What Biker Gang Colors Are Blue and White
According to the Australian Crime Commission, outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) are among the most identifiable components of Australia's criminal landscape.
The ACC says OCMGs are active in all states and territories and lists 44 as being of interest, with a total of 179 chapters and 4,483 members.
The Rebels gang boasts by far the biggest membership, at 25 per cent of the total, while the Bandidos have 7 per cent, the Outlaws and Hells Angels 6 per cent, Lone Wolf 5 per cent and Comancheros 5 per cent.
There has been a 48 per cent increase of OMCG chapters since 2007, according to the ACC.
The joint National Attero Task Force was set up in 2012 to target the Rebels, considered one of Australia's highest risk criminal threats, and claimed success by recovering $1.7 million owed to the Australian Taxation Office.
The authorities also laid 1,200 charges for such offences ranging from serious assault and kidnapping, to firearms, weapons, drugs, property and traffic offences.
Along with firearms, they recovered Tasers, machetes, knuckle dusters, throwing stars and illegal knives and batons.
Among the OMCGs of interest to Australian authorities, many have links with notorious overseas gangs.
Rebels
The Rebels are the only major home-grown gang and were formed in Brisbane several decades ago. They boast the country's biggest membership and have been tied to various execution-style killings over the past decade, including the murder of three members of rival club the Bandidos.
The ongoing war has seen the clubhouse of the Rebels' "mother" chapter in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Albion torched and shot at.
The Rebels have added suspected counterfeiting activities, tax evasion and trafficking stolen goods to their known involvement in drug manufacture and supply.
Bandidos
The Australian offshoot of the group formed in San Leon, Texas, claims to have formed in August 1983 when ex-members of the Comanchero club met and were "greatly impressed" by members of the American gang.
They were so impressed they split with Comanchero, causing an ongoing rift that culminated in the 1984 "Milperra Massacre" south-west of Sydney that left seven dead and 28 injured.
The Bandidos have been targeted by US law enforcement as one of the "big four" gangs involved in the drug trade, as well as arms dealing, money laundering, murder and extortion.
The US justice department regards them as a "growing criminal threat" to the country.
Hells Angels
The Hells Angels originated in California in the US and are easily the most notorious of the "1 per cent" bikie clubs - the ones that give 99 per cent of motorcyclists a bad name.
The gang operates in as many as 27 countries and poses a criminal threat on six continents, according to the US Department of Justice.
The club's criminal activities are known to include drug production, transportation and distribution, as well as extortion, murder, money laundering and motorcycle theft.
Membership in the US is limited to white males who cannot be into child molestation, and the club's website boasts that each of its members rides, on average, 20,000 miles a year.
In Australia, the club says it has 10 active chapters in all states except WA and Tasmania and also in the Northern Territory. Recent reports suggest that the Angels are trying to widen their footholds in the drug trade, bringing them in direct conflict with rivals such as the Comancheros.
Mongols
Formed in California in the 1970s, the Mongols Motorcycle Club is inspired (in name) by the empire of Genghis Khan and is believed to have about 70 chapters nationwide.
Many US members are former members of Los Angeles-area street gangs, leading the powerful US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to consider it the "most violent and dangerous" bikie gang operating there.
The Mongols, sworn enemies of the Hells Angels, boast of having chapters in the US, Mexico, Germany, Norway, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, Thailand and now Australia. Recent reports in the Fairfax media indicate the club has been scoping out territory for the club in Sydney and on Queensland's Gold Coast.
A patched member from the Mongols' France-based chapter had moved to the Gold Coast and aligned himself with the Finks, Fairfax reported last week, in an expansion bid.
Finks
The Finks arguably made their name in Australia after the "Ballroom Blitz", a gang fight with Hells Angels members at a Gold Coast kickboxing tournament in 2006 featuring guns, knives, knuckledusters and chairs.
According to recent reports, the Finks are planning to patch over their whole group to the international powerhouse Mongols in a bid to become the most-feared outlaw club in Australia and circumvent moves by authorities to have the club declared a criminal organisation under controversial anti-association laws.
The news comes in the wake of three public bikie brawls on the Gold Coast.
It is believed to also have prompted the Federal Government to send a new federal anti-gang squad to Queensland's Gold Coast to help the State Government in its crackdown on bikie gangs.
The patchover would involve the Finks swapping club support gear with Mongols "colours" and removing Finks club tattoos.
Comancheros
Thought to have instigated the Milperra massacre, the Comancheros are seen as encouraging a growing trend among bikie gangs to allow non-bikies to join.
The Daily Telegraph reported in August that the self-proclaimed national leader of the gang, Mark Buddle, had neither a motorcycle licence nor a bike.
"Show a modern Comanchero a motorbike and he wouldn't know how to ride it," former detective Duncan McNab told the paper.
"They are criminal gangs who sometimes get on a bike." The phenomenon has even spawned the phrase "Nike bikie", the paper wrote, as other bikie gangs look to recruit members to beef up their criminal activities.
The Victorian police earlier this month charged five members of the Comancheros over a recent spate of shootings in Melbourne's south-east.
All but one of the Comancheros were accused of running a debt-collecting syndicate which allegedly uses violent standover tactics to get money from victims.
Other prominent OMCGs
- Gypsy Jokers
- Black Uhlans
- Nomads
- Rock Machine
- Odin's Warriors
- Tramps (Wangaratta)
- Satan's Soldiers
- Diablos (Bandidos)
- Notorious
- Vikings
- Red Devils
- Coffin Cheaters
- Satan's Riders
- Devil's Henchmen
- Outlaws
Posted , updated
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/bikie-gangs-by-colours/4999510
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