Bikies: not just good friends

Michael Duffy
Sydney Melbourne Herald, March 23, 2009
Bikers are just about the closest Sydney has to a mafia these days. The reasons are simple:
they're loyal, secretive, prepared to be very violent, and have no respect for the law. A
recent book by a leading journalist makes this perfectly clear.
The following is based on a review I wrote for the Herald a few months ago about Dead Man
Running, a fine read by ex-Sunday journo Ross Coulthart and ex-NSW detective Duncan
McNab
The book looks at the crucial question: to what degree are Australia's motorcycle gangs
involved in crime? Retired Melbourne academic Arthur Veno, the only source on this subject
for most in the media, reckons only a tiny minority are criminals. The problem is that even if
he's right (and several cops I've asked say he is plain naive), the secretiveness of the other
bikers protects this minority, making them chillingly effective in their work as drug
manufacturers, dealers and general enforcers.
The gangs are active everywhere you look, from drug deals, drive-bys, bombings, this
week's murder at Sydney Airport, and the war between gangs for control of the drug trade
in Oxford Street and Kings Cross, which saw Todd Anthony O'Connor gunned down in Tempe
a few months ago.
Dead Man Running is about one of the country's biggest gangs, the Bandidos. The story
starts in 1966 in Galveston, Texas, where former marine Donald Chambers was starting a
biker gang named after some Mexican bandits. Seeking inspiration, he and his followers
turned to art. They consulted Hell's Angels, a new book by a fellow named Hunter S.
Thompson. "All of us read it to get some ideas on what we should be doing," recalled one,
"and then we looked at one another and said, 'Hell, we can do a lot better than these
guys."'
The Bandidos flourished. In 1983 they set up their first clubhouse in Australia, in beautiful
Birchgrove. They subsequently became one of this country's most potent gangs, involved in
the Milperra massacre, where they killed four members of a rival gang and lost two of their
own. Teenager Leanne Walters died in the crossfire.
This book is a biography of Stevan Utah - not his real name - a criminal who became close
to the Bandidos for many years, although he never joined because he couldn't afford a
Harley. He reckons there are 400 Bandidos in Australia today but he's not always good on
figures. He was valued by the bikers because he was a whiz at turning cheap cough
medicine and cold tablets into expensive recreational drugs. He also dealt in drugs himself
and was around when people were beaten up and killed.
In 2004 Utah was charged with 116 fraud offences in Queensland and decided to roll over to
the Australian Crime Commission in return for indemnity on the fraud charges. For the next
two years he informed on the Bandidos, recording many conversations on a nifty recording
device disguised as a car's remote control. In 2006 the bikers came to suspect what he was
doing and gave him a savage beating as a prelude to killing him. He escaped and is now
living in another country under a new name.
Dead Man Running is full of accounts of murder, mayhem and dirty dealing. To pick one
episode almost at random: Utah claims to have known within 20 minutes who shot Sydney
Bandido president Rodney Monk outside Bar Reggio in East Sydney in 2006. He informed
police and they went public with an appeal for Bandido Russell Oldham to hand himself in.
Three weeks later Oldham walked into the gentle surf at Balmoral and killed himself with a
pistol.
According to Utah, Oldham, like himself these days, was a "dead man running". "Let's say
he gets a 30-year sentence. That's a long time to deal with people beating the living shit out
of you [in prison] and if that hadn't happened, Bandidos would have f---ing got him. For
sure. He was a knock-on-sight."
Rather curiously, given the previous government's determination to withhold entry visas
from people of "poor" character, Bandidos from around the world attended Monk's funeral.
One local member assured the media there that the Bandidos had "put violence behind
them". A member of the God's Squad biker group told mourners that people such as Monk
represented something lost to Australian society: "community and loyalty to your mates".
In contrast with such rosy views, Utah says the gangs in general are mafia-like "mobsters".
In his account, those bikers not directly involved in serious crime facilitate it by maintaining
the secrecy, loyalty and reputation for extreme violence that make the many criminals in
their midst so effective. Bikers have an influence far beyond their numbers because of their
strong networks and the favours they're owed by the many other criminals who have called
on them for assistance in violent situations.
What do you think? Do we need more severe laws against biker gangs?
UPDATE
On Wednesday I removed a reference to Lebanese criminals in the above article. It was
relevant to what I was saying, but it seemed to be distracting a lot of people from the
matter at hand.

Posted by Michael Duffy

March 23, 2009 9:03 PM
L
http://blogs.smh.com.au/urbanjungle/2009/03/post.html