God Forgives, Bandidos Don't!
By Crikey's crypto-criminal correspondents, the Kooka Brothers
As gangland funerals go, the one we attended at Sydney's Carlingford last Thursday was pretty much par for the course. There was much cathartic kissing of the cadaver in the open coffin, the de rigueur selection of Frank Sinatra's My Way to express the departed's attitude to life – and the obligatory lies told about how the corpse with two gunshot wounds to the head had led an exemplary life devoted to the selfless service of his fellow man.
This then was how “the Bandido Nation,” as they call themselves, farewelled Rodney “Hooks” Monk, the gang's Sydney downtown chapter el presidente, who died in a pool of blood in little lane off an East Sydney eatery area known as Little Italy, the previous week.
Bandido Hooks was a 1%er – that is a bad-ar$ed outlaw motorcycle gangster who had committed some act of gratuitous violence that was sufficiently horrendous for him to be granted “fully-patched” membership to one of the world's most notorious outlaw bikie gangs. The red and yellow-coloured patch is of a fat Mexican bandit cartoon character brandishing a machete in one hand and a pistol in the other. They are not generally known for their pacifism.
The gang was founded in Texas in 1966 and it makes most of its money manufacturing and selling methamphetamines. As global organised crime statistics show, drug trafficking comes second in world economic terms to arms dealing and ahead of the oil industry. That is why organised crime figures and outlaw motorcycle gangs, like the Bandidos MC, are increasingly forming unholy alliances to control the drugs trade and are constantly engaged in turf wars.
The Kookas only have to look at this picture of fellow Bandido Russell Oldham, whom the NSW coppers have named as their chief suspect in Monk's murder, to know that this execution was drugs related. You don't get eyes like that from drinking milkshakes. Oldham is not availing himself of the opportunity to help police in their inquiries and has done a “Fat Tony” Mokbel.
According to his girlfriend Stephanie Roman, Bandido Hooks 1%er didn't drink, smoke or take drugs but loved “going to the beach, taking walks and having picnics”. Quite how he became a king pin in a violent outlaw bikie gang is beyond the combined comprehension of both the Kooka Brothers. Stephanie told The Terror she wants him to be remembered as a gentle and generous man, not a ruthless bikie gang president.
"It's just so not him, he was just not like that", she said of her boyfriend of nearly four years, three of which they shared at their Tamarama flat. “Everyone knew him as having that softer side, even though he was in that bike club world. He was so soft and so gentle. He was a beautiful, kind-hearted person", she told the paper.
There is always something surreal about most gangland funerals. At this one it was the sight of 500 big bad bikies blubbering into their beards while
the dead man's elder brother, Detective Inspector Brad Monk from the NSW Police, gave the eulogy. The Bandido brotherhood had come from all over Australia and from overseas to pay their respects. The Bandidos also have chapters in Europe, Asia and North America.
The gang has 12 chapters in Australia and they were represented by national president Jason Addington
and the local sergeant-at-arms, Ray "Chopper" Johnson – bizarrely a former NSW policeman. Is this gang well connected or what?
But the piece de resistance was yet to come. Outside the church, notorious armed robber and convicted rapist, Arthur Loveday, the Bandido's national public relations officer – if such a concept is not a contradiction in terms – said the gang had put violence behind them: "We've got enough to worry about fighting terrorists let alone fighting one another", he said. Loveday described the late member as "a sensitive, new age biker with a touch of royalty. I was his protege”, he said.
The Kookas have no doubt that Monk was assassinated in an internal Bandido power struggle to do with the drug trade in Sydney. The Sydney chapter has previously had business links to a well-known organised crime family. Its former clubhouse, in Harris St, Pyrmont, was raided about four years ago by gang squad officers targeting drug supply in the Parramatta area, resulting in several arrests.
At the time, the gang's president was Felix Lyle, but he lost the presidency to Monk and has since parted ways with the gang. According to The SMH: “Tensions had been simmering within the Bandidos since it had stripped Monk's predecessor, Felix Lyle, of his colours after a dispute over the gang's finances and an alleged assault of a gang member. Matters reached fever pitch when Lyle's 24-year-old son, Dallas Fitzgerald, was kidnapped. (Dallas Fitzgerald is currently before the courts charged with masterminding a $150 million sting on JP Morgan Chase Bank on Christmas Eve, 2003.)
“The Herald understands he was released on the payment of a large sum of money and the promise of a further $2 million…The resulting dispute threatened Monk's presidency, and it was against this backdrop that Oldham came out in support of Lyle.”
The Bandidos MC Australia was formed and chartered in August 1983 when Bandido “Snotgrass” Spencer and a few of his mates split from the Comanchero MC gang in Sydney and incinerated their Comanchero colours in a ceremonial act which made the mother gang very, very angry. This led to a shoot-out between the two gangs at the Viking Tavern in the Sydney suburb of Milperra on 2 September, 1984. The Milperra massacre left seven people dead – two Bandidos, four Comancheros and, tragically, 14-year-old Leanne Waters who was selling raffle tickets in front of the pub when the gun fight broke out.
Bandido “Snotgrass” 1%er was convicted of multiple counts of both murder and manslaughter and later topped himself in gaol. However, he was never considered a “sensitive new age biker”.
http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2006/05/02-0940-5744.html
