Bikies in Thai bid

Gangs launch Asian bases

OUTLAW motorcycle gangsters crushed in Australia by relentless police action have shifted operations offshore.

The gangs have carved up Asia for dozens of new chapters and clubhouses, notably in Thailand where authorities are now deploying an extraordinary paramilitary response.

And the Thais are set to go further with proposed parliamentary legislative changes to go after outlaw motorcycle gangs as proscribed organised crime groups, reviewing their visas and launching legal challenges to their wealth gained from apparently no work.

With minimal noise, leading figures from seven Australian OMCGs, predominantly from NSW, Queensland and South Australia, have moved overseas, recruiting local members to bolster their numbers and regional influence, plotting to control sex and vice industries, massage and tattoo parlours, gyms and fitness centres and, in some cases, large-scale drugs trafficking.

An investigation by News Corp Australia has found that in Thailand alone, 36 chapters have been established by Australian-led or affiliated OMCG members, particularly about popular tourist resort cities of Pattaya, Phuket and Chiang Mai and capital Bangkok.

Chapters have also been established in Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore, through a bunch of shelf companies, and soon also Laos and Vietnam, while in Japan there is now evidence OMCG Australian affiliates have linked with the fearsome Yakuza.

AFP’s organised crime manager Commander Bruce Hill confirmed the AFP was working closely with Thai counterparts.

“Taking the old Al Capone analogy, the AFP with our partners are disrupting the (OMCGs) anyway we can,” he said. “We will do this within the legal frameworks.”