Pubdate: Tue, 08 Jun 2004
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2004 New Zealand Herald
Contact:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: Greg Ansley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hallucinogens.htm (Hallucinogens)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?188 (Outlaw Bikers)

THE LONG ARM OF THE OUTLAWS

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. .

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."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager