Outlaws: Inside the Violent World of Biker Gangs

by Thompson, Tony

  He also appeared in a video on the website of a local newspaper, decked out in full Angel regalia and again criticising the police. ‘It’s a completely over the top reaction,’ he said. ‘We accept the police have a responsibility for law and order, public safety, etc. But we police the site, there’s never any problems on the site. They have to look after the outside, and in the past they’ve had a couple of dozen police officers.

  ‘Last year and this year they spent £180,000 on equipment hire, which is twice what we spend on equipment hire for the whole show. I know the local people are very upset about … [the] roadblocks. I mean, what’s going on? This is a family event that’s gone on for twenty years without any problem.’

  Echo was supremely articulate and seemed a natural on camera, even eclipsing the likes of the late Maz Harris. Little wonder – his real name was Steve Jones and his day job was working as a BBC journalist, reporting for both television and radio. When his distinctive face and voice were recognised by colleagues, the BBC launched an inquiry into his (undeclared) extra-curricular activities. It transpired that Jones had previously received a warning from his bosses for presenting an item in a short-sleeve shirt, showing off his tattoos. Once they were satisfied that Jones was in fact Echo, the BBC dismissed him on the spot.

  While the police struggled to substantially link the Hell’s Angels with any kind of organised criminality, the Outlaws proved to be a far easier target. In November 2009, just a few months after he had appeared on Sky News, Dink and six other members of the club were caught red-handed with around £40,000 worth of amphetamines.

  North Wales Police had received a tip-off (from their Dyfed Powys colleagues) that drug exchanges were taking place between members of the North Wales Outlaws and representatives of the West Wales chapter. A surveillance operation was set up and when two members visited the Outlaws clubhouse in Colwyn Bay, the vehicle was later stopped in a seemingly random check near Betws-y-Coed and two kilos of amphetamine were recovered. Unaware that they had been compromised, the gang continued to move drugs around the country under the watchful eye of the police team. Two months later, a van was stopped on the A55 and a similar quantity of amphetamine was found hidden in the lining of the roof. Mobile phones were seized and showed a pattern of regular calls between Dink and other senior Outlaws around the time of each delivery. A raid on the Colwyn Bay clubhouse also unearthed a quantity of cocaine.

  Sentencing Dink to six years, Judge Merfyn Hughes QC said: ‘The Outlaws are a perfectly lawful organisation but you used your role as the European President to further your own criminal activities. You brought the organisation into disrepute by the wholesale and commercial supply of drugs.’

  For Boone, the arrest and incarceration of the club president was the final nail in the coffin. By now he had a new girlfriend, Sally. Although she rode a motorcycle herself and loved being around bikers, she was not part of the MC scene and despised it with a vengeance. At first, Boone had ignored her complaints. He had heard the same thing from other women in the past. They all tried to make a stand, but in the end they all came round, especially when they built up solid friendships with the old ladies of his club associates.

  But Sally stood firm. And finally, it seemed that Boone had caught up with her way of thinking. He had considered leaving in the days after Gerry Tobin had been shot and had become thoroughly disillusioned after the fallout from the Birmingham airport incident. He loved the club, the partying, the fights and the brotherly love. What he didn’t like was the paranoid skulking around in the dark, the constant hounding by police, the trying not to get shot, and the feeling that he would end up in prison. Plus, if he wanted to move on with his life, Sally had made it clear that she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of starting a family with a practising Outlaw.

  Leaving a one percenter club is hard but not impossible. For those who leave in ‘bad standings’ it means giving back any item bearing the name or logo of the club and often surrendering many of their personal items. The theory is that, because of your membership of the club, you have benefited financially and therefore many of your personal assets actually belong to the club. Any tattoos bearing the club logo must be removed or totally obscured. Some clubs insist on doing this themselves with the back of a hot spoon. Some unlucky former members have even had the skin cut off their arms with a razor blade.

  Those who leave in ‘good standings’ have it slightly better. The most favoured among them are allowed to officially retire, stitching a special patch to the front of their jackets to signify this. You are allowed to retire once and then come back – but only the once. Otherwise, people would retire from the club whenever a war was on and come back once the good times started up again.

  When you leave the club in this way, you are allowed to keep your tattoo but you must have the date that you left inscribed into it to show that you are no longer a member. If invited, you are allowed to attend clubhouse parties, mandatory runs and funerals, though many retired members simply leave everything about the club behind and get on with their lives.

  Boone knew the Outlaws would never let him go voluntarily. He had been there too long, knew too much and was too useful to them. If he was going to get out, Boone would have to make them want to get rid of him. In the end, the simplest route seemed to be to breach one of the key rules – no fighting with other members. Following a meeting in the Birmingham clubhouse one night in April 2009, Boone made his move.

  Although he had tried to keep his feelings to himself as much as possible, several of his close friends in the club knew what had been going through his mind. When he tried to deliberately pick a fight with one of them for no reason, he simply shook his head and walked away. ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ he said, ‘and I’m not prepared to help you out.’

  The next person Boone tried felt the same way and he was soon feeling increasingly frustrated. Drastic action was called for, so he came up with the most extreme solution he could think of. As head of security for the run to Birmingham, he was under orders to be armed at all times. He now took out the heavy silver revolver from the small of his back and pointed it directly at the head of one of the vice-presidents.

  The whole clubhouse fell silent. The VP’s head fell forward and he exhaled slowly. Disappointment and shock was etched all over his face. ‘What are you doing man?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I need out. I can’t take it any more.’

  ‘But not like this, not this way.’

  ‘It’s the only thing I can think of.’

  Boone had barely finished his sentence when the inevitable happened. Virtually every biker in the building pounced on him. He was quickly disarmed and knocked to the floor where punches and kicks rained down on him. As he tried to cover his face he was spun over on to his back. By now a few of the Outlaws had picked up makeshift weapons – pool cues, chair legs – and he could feel them impacting on his body.

  Then there were hands on his jacket, tearing at his top and bottom rockers, then at his centre logo, ripping the patches right off his back. Had he been a newer, less popular member, he probably would have been killed or, at the very least, left severely injured. But almost as quickly as it started, the beating stopped and Boone found himself being propelled through the reinforced door of the clubhouse.

  He was now an outsider in every sense of the word. He knew that within days, possibly within hours, members of the club would turn up at his house to ensure that everything connected to the Outlaws was removed or destroyed. He knew that he would be given just seven days to have his club tattoos covered up or removed. He knew nothing in his life would ever be the same again.

  For the first few weeks, he felt as though he had lost a limb. The club had been such a huge part of his life for so many years; he hadn’t registered just how much time it had taken up. But once the initial shock subsided, he could see that he had done the right thing. A massive source of stress and worry suddenly evaporated. Boone still felt incredibly loyal to the O
utlaws and his brothers in the MC, but it was as if his feelings belonged to another era, back when the club was truly about nothing more than biking and brawling.

  His MC had grown into a monster – big and corporate, with something indefinable having been lost along the way. As a Pagan, Boone had not only felt part of an elite group, he had also found himself to be essential to everything that happened. Now, even though the UK was one of the most powerful chapters in the world, they were part of the AOA and could only be seen as a small cog in a much larger wheel. Although the change had been inevitable, it hadn’t been what he’d signed up for. Now that was all behind him and he was free to live the life he wanted to live. He planned to make the most of it.

  PART FIVE

  LEGACY

  25

  THE NEXT GENERATION

  When a reporter from the Texas Monthly secured an invite to a Bandido funeral in early 2007, he eagerly eavesdropped on a conversation among some of the more senior bikers, thinking he might hear some interesting anecdotes about the club. ‘Jesus, my fucking cholesterol,’ one of them said, ‘fucking off the fucking charts.’ And then there was the reporter at a recent Sturgis festival who overheard a group of Hell’s Angels complaining about the fact that the t-shirt vendors did not offer a senior discount. The truth is as plain as the liver spots on their faces: the hardcore element of most biker gangs is fast becoming filled with old men.

  Despite this trend, within a year of his leaving, the Outlaws had grown to more than twice its original size. A massive push aimed at expanding the club and bringing in newer, younger members had been incredibly successful. In part, this was a reaction to the incident at Birmingham Airport where the Outlaws had found themselves going toe-to-toe with a far younger, more physically able crowd. No one wanted to risk that happening again.

  Europe is the continent with the highest increase in new biker gang chapters anywhere in the world. During the last five years, the Bandidos, the Hell’s Angels and the Outlaws have opened more than 120 chapters which makes the total number of chapters in Europe more than 425. The number of chapters for these three large groups in the United States and Canada is around 300.

  All three of the major international biker gangs have expanded rapidly in Sweden in particular. In the preceding five years the Hell’s Angels have started up five new chapters in the Scandinavian country. The Outlaws have also established a base there and the Bandidos have increased the number of their own chapters to a total of nine.

  And the more the gangs expand, the greater the potential for conflict. In June 2010, the Outlaws planned to open a new chapter in Ehrendingen, Switzerland. Hundreds of guests were invited from all over Europe. While the preparations were still going on for the Swiss bikers, their old ladies and children, up to 200 people with motorcycles and cars appeared in the club grounds and launched a massive unprovoked attack with baseball bats, steel pipes, clubs, knives and firearms, firing several shots and destroying dozens of cars and motorcycles.

  Local media infuriated the Outlaws by stating the attack had taken place because they had failed to seek advance permission to establish a chapter from the local Hell’s Angels.

  There is the potential for serious trouble in Ireland too, where tensions have never been higher. Many years have passed on the Emerald Isle since Boone and his fellow Pagans fought in the Battle of Kilmeaden. The Alliance that had been formed in the aftermath of that conflict, with the sole aim of preventing the major MCs from gaining a foothold in Ireland, is looking increasingly fragile. The Outlaws set up shop in the Republic in 2001 and the Hell’s Angels followed suit in 2007, with a chapter in Belfast and every intention of spreading south.

  Both the Angels and the Outlaws are building up their Irish chapters, cherry-picking the best members from existing, independent clubs and making them offers they can’t refuse in order to get them to switch sides. And with both of these gangs expanding in Ireland, it is very possible that the feud between them will ignite there too.

  Sporadic trouble has also broken out among the existing Irish gangs (which goes to show that the presence of the big international MCs isn’t always necessary for violence to ensue). Back in 1994, three members of the Chosen Few shot Devil’s Disciple member Stephen Murphy in the head and left him to die in a field at a bikers’ convention in Carnew. Five years later, the former leader of the Disciples was given a five year suspended sentence for possession of a gun and ammunition. The man claimed to have armed himself because of a feud with a rival group known as The Brotherhood.

  In August 2010, a meticulously planned attack on thirty-two-year-old biker Gary Lee was put into motion in County Wicklow. The three guard dogs – two Rottweilers and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier – which had been purchased by the target only a few weeks earlier as an extra layer of protection, were quickly rendered useless by slabs of heavily drugged meat.

  Once the coast was clear, the assault team silently smashed their way into the isolated cottage at Rathduffmore, near Knockananna on the Carlow-Wicklow border of Ireland. The sole occupant, hunting enthusiast Lee, had his wrists bound with cable ties and was then beaten about the head and face with the butt of a pistol. His attackers demanded to know where he kept his legally owned firearms – two shotguns and a rifle. When Lee refused to talk, they blasted a bullet into his arm by way of encouragement. This proved highly persuasive and Lee soon gave up the location of his gun safe.

  But this was no simple robbery. As well as access to his guns, the men also wanted Lee’s MC colours. A former member of the Devil’s Disciples he had recently joined a new club, the Celtic Demons, and was proudly wearing a three-piece patch with a bottom rocker that read ‘Ireland’ in spite of the fact that several other clubs in the area had warned the Demons not to do so.

  The attack was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Despite his restraints Lee managed to make his way some 200 yards up to the road to the house of a neighbour who helped to raise the alarm. Three days later, a pipe bomb was discovered in Lee’s home and army bomb disposal experts had to be called in to remove it.

  These days, MCs have extensive connections throughout the world through which they can access confidential personal data – including addresses and phone numbers. One man left Ireland because he feared he would be attacked by members of a hostile MC. Within a week or two, they rang him at home in the US to say, ‘You don’t think we don’t know where you are, do you?’

  The gangs that make up the Alliance – the Devil’s Disciples, the Freewheelers, the Road Tramps, the Vikings and the Chosen Few – have been recruiting heavily, bringing in fresh manpower, their own, younger generation of bikers ready to fend off attack. Most observers believe it highly unlikely that the Alliance can win the turf war, or stem the growth of the big syndicates, given these gangs’ international clout, but the fact that they are prepared to try shows that they are demanding to be taken seriously.

  Another potential biker feud is simmering in mainland Europe, where eighty particularly brutal members of the Bandidos in Berlin, all from an ethnic Turkish background, left the club together in early 2010 and patched over to Hell’s Angels. The group is now known as the Hell’s Angels Nomads Turkiye.

  The move came just months after the Angels and the Bandidos signed a peace agreement to end more than three years of bloody fighting between the clubs which saw deaths on both sides. The fallout (including potential retribution by the Bandidos) would be bad enough, but what makes the situation particularly troubling is that a far greater enemy of the Hell’s Angels has arrived on the scene – the fearsome Mongols MC.

  Based in California, the Mongols have been long-time rivals of the Hell’s Angels. In 2002, the two clubs clashed at Harrah’s casino at Laughlin, Nevada, in a very public brawl that left three bikers – one Mongol and two Hell’s Angels – dead. CCTV footage of the incident sent shockwaves around the world and cemented the Mongols’ reputation as aggressive ‘sons of bitches’, happy to take on the Angels. As their fight song attests
, the Mongols have never shied away from a good scrap:

  We are Mongol raiders, we’re raiders of the night

  We’re dirty sons of bitches, we’d rather fuck and fight

  Hidy, hidy, Christ Almighty, who the fuck are we?

  Shit, fuck, cunt, suck, Mongols MC!

  The club now has chapters in Italy and Germany, and strong alliances with other gangs lined up against the Big Red Machine. These days, they are regulars at Daytona and pictures of members displaying their colours alongside the Outlaws are common on the websites of both clubs.

  The German contingent of the Mongols is based in Bremen and is a motorcycle gang by name only. Founded in October 2010, the chapter is composed of a local crime syndicate of Kurdish immigrants called the Miri clan. They dress in t-shirts and jackets decorated with Mongol colours, but when founding president Mustafa B went out for a spin on a red Honda Fireblade (capable of 180mph) with a licence only two weeks old, he lost control, crashed into a tree and died on the spot. Mustafa was the only member of the club to have a motorcycle licence and his demise is unlikely to inspire others to follow in his footsteps. Instead, when the gang move around the city, they travel by car.

  The association with the American club is important as it provides an infrastructure and trading channels to assist the group in profits from the drug trade and other criminal activity. Most of the members of the Bremen Mongols chapter also have extensive police records. Ibrahim M, the man investigators believe succeeded Mustafa B as the head of the club, has been associated with no fewer than 147 crimes, ranging from grievous bodily harm to illegal possession of a weapon.