THE heat in the simmering bikie turf war in the Hunter region of NSW has been turned up another notch after one gang refused an olive branch from their feuding opponents to cease hostilities and rid both groups of unwanted police attention.
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Fairfax Media has learnt that police have been placed on high alert following intelligence that a peace deal proposed by the Nomads bikie gang to bring an end to the spree of drive-by shootings and bashings was flatly refused by the Finks.
The spurning is believed to have angered sections of the Hunter-based Nomads, who may feel humiliated after attempting to broker the deal despite several members “patching over” and strengthening the Finks bikie gang, still relative newcomers to the region after moving south from the mid-north coast.
Authorities are so concerned of a re-emergence of hostilities, including the possibility the Nomads may try to save face, that a memo was sent through police ranks warning them of the potential for further attacks.
Fairfax Media revealed on Tuesday that the Sydney-based gangs squad had joined forces with local investigators to set up Strike Force Batterson in direct response to the growing feud between the Nomads and Finks.
It even attracted strong words from the state’s gang squad’s commander, Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace, who warned that “[the bikies] have escalated their actions so we will escalate our attention.’’
Following several defections of Nomads and a Comanchero to the Finks last year, the two gangs came to violent blows on a Wallsend street, near Newcastle, in December after packs of members belonging to both gangs coincidentally turned up at neighboring service stations.
There were several other reported bashings before it escalated to drive-by shootings, including one on March 29 at the Wallsend residence of a local Nomads enforcer, where more than 30 rounds were pumped into a large block of units using a semi-automatic weapon as scores of innocent residents slept in their beds nearby.
That attack followed drive-by shootings of the Nomad’s headquarters at Islington and the home of a former Nomad, and now Finks gang member, at Metford, near Maitland NSW.
There was also a crude firebombing attempt at the Hunter Valley clubhouse of the Nomads at Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter, which has since been dismantled by the anti-bikie squad Strike Force Raptor.
It is understood some of the Nomads’ senior hierarchy had grown tired of the amount of police attention the fued had been attracting and wanted to formally end hostilities with the Finks.
But their adversaries are believed to have refused the peace deal outright.
