By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.
The world of outlaw motorcycle clubs is bound by no rules. These bikers operate on their own terms, unstoppable as they race down the freeway. But they do come across some obstacles. Be it from within their own club, violent rivals or the law. When that happens, Gangsters Inc. reports about it. This time: No biker war in Canada despite flying bullets, three Hells Angels are unable to reach their holiday destination, Bandidos are charged with blackmail, and multiple bikers infiltrate a union.
When Harley Davidson Guindon, the vice-president of the Brooklin, Ontario, Canada, chapter of the Hells Angels, decided to leave the club and start up the Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club and lead as its president, he told everyone who would listen that he bore no “ill will” but added that he was “not interested in anyone’s support”.
In the world of outlaw bikers such a move is, well, frowned upon, let’s say.
No one was surprised then when unknown assailants fired bullets into Guindon’s T-shirt shop and tattoo parlor on Simcoe Street South. Was it a warning? A targeted assassination attempt?
Hold your horses, people. “This isn’t a biker war,” Harley Davidson Guindon told newspaper The Star by text message. “Just a pissed-off person causing shit.”
Ah, okay. Nothing to see here, I guess. Let’s hope said person was able to get some anger management sessions in.
Travel issues
A holiday might do the trick. Somewhere warm, maybe. Like the Philippines. That’s what New Zealand nationals Alexander Michael Schmalkuchen, Stanley Savinata Sunguturanga, and Ethan Schipper thought when they arrived aboard a China Southern flight from Guangzhou. Schmalkuchen, and Sunguturanga arrived on February 7, Schipper arrived on February 9.
But as they made their way through customs, immigration officers found the three registered a hit in the Interpol system. They were subjects of a Diffusion Notice linked to a criminal organization. An Interpol Diffusion Notice is a direct request for cooperation between member-countries to locate or arrest a person.
As investigators dug deeper they found the three men had multiple prior convictions in various countries and were identified as members of the Hells Angels. After that it was case closed and they were denied entry under the Philippine Immigration Act, which bars foreign nationals deemed a threat to public safety and national security.
Those patched vests tend to do great when intimidating people on the freeway or in the clubs, but they tend to cause problems at the airport.
Corruption and outlaw muscle
Still, if you want to muscle your way into a union, the vests come in handy, once more. In Australia, the CFMEU construction union has come under scrutiny after media raised serious concerns about corruption in its ranks.
A report released on Wednesday dozens of (shady) people were named who have benefited from corrupt conduct. Among them Jonny “Two Guns” Walker, a onetime sergeant-at-arms of the Bandidos who was imprisoned for 8 years for beating a man to death. While still in prison serving his manslaughter sentence, he was approved for appointment as a CFMEU health and safety representative.
Who could do a better job, no?
Maybe Luke Moloney, Australia’s national president of the Hells Angels with multiple convictions to his name. In September 2023, he was appointed a CFMEU delegate and health and safety officer.
A day after the report, on Thursday, Joel Leavitt, who authorities say is currently a full patch member of theBandidos in Australia, was arrested and charged with blackmail. 32-year-old Leavitt was named in the corruption report released on Wednesday.
It stated that he earned over $200,000 per year as a CFMEU health and safety representative and was given a government-funded car. In 2023, when he was shot in the clubhouse of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, he was able to get to the hospital using the same car.
Police say the Thursday arrest relates to an incident on January 19, where an alleged victim in the inner-west Melbourne suburb of Brooklyn was blackmailed to pay $663,000.
A 32-year-old Watsonia man and fellow Bandidos member was also busted in the same case.
The target of a the extortion plot was allegedly tracked to his workplace and intimidated, a court has been told.
Victoria Police Crime Command Commander Paul O’Halloran said criminal behavior in the construction industry was “unacceptable” and that police “will be unrelenting by continuing to target serious and organized crime entities and dismantle corrupt and criminal business activities in the construction industry. If you are a victim of threats, extortion or blackmail contact us, please come forward and we will support and protect you.”
Just another regular week in the life of outlaw bikers around the world.
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