In the Northern
Territory soldiers have allegedly traded weapons and high-tech
equipment, including night-vision gear, with local gangs. Last
year confidential documents compiled by NSW anti-gang
investigators were leaked to bikies and some serving police
officers were reported to be members of the Rebels club.
Police have now joined forces nationally to combat what they
consider to be national crime syndicates, co-operating through
federal agencies as well as running their own operations.
The task is formidable: more than 30 gangs with a combined
membership of about 4000, links to other crime groups and
involved in drugs, prostitution, company takeovers, protection
and standover rackets and truck, car and motorcycle rebirthing.
The gangs are also branching out. The Australian Institute of
Criminology says, for example, that outlaw motorcycle gangs and
Asian crime figures are now operating in the abalone black
market.
In Adelaide, gangs moved into the security industry, with
corporate interests in at least two private security companies.
In January, a dispute between Hell's Angels and Finks over
control of city nightclubs erupted into violence.
This month the South Australian police and Attorney-General's
Department will produce a new plan to push bikie gangs out of the
security industry.
Earlier police sweeps in NSW revealed other dealings, including
the confiscation of property worth A$3.65 million ($4 million)
from the Bandidos. Among the assets seized were units in Sydney's
upmarket Double Bay and Potts Point, and a A$600,000 ($667,000)
clubhouse in Pyrmont.
Amphetamine laboratory raids in the state netted senior officers
of the Gypsy Jokers, Bandidos, and Nomads and broke up another
drug distribution network running down the east coast.
Explosives, a submachine gun, an assault rifle, and an assortment
of other rifles and pistols were seized.
South Australia Premier Mike Rann made an outraged statement to
the state Parliament after Gypsy Jokers president Steve Williams
appeared on television claiming his gang was not a criminal
organisation.
Rann said the five gangs in his state - Gypsy Jokers, Hell's
Angels, Bandidos and Rebels - had established lines of command
back to organised crime operations in the US, according to
briefings by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York
Police Department.
Between April 1999 and October last year, South Australian police
seized from the five gangs more than 200 firearms, hundreds of
rounds of ammunition, and Taser stun guns. At one headquarters
they found deactivated machine guns, mortar cannons,
anti-aircraft guns, and silencers.
As well as firearms, police took knuckledusters and other
weaponry - including crossbows, machetes and batons -
hydroponically grown cannabis valued at more than A$5 million
($5.6 million), A$250,000 ($280,000) worth of hydroponic
equipment and A$300,000 ($334,000) worth of amphetamines,
fantasy, Ecstasy, steroids and LSD. Gang members were also
arrested for murders and attempted murders, bombing rival gangs
and serious assaults.
"Let me assure you that the Gypsy Jokers do not have
fortified headquarters and razor wire because they are trying to
protect their gym equipment," Rann said. "Let us be
under no illusion: these bikie gangs are involved in criminal
activities ... [and] it is imperative that we as a Parliament
take the lead in this issue.
"It is about the safety of our community and the welfare of
our children."
