Bikies: not just good friends

Michael DuffySydney 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. Arecent 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 ManRunning

, a fine read by ex-Sunday journo Ross Coulthart and ex-NSW detective DuncanMcNabThe book looks at the crucial question: to what degree are Australia's motorcycle gangsinvolved in crime? Retired Melbourne academic Arthur Veno, the only source on this subjectfor 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 otherbikers protects this minority, making them chillingly effective in their work as drugmanufacturers, dealers and general enforcers.The gangs are active everywhere you look, from drug deals, drive-bys, bombings, thisweek's murder at Sydney Airport, and the war between gangs for control of the drug tradein Oxford Street and Kings Cross, which saw Todd Anthony O'Connor gunned down in Tempea few months ago.

Dead Man Running

is about one of the country's biggest gangs, the Bandidos. The storystarts in 1966 in Galveston, Texas, where former marine Donald Chambers was starting abiker gang named after some Mexican bandits. Seeking inspiration, he and his followersturned 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 theseguys."'The Bandidos flourished. In 1983 they set up their first clubhouse in Australia, in beautifulBirchgrove. They subsequently became one of this country's most potent gangs, involved inthe Milperra massacre, where they killed four members of a rival gang and lost two of theirown. Teenager Leanne Walters died in the crossfire.This book is a biography of Stevan Utah - not his real name - a criminal who became closeto the Bandidos for many years, although he never joined because he couldn't afford aHarley. He reckons there are 400 Bandidos in Australia today but he's not always good onfigures. He was valued by the bikers because he was a whiz at turning cheap coughmedicine 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 tothe Australian Crime Commission in return for indemnity on the fraud charges. For the nexttwo years he informed on the Bandidos, recording many conversations on a nifty recordingdevice disguised as a car's remote control. In 2006 the bikers came to suspect what he wasdoing and gave him a savage beating as a prelude to killing him. He escaped and is nowliving in another country under a new name.

Dead Man Running

is full of accounts of murder, mayhem and dirty dealing. To pick oneepisode almost at random: Utah claims to have known within 20 minutes who shot SydneyBandido president Rodney Monk outside Bar Reggio in East Sydney in 2006. He informedpolice 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 apistol.