Outlaws: Inside the Violent World of Biker Gangs

by Thompson, Tony

  In Sydney, Australia, intelligence officials are increasingly concerned by the links between Lebanese crime cells and bikers, with Lebanese membership growing in the previously white-only Sydney Hell’s Angels and the Comancheros. In 1997, the president of the Parramatta Nomads (a Sydney MC) handed over control of his gang to nightclub owner and alleged underworld figure Hassan ‘Sam’ Ibrahim. Not only was Ibrahim from a Middle Eastern background, he had never even been a biker. Despite this, he instantly became president of the club, bypassing the usual hangaround and prospect stage. The Parramatta Nomads went on to become one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the nineties until a fallout among the leadership led to a split in 2007 and the formation of a new club, Notorious MC.

  Led by former Nomad Allan Sarkis, the members of Notorious are mostly from a Middle Eastern background and although the club is structured like a traditional outlaw motorcycle gang, only a tiny proportion ride bikes. Its members are sometimes called ‘Nike bikies’, for wearing expensive trainers, fashionable t-shirts, being clean shaven and listening to RnB, Hip Hop and Rap – a far cry from the traditional biker uniform of dirty jackets, leather boots and beards. The gang has been linked to a significant number of bombings, shootings and murders as part of ongoing feuds with the Hell’s Angels, the Bandidos and the Comanchero.

  Having once appeared to be on the verge of dying out, biker clubs are now enjoying a massive international resurgence. They even have their own hit television show, courtesy of FX’s Sons of Anarchy. While MCs around the world continue to deny large-scale involvement in organised crime, the birth of clubs like the Bremen Mongols and Notorious is further proof that those who are involved can clearly see the benefits that discipline, codes of conduct and brotherhood bring to those who wish to make profits from illegitimate means.

  Whatever the future holds for the biker movement, one thing is for sure; the new generation promises to be even more ruthless than those of the past.

  CODA: LL&R

  In September 2010, Boone took Sally to Amsterdam for a belated birthday celebration. At twenty-four weeks pregnant she was reluctant to fly anywhere, so the pair chose a destination that could be easily reached by train. It was their last chance for a child-free break and they were both determined to enjoy themselves.

  After three days, Sally was thoroughly exhausted by the endless rounds of shopping and sightseeing and opted to have an early night. Boone watched a little television but still had energy to spare and eventually decided to head back out and get a few more drinks at a quiet Thai-run canal-side bar that had become one of his favourite spots in the city. He was just about to call it a night when three men walked in, two of them wearing black leather cut-offs bearing the unmistakable red and white colours of the Hell’s Angels. As they moved around to search for seats, Boone could see that one man was a prospect, the other a full member, and that both were from Sweden.

  The full patch Angel approached the bar close to where Boone was sitting. When he was an arm’s length away, he suddenly stumbled and reached out to steady himself, his hand brushing firmly against the back of Boone’s shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ the Angel said.

  Boone ignored him.

  ‘I tripped on the bar rail.’

  Boone looked down, then slowly turned to face the Angel. He had recognised the ploy immediately. It was almost identical to the move that one of the Road Rats had performed on him when he had fled to London after Rabbi had been shot.

  ‘There is no bar rail.’

  The Angel smiled. He was full of swagger and confidence. ‘You’re right. Actually, I was checking to see if you had patches under your jacket. I think you’re a club member.’

  Boone shook his head. ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Well you look like a club member.’ The Angel reached over and gently lifted the sleeve of Boone’s jacket. ‘And you’ve got tattoos like a club member. Why are you lying to me?’

  Boone finished the last of his beer in one long swig. It was clear the Angel wasn’t going to let it go. He had to give him something. ‘Well I used to be a member of the Pagans, but that was a long, long time ago.’

  The Angel stiffened visibly. In America, the ongoing war between the Pagans and the HA had flared up again and was costing dozens of lives. Boone saw the man’s reaction and moved quickly to diffuse the tension. ‘Not the American Pagans, the English Pagans.’

  ‘English Pagans? Never heard of them.’

  Deeply offended, Boone fought a losing battle to stay calm.

  ‘Well it was a long time ago,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And since then, the club has changed its name. They’re now called the Outlaws.’

  ‘Outlaws!’

  Again the Angel stiffened. Tall and slim with a mop of neatly styled blonde hair, he was in his mid-twenties and his patches were new so Boone figured he had only recently become a full member and didn’t have much experience. He had clearly got used to people being so intimidated by the patch that they would bend to his will. Boone decided to go the other way.

  ‘Fuck it. Tell you what, let’s you and me go outside right now and get this over with.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m one of the original members of the Outlaws in the UK and now we’re AOA. It seems you have a problem with that so why don’t you and I step outside and dance.’

  Seeing the aggressive change in Boone’s body language, the prospect had rushed over and was now hovering directly behind his fellow Angel, ready to join the fight at a moment’s notice. The other man remained sitting in the corner, watching with detached interest. Yet despite the odds being in his favour, the Angel was clearly alarmed by Boone’s willingness to take him on. Perhaps he had assumed the man at the bar was a member of a more minor MC. Either way, his initial bravado suddenly and rapidly deserted him.

  ‘Well hang on a minute. Let’s not be hasty. You’re not club any more, right?’

  ‘No, I’m not club any more.’

  ‘Well, in that case, there’s no problem.’

  ‘Whatever. I’m just leaving anyway.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘What’s it to you? I thought you said there was no problem.’

  ‘With me, no, but the members of the local chapter might want to talk to you, find out why you’re here.’ The prospect took a step closer, making it clear that Boone wasn’t going anywhere without telling them what they wanted to hear.

  ‘Okay. Sure. I’m at the Grand Krasnapolsky.’

  ‘You might be bullshitting me. We’re going to need to know which room you’re in. We’re going to need to see you put the key in the door.’

  It was nearly two in the morning when Boone, the two Angels and the third man crossed over the narrow canal bridges, through the edge of the red light district towards Dam Square. Along the way Boone had been planning his escape strategy, thinking through the layout of his hotel room. Although he had not seen the Angel make any phone calls to bring in reinforcements, he was convinced that once they confirmed where he was, it was only a matter of time before the whole fucking Amsterdam chapter of the Hell’s Angels was on his doorstep.

  He had to seize the initiative. He knew that, so long as he got them inside the room at the right angle, he could barge the full member right out of the window and onto the street, three floors below. Then it would just be him and the prospect. The third man was small, skinny and didn’t seem to have much fight in him so Boone wrote him out of the equation altogether.

  In the hotel corridor, the two Angels waited either side of the door as Boone opened it and then hustled him inside, following close behind. Shit. Now he was the one with his back to the window. He needed to come up with a new plan. And fast. The commotion startled Sally who had been sound asleep in bed and she immediately assumed her boyfriend had brought back yet another load of biker friends for a late night drinking session, as he had done so many times before. It was the last straw.

  ‘Fuck this for a l
augh,’ she screamed, sitting up in the half-light. ‘I’m fucking off out of here. I’m going home. I’m not going to let you party in the room until all hours for another night!’

  Boone was usually calm in the face of storm but this was a serious situation and he felt the pressure. ‘Shut the fuck up, bitch,’ he retorted. ‘This is a Hell’s Angel here. I could be in big fucking trouble.’

  Sally was stunned by his outburst and immediately started apologising, but it turned out that the Angel was even more shocked by what Boone had said.

  ‘You can’t talk to women like that,’ he gasped, then turned to Sally and began to apologise for the intrusion. Whatever he had planned, he clearly wasn’t going to do it with Sally around so after apologising some more he suggested they all leave the room and go to the foyer to get a drink.

  With surveillance cameras in every corner Boone did his best to ensure they were captured on film wherever they went. Convinced that he was going to be ambushed at any moment, he was determined to take at least one of them with him. Although he was in mortal danger he still felt loyal to the biker code. Calling the police or asking the staff to help was a non-option. The most he was willing to do was ensure that his killers were caught on camera. If they got convicted of his murder because of that, no one could say it was anything to do with him.

  The group found an area in the atrium with some patio chairs, sat down and ordered more drinks. Boone turned to the man who had been accompanying the Angels who up until that point had said almost nothing.

  ‘What are you then? A prospect? A hangaround or what?’

  ‘No, I am just a friend of the club.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A friend of the club.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re not very much of anything at all then.’

  The man’s lip began to curl with anger. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what I am,’ his chest started to swell, ‘I am the biggest cocaine dealer in all of Sweden.’

  Boone could only hope the cameras had been wired for sound and were picking up every word. ‘Did you say cocaine?’

  ‘Yes, the biggest cocaine dealer in all of Sweden; isn’t that right, Joergen?’

  The full patch Angel nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, the biggest of them all.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Boone, leaning in close so he could whisper, ‘you’d better get some out.’

  The more coke they snorted the more confident they all became. Thanks to his time in Canada and 1,001 biker parties ever since, it took a serious amount of cocaine for Boone to lose focus. The others were coping less well, especially the prospect. After an hour or so his eyes were rolling all over the place and he looked like he was about to pass out.

  Somehow the subject turned to other clubs in Scandinavia and Boone explained that he had regularly spent time in the company of Bandidos.

  ‘Ah yes, we fought a war with them,’ said the Angel. ‘It was a difficult time. We had to kill many of them.’

  The topic kept coming up and increasingly, Boone got the impression that the Angel was claiming that he had been involved in the biker war himself.

  ‘How old are you,’ asked Boone.

  ‘Twenty-six,’ came the reply.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, you must have been, what, eleven when that war broke out? You weren’t part of it at all.’

  ‘No but I remember it.’

  ‘You were still at school.’

  ‘Well I heard about it. It was very high profile.’

  ‘Bullshit! I’ll tell you something. I was there. I was part of that war. I got shot at in Denmark. And your lot were a bunch of fucking cowards! You murdered a friend of mine. Joe was my pal. You cornered him and put your guns inside his bullet-proof jacket and emptied both clips. That’s how heroic your lot were.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘But it was your lot that did it!’

  ‘I didn’t know them. I don’t know who was responsible.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Boone was becoming increasingly belligerent. He wasn’t trying to belittle the Angel, but he had decided to take control of the situation. It was clear that he was the elder and more experienced MC member in the group and he wanted to ensure that no one there forgot it. Also, it got to him that the Angel had never heard of the Warwickshire Pagans, a club that had been such a huge part of Boone’s life and that he still felt enormous loyalty towards.

  It took a little more time, a few more drinks and a lot more coke for the mood to mellow out once again and in the end, the drinkers departed on relatively friendly terms.

  ‘We’ll come and see you tomorrow and then you can visit the clubhouse and talk to us about all of this, about your time in the Outlaws,’ said the Angel.

  ‘Yeah, no problem,’ said Boone. ‘But it was all a very long time ago.’

  ‘We’ll come anyway. You can tell us about other chapters and what things are like in England.’

  ‘Okay. But I don’t see that lot any more, so I don’t know much about it at all.’

  The second they were out of sight, Boone rushed back to his room. ‘Sal, get your shit together – we’re getting the fuck out of here. We’re off!’ They checked out and got a room in a hotel on the other side of the square with a good view of the entrance of the Krasnapolsky, had a few more stiff drinks while Boone explained what had happened and then passed out.

  When Boone woke the following morning, he looked out at the square and saw that it was full of Angels. There were about twenty of them, hanging about in groups of two or three, all fully patched up, and it was pretty obvious that they were looking for him. He knew he had done the right thing: there was no doubt in his mind that he would not have got out of Amsterdam alive if they had managed to track him down.

  Had they got hold of him, the Angels would have undoubtedly subjected Boone to a vicious torture session as they did their best to extract as much information as possible about rival gangs and planned operations. The fact that Boone was genuinely out of the club made little difference – he would still have been considered a valuable source of inside intelligence.

  What saved Boone was the fact that the Angel he met was Swedish and unfamiliar with the level of hostility between his own club and the Outlaws, having mostly been at war with the Bandidos. He would have been severely reprimanded the following morning when he told members of the local chapter exactly what had happened. Proper procedure would have been to ring in right away and get reinforcements over to the bar to check things out. He would have been given a reprieve when he explained that he not only knew which hotel the Outlaw was staying in but had even gone so far as to note and confirm the number of his room, but that would have lasted only as long as it took for the rest of the Angels to realise that Boone had already moved out.

  As Boone watched them searching for him, he knew that coming out of the club when he did had been for the best. At the same time he knew that the legacy of the time he had spent in the Pagans and the Outlaws and the AOA was never going to leave him. No matter what he said, no matter what he wore or where he went, he was always going to be a one percenter. And that meant he was always going to be a target.

  It took a while to come to terms with this but when he did, Boone realised that strangely, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  GLOSSARY

  1% (sometimes 1%er) – a diamond-shaped patch worn by members of outlaw motorcycle clubs. It originates from a statement made by the American Motorcycle Association that ninety nine per cent of the country’s bikers were law-abiding individuals.

  13 – a common patch or tattoo among outlaw bikers. It refers to ‘M’, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, and symbolises that the wearer smokes or deals marijuana or methamphetamine. It is also said to represent twelve jurors and one judge, suggesting the wearer is responsible for their own justice.

  666 – a patch worn by the Hell’s Angels which stands for Filthy Few Forever (F being the sixth letter of the alphabet), as well as symboli
sing the mark of the beast and the fact that the biker wearing it is hell-bound.

  81 – a metonym for the Hell’s Angels. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet and A is the first letter of the alphabet, thus 81 = HA.

  ADIOS – One of several slogans used by the Outlaws MC at the start of their war with the Hell’s Angels. It stands for Angels Die In Outlaw States. No longer used formally in order to protect club members from RICO prosecutions.

  AOA – American Outlaws Association, the governing body of the Outlaws.

  Ape Hangars – high-rise handlebars common on customised motorcycles.

  Back Pack – a full set of colours tattooed on the back. Seen as the ultimate mark of commitment to a club.

  Bad Standings – a member who leaves in bad standings is considered an enemy of the club.

  Big Four – the collective term for the largest MCs in the world. In order of size, they are the Hell’s Angels, the Bandidos, the Outlaws and the Pagans.

  Big House Crew – imprisoned Hell’s Angels.

  Big Red Machine – a nickname for the Hell’s Angels. Derived from the fact that the club name is printed in red on a white background.

  Bikie – the name used for an outlaw MC member in Australia

  Bosozoku – Japanese bikers gangs. Literally translates as ‘violent running tribe’.

  Bulldog Bash – the largest biker festival in Europe. Hosted by the Hell’s Angels it takes place in Warwickshire each summer.

  Cage – car.

  Central Funds – monies collected from MC members and used to support the overall goals of the club.

  Chapter – regional division of a larger club. New chapters require a charter from the mother chapter. Each chapter operates as a self-contained unit but is overseen by the overall leaders of the club.