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."