Escalating tensions among players linked to outlaw motorcycle gangs in the Illawarra have prompted the state’s elite, “in-your-face” bikie strike force to move into the region.
Raptor South is charged with disrupting and dismantling the gangs, before things gets bloody. Angela Thompson reports
A bikie-friendly blogger named Boris went along for the ride one day in May 2016 as 130 Black Uhlans MC riders thundered through the Illawarra.
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It was the club’s annual Ride to Win run, Boris wrote, and the leather-clad, self-described outlaws waved at children as they rolled out, bound for one pub that would reject them (Burrawang) and another that allowed them inside (Jamberoo).
The ride started at 7/23 Kemblawarra Road, Warrawong, part of an industrial lot in a partially residential street, home to the Uhlans’ South Coast chapter.
Boris wrote appreciatively of the sound – “grumbling like an avalanche” as the pack departed the clubhouse.
“It’s like being inside a savagely speeding thunderstorm,” he said.
But Kemblawarra Road is quiet now.
Lake Illawarra licensing police, assisted by Raptor South - the newly installed local arm of the state’s anti-gangs squad, Strike Force Raptor - raided the site on April 6, seizing everything but the too-heavy pool table.
There was no stripper pole – strange for a bikie clubhouse - but a makeshift stage suggested the site had hosted entertainment. Its operation as an unofficial bar – contrary to licensing laws and the site’s development consent - allowed law enforcement to rip it apart.
The emptied site was mysteriously gutted by fire 10 days later.
It joined a long line of the state’s once-heaving bikie clubhouses now consigned to the scrapheap as part of a sustained push by law enforcement to stamp out the clubs.
Nine years after Strike Force Raptor was formed, with a brief to pro-actively disrupt and dismantle organised criminal group syndicates, the 23-man Raptor South set up a base at Lake Illawarra in April.
Detective Superintendent Deb Wallace, commander of the Criminal Groups Squad, said several drive-by shootings in the area, and acts of public place violence – including an alleged plot by a fledgling Illawarra chapter of the all-but-extinct Brothers 4 Life to kill Finks bigshot Troy Forniciari –signaled an escalation in tensions and prompted Raptor’s move south.
“We’re looking for opportunities to disrupt and disable OMCGs wherever they are,” Supt Wallace said.
“But in particular, when they start to display public acts of violence and indiscriminate acts of violence, that’s when we really turn up the heat.”
Supt Wallace believes the Brothers 4 Life revival was the work of a handful of Wollongong men looking to get a foothold in the region by using a notorious name.
The group is alleged to include Andrew Coe, 27, Damien Featherstone, 29, Richard Dutton, 29 and Gregory Parker, 25. According to the Daily Telegraph, Featherstone called the shots, ordering members to hide guns and track down ammunition, with the aim of exacting revenge on Forniciari.
“It appeared to me to be the beginning of what could be tit-for-tat acts of violence,” Supt Wallace said. “That’s what gangs do when they’re are looking to claim territory.”
“We like to get in early, before it escalates. That’s why we’re really focused in the Illawarra.”
Court documents allege Fornaciari directed fellow gang members and associates into criminal activity, notably drug deals.
Strike Force Raptor allegedly found drugs, a loaded firearm and a stolen Toyota Hilux in a February raid on his North Wollongong warehouse home, which they believe was to become a Finks clubhouse. Fornaciari has pleaded not guilty to 12 offences.
Once a clubhouse starts to establish, we find that people with serious criminal histories from other parts of NSW … come down. They’re like mushrooms that pop up out of the ground. Our job is to pull them out and wait for the next one to pop up.
The Fourth Reich, with a rumoured membership of about 80 and a base at Albion Park, is the Illawarra’s biggest motorcycle gang.
Lake Illawarra licencing sergeant Gary Keevers bristles when he hears people suggest the bikies are “nice old men” who should be left alone.
“If the Fourth Reich want to take off their one percenter patches, then they can be treated that way,” he said.
“But they refuse.”
Sgt Keevers has shut down Rebels clubhouses at South Nowra, in Johnson Street, Kiama (2008), Browns Road, Kiama (2013) and Unanderra (2012).
He says the clubhouses pose a threat to public safety because they are not built according to legislated standards, including fire-safe standards.
As well, they serve as a magnet for more bikies, he says.
“Once a clubhouse starts to establish, we find that people with serious criminal histories from other parts of NSW … come down. They’re like mushrooms that pop up out of the ground. Our job is to pull them out and wait for the next one to pop up.”