Speaker 1: It's a very well been called outlaws, but once you're
Speaker 1: in the club, you're not an outlaw. Really, you've got
Speaker 1: to do with the president or the sergeant at arms
Speaker 1: orders and disobeying could be fatal. These hungry, ambitious, anxious
Speaker 1: youngsters do the dirty work and dangerous work for those
Speaker 1: who use them to create fear, recavoc, shoot people, break bones,
Speaker 1: and all the rest of it, ultimately to make money
Speaker 1: for the bosses at the top, not for themselves. I'm
Speaker 1: Andrew Rulers's Life and Crimes. I was recently discussing things
Speaker 1: with my colleague Mark Butler, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: there's been a big murder trial in recent times involving
Speaker 1: an outlaw motorcycle gang which can't be named. And he said,
Speaker 1: there's been a remarkable amount of evidence led in that trial,
Speaker 1: with testimony from insiders witnesses who have been members of
Speaker 1: this notorious biker gang, who are in many ways typical
Speaker 1: of the sort of guys who are in all the
Speaker 1: biker gangs. You know, this may or may not be
Speaker 1: a Hell's Angel or an outlaw or a rebel or
Speaker 1: any of the big outlaw gangs, because essentially they're similar
Speaker 1: in many ways, and we discussed all list, and he
Speaker 1: showed me the notes he'd taken from that trial. And
Speaker 1: I've sat down in the last couple of days and
Speaker 1: written a reasonably long story based on filleting out the
Speaker 1: most interesting bits of the evidence given by insiders in
Speaker 1: a murder trial. And these are people who know what
Speaker 1: they're talking about, and they've been cross examined. And I
Speaker 1: think some of them, these witnesses who cannot be named
Speaker 1: and will never be named, some of them have decided
Speaker 1: that they be better off to tell a truth or
Speaker 1: their version of the truth in court and be quit
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, then to stay tied down to
Speaker 1: the biky world, because they realized that at some point
Speaker 1: it would consume them. It's a dog eat dog world.
Speaker 1: In the pressure cooker of an outlaw motorcycle gang, the
Speaker 1: patches and place names change, but the punchline stays the same.
Speaker 1: Every dog has his day, but when the sun sets,
Speaker 1: he's roadkill. That means, when the sun sets for him,
Speaker 1: he's roadkill. In the ruthless hierarchy of the pack, the
Speaker 1: big dog stands over the rest right up until they
Speaker 1: turn on him. In one notorious gang, the one we're
Speaker 1: talking about the top Dog's authority was tested some time
Speaker 1: ago when a rank and file member got a bit
Speaker 1: dirty and he called the president exactly that, He called
Speaker 1: him a dog. That tiny little three letter word can
Speaker 1: be a death warrant, at best, a ticket to the
Speaker 1: intensive careward. In this case, the gang men are concerned
Speaker 1: was subjected to punishment that she might associate with something
Speaker 1: like an IRA terror squad. I'll tell you what they did.
Speaker 1: I think there were three of them. While two heavyweight
Speaker 1: bikers grabbed the offending associate of theirs and held him
Speaker 1: down by his arms on the ground. A third one,
Speaker 1: a man who weighs something like one hundred and twenty kilos,
Speaker 1: a really big heavy guy, jumped all over his legs
Speaker 1: with boots on and scrambled his legs to bits. He
Speaker 1: kicked them to a pulp. He broke bones everywhere, and
Speaker 1: in fact, there's a name for it. They called it
Speaker 1: spaghetti legs. They turned his legs into sticks of spaghetti
Speaker 1: after the spaghetti's been broken and cooked. That is the
Speaker 1: sort of stuff they do. That was because he said
Speaker 1: something like, oh, he's a dog about the president of
Speaker 1: their club. Imagine what they do if it was a
Speaker 1: more serious transgression. So these outlaw gangs run on these
Speaker 1: savage displays of violence for two reasons, reasons that are
Speaker 1: closely linked. First of all, the few at the top
Speaker 1: of the food chain want everyone below them to be
Speaker 1: compromised by committing the sort of serious crimes that an
Speaker 1: undercover agent or informer or undercover police operator cannot commit.
Speaker 1: So if I'm in the Hell's Angels, let's say, and
Speaker 1: I take a gun and shoot somebody, or I do
Speaker 1: some really bad stuff, highly illegal, the sort of thing
Speaker 1: that's going to get you ten years in jail or more,
Speaker 1: it means that I've shown that I'm willing to do it,
Speaker 1: and it also compromises me. I'm incriminated forever. So they
Speaker 1: really do want the people around them to do serious
Speaker 1: violent crimes and also serious drug crimes, because it incriminates them.
Speaker 1: And not only it's useful for the bosses to have
Speaker 1: people doing what they want them to do at no
Speaker 1: risk to the boss, it means that the people that
Speaker 1: are doing the dirty work and spilling the blood and
Speaker 1: running the drugs, those guys are in a position then
Speaker 1: that they probably can't blow the whistle on the rest
Speaker 1: because they themselves will end up in court and in jail.
Speaker 1: The second part of this, and it interlocks with that
Speaker 1: first one, is that those at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: food chain are very keen to catch the selector's eye.
Speaker 1: They're a bit like rookie footwalls who lay really hard
Speaker 1: tackles and kick goals at training because they're desperate to
Speaker 1: prove themselves worthy of full team status and of course
Speaker 1: the rewards that would bring well the dubious rewards in
Speaker 1: the case of the Biki Kings. So these hungry, ambitious,
Speaker 1: anxious youngsters do the dirty work and dangerous work for
Speaker 1: those who use them to create fear, recavoc, shoot people,
Speaker 1: break bones, and all the rest of it, ultimately to
Speaker 1: make money for the bosses at the top, not for themselves.
Speaker 1: The result is an organization run rigidly on fear of
Speaker 1: punishment and reprisals. That is, as long as each soldier
Speaker 1: is willing to obey the hierarchy, even if it's against
Speaker 1: his own future interests. After this recent marathon court case
Speaker 1: in which outlaw gang members provided a rare glimpse into
Speaker 1: their gang culture, one long time observer who might have
Speaker 1: been a reporter, said to me, it's tough at the bottom,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a very wise line. It's a
Speaker 1: wise crack, but it's true. Those low down in the
Speaker 1: gang ranks, or those hanging around the fringes, if they're smart,
Speaker 1: might realize a bitter truth. They might realize that they're
Speaker 1: expendable pawns in a ruthless racket that protects the powerful,
Speaker 1: the manipulative, and the greedy. These once trusted members insiders
Speaker 1: gave an extraordinary insight into the secrets of one of
Speaker 1: the world's most feared outlaw gangs. They exposed a crime
Speaker 1: machine that runs on intimidation, heavy drug trafficking, and deck collection,
Speaker 1: its code of greed enforced with guns and acts of
Speaker 1: savagery like the leg breaking we just described before. These
Speaker 1: were totally frank accounts or appeared to be from men
Speaker 1: who had finally turned on their so called comrades and
Speaker 1: spoke candidly about how the gang operates and the rules
Speaker 1: that applied to them. So much for bang outlaws, They
Speaker 1: are governed by more rules in biker gangs than they
Speaker 1: ever were out in the street. One witness told the
Speaker 1: court that during his time in this particular club, well
Speaker 1: known club, this one, he had bashed stabbed and shot
Speaker 1: people for the club on orders for the club, not
Speaker 1: for money. He even outlined how he'd agreed to carry
Speaker 1: out a contract killing. Now he didn't actually do the killing,
Speaker 1: but he agreed to do it, and he took steps.
Speaker 1: This witness telling this story says he put a tracking
Speaker 1: device on the proposed victim's car, and he was able
Speaker 1: to work out where this guy was at any one
Speaker 1: time so that he could follow him and ambush him
Speaker 1: and kill him. But he or they ultimately abandoned the plan,
Speaker 1: the hit plan, because the target rarely left the city
Speaker 1: the CBD, where if the hit was done, it would
Speaker 1: be hard to get away because of all the security
Speaker 1: cameras that are set up in the city. So there's
Speaker 1: an interesting point. If you want to stay clear of
Speaker 1: someone who wants to kill you, you know a professional hit
Speaker 1: man scenario, hang around in the casino where there are
Speaker 1: many many cameras, and then get over in the CBD
Speaker 1: where there are many more cameras, and do not go
Speaker 1: floating around out in the outer suburbs where there are
Speaker 1: no cameras, because that's when you might hit your troubles.
Speaker 1: It was fortunate for the target that he'd hung around
Speaker 1: the city at this point, because the man telling the
Speaker 1: story made it clear he was only too willing, as
Speaker 1: they say in the trade, he was only too willing
Speaker 1: to shoot somebody even before he joined the gang, the
Speaker 1: Biki gang. In fact, he was cross examining court about
Speaker 1: how he'd shot a man who owed him money for drugs.
Speaker 1: But this is back in the days when he was
Speaker 1: just running around being a bad guy and not even
Speaker 1: a Biki And he said, oh, yeah, I did that.
Speaker 1: This fellow owed me money for drugs, and I caught
Speaker 1: up with him and he starts to run away, and
Speaker 1: I said stop running, and he didn't stop running. He
Speaker 1: kept running. So I shot him twice. I shot him
Speaker 1: in the buttocks and in the legs as a warning.
Speaker 1: And that was just his idea of doing business. One
Speaker 1: year he said he was paid to shoot two people,
Speaker 1: but not to kill them. He wounded both of them
Speaker 1: with a gun, exactly as requested. Another aspect of this
Speaker 1: interesting trial, with all this evidence from these insiders, is
Speaker 1: that it underlined how all these teenage car thefts that
Speaker 1: Melbourne is full of currently tie into serious organized crime,
Speaker 1: especially arson i e. Tobacco war and shootings. Also tobacco
Speaker 1: war most of it. Gang members said that stolen cars,
Speaker 1: which they call hotties, are vital for anyone who wants
Speaker 1: to torch buildings or shoot people. These cars are generally
Speaker 1: supplied by others, notably through exploiting these mad teenagers who
Speaker 1: are willing to do aggravated burglaries to get the keys
Speaker 1: to steal cars in return for drugs or small amounts
Speaker 1: of cash. So these kids, and we've discussed it in
Speaker 1: this very studio with the mother of one of these kids,
Speaker 1: out there pinching Oudis and Porsches and all sorts of
Speaker 1: BMWs and merks, high end cars that go fast and
Speaker 1: go around corners, and they do it almost for the
Speaker 1: thrill of it. They get a little bit of money
Speaker 1: or a little bit of drugs, and they hand the
Speaker 1: cars over to middlemen or criminal middlemen or bad guys
Speaker 1: who then supply them to these bikis and serious, serious
Speaker 1: crooks who are going to use them to do murders
Speaker 1: or do arsons, which are potential murders. So those guys
Speaker 1: that burnt down the house at Trauga Nina the other
Speaker 1: night and burn to death that young woman, she was
Speaker 1: just a new bride, essentially totally innocent person. Those guys
Speaker 1: were driving what police described as a vehicle similar to
Speaker 1: a BMW X three, which is code for it probably
Speaker 1: was a BMW X three. It will have been stolen
Speaker 1: by some lunatic kid out there in the urb some
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen year old probably and handed over to
Speaker 1: some for three points of ice or something, or three
Speaker 1: hundred bucks or whatever. And those guys have used that
Speaker 1: car to go and burn down a double story house
Speaker 1: which has got a totally innocent woman in it, and
Speaker 1: she's burnt to death. I hope those kids are pleased
Speaker 1: with themselves. To be honest, the gang mainly is stolen
Speaker 1: carst to shoot people, to kill people. That's because stolen
Speaker 1: cars are disposable, which makes committing crimes easier to plan.
Speaker 1: Because the gunment or arsonists just torched the car. When
Speaker 1: they abandon it, it gets rid of the fingerprints, it
Speaker 1: gets through of the evidence, gets rid of DNA, they
Speaker 1: torture it. Funny little PostScript to that is this guy
Speaker 1: pointed out that not every car is a stolen car
Speaker 1: or a hottie. He said, in one case, we were
Speaker 1: going to do a job, meaning an arsenal or a shooting,
Speaker 1: and they were delivered a car to a particular venue
Speaker 1: by the owner of the car, who said, I'm happy
Speaker 1: for you to use it, providing your burnet straight afterwards
Speaker 1: because I want to collect the insurance. So an owner
Speaker 1: had delivered his own car to the gang because he
Speaker 1: wanted to collect the insurance. And so on top of
Speaker 1: all their other crime shootings, arson bashings, major drug dealing,
Speaker 1: their insurance frauds. These witnesses told the court that the
Speaker 1: gangs used a network of encrypted devices, generally known as
Speaker 1: cipher phones. This is the short version of the word
Speaker 1: used for a particular brand, CEIPHR. These are no longer
Speaker 1: legally sold in Australia, but they're un doubtedly silly news,
Speaker 1: I guess while as a demand for them, there will
Speaker 1: always be a supply of them. Sometimes the members of
Speaker 1: the gang would meet in person, not just over the phone.
Speaker 1: These ones would meet at an outer suburban gym right
Speaker 1: out east of Melbourne well out. They would meet at
Speaker 1: say a strip club in Dandyknong or something like that.
Speaker 1: They would meet at a nature reserve somewhere where they
Speaker 1: could just pull up and walk around and have a chat,
Speaker 1: or certain restaurants where they liked the food I guess
Speaker 1: and imagine that are restaurants where they'd be hard to
Speaker 1: be watched by police. You'd think their security was tight
Speaker 1: the way they tell it, But so was the surveillance
Speaker 1: that the police mounted on the gang and on its associates.
Speaker 1: What the members imagined were confidential discussions occasionally reached the
Speaker 1: police's ears. In one instance, there were two members of
Speaker 1: the gang sitting in a BMW car belonging to one
Speaker 1: of them, and they were discussing, in a private discussion,
Speaker 1: just to chat between mates, the future of their gang president.
Speaker 1: Now this is dangerous stuff. This is the guy. If
Speaker 1: you call him a dog, you get your legs broken
Speaker 1: the first time, and if you did it again, they'd
Speaker 1: probably should you. So this is pretty tricky stuff. And
Speaker 1: they're having a bit of a chat about the big fella,
Speaker 1: and this is all being recorded on the police listening
Speaker 1: device in the car, and they're tuning in and taping this.
Speaker 1: The first witness says, how do you reckon it's going
Speaker 1: to end? Do you reckon he'll retire or do you
Speaker 1: think he puts in a word here that we won't
Speaker 1: repeat are going to kick him out? Second witness says,
Speaker 1: I don't see him retiring. First witness says, you reckon,
Speaker 1: he's going to be like sixty years old and trying
Speaker 1: to tell us what to do. Second witness, Nah, because
Speaker 1: if he retires, remember he's going blind. If he retires,
Speaker 1: he loses all power. No one will be his friend.
Speaker 1: And of excerpt. Now, when these guys were asked in
Speaker 1: court about where that conversation was heading, the first witness
Speaker 1: was very keen to play it down. He said, that's
Speaker 1: just a hypothetical. He said, that's frustration. We're saying, what
Speaker 1: do you think will happen in the future. He is
Speaker 1: very keen to duct the inference that they were considering
Speaker 1: getting rid of the boss, because that could be fatal.
Speaker 1: The other thing they said was that junior members were
Speaker 1: regarded as totally unproven, so the less they knew, the
Speaker 1: less they might reveal if they were indiscreet or arrested
Speaker 1: and started talking to police. Not even all patched members
Speaker 1: were fully trusted. But one of these key witnesses, and
Speaker 1: there were probably three or four of them in the case,
Speaker 1: one of the key witnesses pointed out there was more
Speaker 1: to being trusted than just the ability to keep quiet.
Speaker 1: There was constant motivation to admit violence to curry favor
Speaker 1: upstairs upstream with the bosses, and those most willing to
Speaker 1: commit violence were trusted most. He said, the very willing
Speaker 1: could rise through the ranks pretty swiftly, not that the
Speaker 1: reward for rising through the ranks meant a lot more
Speaker 1: than a constant supply of strippers and cocaine, was the
Speaker 1: way he put it. The nominees or prospects that were
Speaker 1: made into full members were usually given what they call
Speaker 1: a patch party, I think at the clubhouse. At the
Speaker 1: gang clubhouse, the witness said, the gang president control debt collection,
Speaker 1: often done for commission on behalf of others who were
Speaker 1: owed money. So Joe Blogs might be in the building
Speaker 1: game or whatever it is. He's owed a lot of
Speaker 1: money by somebody and he can't get it. So he
Speaker 1: goes along to these bikies and says, Joe, the guse's
Speaker 1: may half a million. What will it cost to collect it?
Speaker 1: And they say they might go halves. I don't know,
Speaker 1: they might sixty forty. They take a very large chunk.
Speaker 1: But the recipient, the client, is keen to get some
Speaker 1: money back, even if it's only half, or maybe a
Speaker 1: bit more than half. Because it's a lot better than none.
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt that Bikey's trade on the fear
Speaker 1: that the patch inspires in the general public in order
Speaker 1: to collect debts, because it's very easy money for those
Speaker 1: who are doing it, and it's not overly dangerous. You
Speaker 1: get cash from scared people and you take half it
Speaker 1: in your hand. The rest of the other way easy.
Speaker 1: The witnesses pointed out that members could not just go
Speaker 1: and do whatever they liked. It's a very well been
Speaker 1: called outlaws, but once you're in the club, you're not
Speaker 1: an outlaw. Really, You've got to do with the president
Speaker 1: or the Sergeant at arms orders and disobeying could be fatal.
Speaker 1: Now there's an example of this, a bloke called Kerry
Speaker 1: chiacumas he was a hell Angel associate from Adelaide. He
Speaker 1: comes across from Adelaide. I think he flew over. He
Speaker 1: walked into the Gang's Nomad's Chapter clubhouse in Thomastown in
Speaker 1: the early hours of June tenth, twenty twenty. Now this
Speaker 1: is very early in the COVID times, so whether he
Speaker 1: flew over or drove over, I'm not sure actually, but
Speaker 1: it was that first few months of COVID. The theory
Speaker 1: is that his body was removed some time later after
Speaker 1: an attack by a senior Hell's Angel with a long
Speaker 1: history of violence. Now, the circumstances about this murder are
Speaker 1: totally unclear because no one's talking but the dead man's
Speaker 1: South Australian comrades, some of whom came across the Melbourne
Speaker 1: with him, are known to be angry. So far, that's
Speaker 1: not translated into anything to help police, and no charges
Speaker 1: have been laid. Kerry Geacumus's killer is protected by soldiers
Speaker 1: sort of low rent members, gang members whose lives he
Speaker 1: the killer, undoubtedly considers equally disposable. In other words, the
Speaker 1: big boss that ordered the killing or did the killing
Speaker 1: of this Fircomis guy is been protected by other individuals
Speaker 1: in his club who he would be quite happy to
Speaker 1: dispose of if it suited him. This is the unequal
Speaker 1: in built inequality of the gang structure, that the guys
Speaker 1: at the bottom take all the risks for the benefit
Speaker 1: of a few guys at the top. It's the same
Speaker 1: in all the one percent of gangs. The only real
Speaker 1: loyalty is to the dirty money that flows to the top.
Speaker 1: He is another thing these gang members. These witnesses in
Speaker 1: this trial, they disagree with the legal and sociology theorists
Speaker 1: who state that criminals ignore consequences. They say that, you know,
Speaker 1: punishments don't mean anything to young criminals because they don't
Speaker 1: care about consequences. But apparently, in the real, real world
Speaker 1: of the motorcycle gangs, consequences matter a lot because they're
Speaker 1: very big, they're very serious. It appears, in fact, that
Speaker 1: these heavyweight crooks do not ignore them if the consequences
Speaker 1: are frightening enough. When one of these spokes was asked
Speaker 1: in court, who be directed to carry out violent crimes
Speaker 1: on behalf of the president, he said, well, whoever he asks,
Speaker 1: whoever is a sign to it, or whoever's around, I
Speaker 1: guess ask why they did not carry out work without direction?
Speaker 1: He replied with one word, consequences. So there we have it.
Speaker 1: You don't do anything that you're not told to do,
Speaker 1: or else you'll be on the receiving end of the
Speaker 1: flogging or the shooting, or the burning, or possibly all three.
Speaker 1: This trial also provided insights into how the justice system
Speaker 1: can be gained or roughted. One witness testified that gang members,
Speaker 1: like other criminals, stashed guns ahead of time to use
Speaker 1: as a bargaining chip if they were later charged, the
Speaker 1: idea being that they quote recover the guns for the
Speaker 1: police to win a lighter sentence for helping the authorities
Speaker 1: locate weapons. It's the perfect rout. You get arrested, you
Speaker 1: go into the talk to the police. They say, you've
Speaker 1: got anything for us, And a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: guess I could help you with something and play the
Speaker 1: long game and hard to get and all that, and
Speaker 1: ultimately lead the police to a stash of guns that
Speaker 1: you've put there two years before, and by yourself a
Speaker 1: bit of breathing space, say well, that's got to be
Speaker 1: worth years off. That's going to be worth a letter
Speaker 1: of comfort from the judge or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: The same witness that talked about salting the mind with
Speaker 1: the guns said that the system could also be stooged
Speaker 1: through lengthy overseas stays. And he said that he'd gone
Speaker 1: on an overseas holiday at some time in the past
Speaker 1: and he was about to come home when he got
Speaker 1: news that an extortion charge was being leveled against him
Speaker 1: back here in Australia, and so he thought, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't think i'll fly home and he brought another ticket
Speaker 1: to another destination overseas. He stayed over there. He obviously
Speaker 1: had enough resources, had enough cash to stay overseas for
Speaker 1: a fair while, and eventually the heat wore down. He
Speaker 1: must have had lawyers and others back in Australia keeping
Speaker 1: an eye on things, and eventually he thought it was
Speaker 1: safe to return, and indeed it was. He flew back
Speaker 1: to Australia and the extortion charge had been dropped. It
Speaker 1: just never went anywhere, so he was able essentially to
Speaker 1: wait it out, not so much stare it down as
Speaker 1: waited out, which is intriguing. Although you do wonder if
Speaker 1: someone somewhere might have been helping him there. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say. The same blog had a few other tricks
Speaker 1: to beat the system. He says that he was making
Speaker 1: a bail application using a drug counselor's report, and the
Speaker 1: idea was that his bail application depended on him appearing
Speaker 1: to be a very serious drug user who needed help
Speaker 1: with his drug abuse, and he needed to talk to
Speaker 1: his drug counselor every day and all that good stuff,
Speaker 1: and the drug counselor who's good at playing the game,
Speaker 1: because this is what they do for a living told
Speaker 1: him to say that he was using cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, methemphetamine,
Speaker 1: and pills. The reality was that this report was grossly
Speaker 1: and deliberately exaggerated. This is what the witness said. The
Speaker 1: drug counselor told me to say it because he said,
Speaker 1: I can't use a drug counselor if I don't have
Speaker 1: a bad drug habit. So I had to, you know,
Speaker 1: make the story more colorful. This is what he stole
Speaker 1: the court. Another witness told the court that his journey
Speaker 1: into the gang began when he talked to the gang
Speaker 1: boss about his prospects. The boss told him that joining
Speaker 1: the club was not going to make him rich exactly,
Speaker 1: but it was more about being part of a brotherhood.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. This witness had become what they call a
Speaker 1: nominee to be assessed by the gang while he decided
Speaker 1: whether the outlaw life was really for him. As a nominee,
Speaker 1: he stepped up at the request of the president of
Speaker 1: the club. He stood in a suburban driveway and he
Speaker 1: shot up a vehicle with a high powered weapon to
Speaker 1: scare someone who owed money. Now that's a crime that
Speaker 1: could get you many years in jail. To stand in
Speaker 1: the middle of a driveway in a busy suburb where
Speaker 1: people are living and sleeping and eating and driving past,
Speaker 1: and to shoot up a car with essentially a military weapon.
Speaker 1: If you caught doing that, you are going to go
Speaker 1: away for a farewell. This guy played the card and
Speaker 1: it worked. He was patched into the gang for that
Speaker 1: one brazen criminal act. It was only later he thought
Speaker 1: about how much jail time he risked just to collect
Speaker 1: the debt for people who were taking no risk at all,
Speaker 1: and he realized that he was being treated like a patsy,
Speaker 1: like a pawn, like a dill, like a mugget. And
Speaker 1: that's when he started to think about how it was
Speaker 1: even harder to get out of the gang than it
Speaker 1: was to get into it. He decided he wanted out
Speaker 1: when he realized he was a pawn in someone else's game.
Speaker 1: He was a clown in someone else's circus, really, and
Speaker 1: he could be sacrificed at any time, just as he'd
Speaker 1: seen other people sacrificed. He could be the one with
Speaker 1: his head on a chopping block. But he knew that
Speaker 1: leaving the club could invite terrible repercussions. At the very least,
Speaker 1: having his legs broken but possibly being shot. Because people
Speaker 1: that leave the club go out with certain knowledge and
Speaker 1: secrets and things, and the club doesn't encourage that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. They'd rather have people inside the tent with
Speaker 1: them than outside. But this guy noticed a loophole. He
Speaker 1: noticed that occasionally there'd be members with obvious drug habits
Speaker 1: drug problems, who were using drugs more and more, becoming
Speaker 1: a ratic and unreliable, and he noticed that those guys
Speaker 1: were just kicked out of the club because they were
Speaker 1: sort of embarrassments. Although therese gangs want a deal in
Speaker 1: drugs and run them up the highways and distribute them
Speaker 1: to country towns and cities and all the rest of
Speaker 1: it and ruin everybody else's life, they're not so keen
Speaker 1: on their own members ruining their lives and screwing up
Speaker 1: the club business. And so when one of their members
Speaker 1: does that, they quietly kick him out the back door.
Speaker 1: They get rid of them. And this bloke thought there's
Speaker 1: a loophole. So what he started to do was post
Speaker 1: stuff online on social media of himself with drugs, himself
Speaker 1: with drug paraphernalia, and he made sure that he sounded
Speaker 1: loose as a goose, out of it and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. And that was his trick to unhook
Speaker 1: himself from the club without actually it being a fatal engagement.
Speaker 1: And he lived to tell the tale, but others might
Speaker 1: not have because ladies and gentlemen in the outlaw biky world,
Speaker 1: it's tough at the bottom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for
Speaker 2: True crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns,
Speaker 2: features and more, go to Haroldson dot com dot au,
Speaker 2: forward slash Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go
Speaker 2: to news podcasts sold at news dot com dot au.
Speaker 2: That is all one word news podcasts sold. And if
Speaker 2: you want further information about this episode, links are in
Speaker 2: the description.