“We don’t talk to you and we don’t talk to the police. That’s the way we do things.”
The message could not have come clearer from a local member of the Coffin Cheaters, Gippsland’s highest profile outlaw motorcycle gang.
With clubhouses discreetly tucked away in Morwell and Warragul’s industrial precincts, the Coffin Cheaters is the only bikie group to have an official presence east of Melbourne surburbia.
And they have no interest in getting mainstream public opinion on their side.
“People are always going to have their views about us, and us talking about what we do to you (the media) is never going to change that,” a Morwell member said on Friday.
The comment came after a Trafalgar property was raided by police early Thursday morning, as part of one of Victoria Police’s larger ever anti-OMCG operations, targeting clubhouses and private residences connected with the Hells Angels and affiliated groups.
About 700 officers took part in the operation issuing 60 search warrants across the state, with 13 people arrested and firearms, explosive material, ammunition, drugs, cash and stolen property seized.
While Victoria Police confirmed the Trafalgar property targeted in the raids was a private residence, it remains unclear whether any arrests or property seizures were made at the home, or whether it was associated with the Hells Angels or an affiliated group.
The Coffin Cheaters are known allies of the Hells Angels.
The unprecedented show of force came amid concerns recent suburban shootings between the Hell Angels and Commanchero bikie gangs would escalate into later club warfare.
For former Latrobe Valley-based Superintendent Tess Walsh, speaking as acting assistant commissioner for the Victorian Crime Command, the statewide raid was a great result for the entire Victorian community.
“The community should be outraged and there should be no more support for these groups or this kind of criminal activity,” Ms Walsh said.
However when phoned by The Express to gauge the ongoing presence and activity of OMCGs in Gippsland, police representatives in Latrobe, Wellington and Baw Baw harboured relatively measured attitudes compared to the heightened levels of alarm in metropolitan areas.
While Morwell Divisional Tasking Unit detective Alan Rumble said there had been unconfirmed reports of an “incident” involving Hells Angels members at a licensed venue in Traralgon last month, he referred to it as an isolated event.
“OMCG activity is something we are consistently trying to review and gather intelligence on, and we will still always ask people to be diligent and ask if they become aware of something to ring Crime Stoppers,” Mr Rumble said.
“However it certainly isn’t a big problem in the Latrobe Valley; there’s not a lot of the bigger established clubs here.
“The Coffin Cheaters are the only ones that have any substantial presence, and we generally don’t have any problems with them. It’s pretty common knowledge they hold a tattoo and bike show in Morwell every year.”
Despite being one of the largest bikie gangs in Western Australia, the Coffin Cheaters’ presence in Victoria does not match the membership levels of the ‘big four’ OMCGs – Hells Angels, Bandidos, Comancheros, and the Rebels.
However Coffin Cheaters’ presence has steadily grown in Melbourne’s south eastern suburbs in recent years, with clubhouses in Braeside, Bayswater and Dandenong.
A 2005 police operation targeting the Coffin Cheaters in Melbourne’s south east saw its largest haul at the Warragul branch, where machines guns, pistols, a silencer and drugs were seized.
Baw Baw police service area inspector Chris Major said there had been “minimal” OMCG activity in the West Gippsland area in recent years, and members of the public had no cause for concern.
Further east, Sale-based detective Sergeant Ian Marr said due to Sale’s distance from Melbourne, OMCG activity was largely absent from the Wellington police area.
“Here we have the advantage of distance, so we are not heavily impacted by their activities – the only times we really see them is when different clubs come through on their national organised rides,” Sgt Marr said.
“There’s no doubt that some OMCGs are up to criminal activity… that’s certainly the perception they like to portray – but everyone just needs to remember its not the motorcycles which are the criminal aspect of what may be going on.”
Sgt Marr said, however local police proactively monitored visitor traffic to the Fulham Correctional Centre, where numerous OMCG members were serving sentences at any given time.
“Because Fulham is in our backyard, we continually liaise with the prison regarding the presence of any OMCG members; if anything of note or concern happens (at Fulham) they are very quick to let us know,” he said.
