Tik, cocaine and FBI-hacked phones revving relations between SA and Australian outlaw biker gang

Comanchero is an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia and authorities say members collude with other criminals as part of a global syndicate known as the ‘Aussie Cartel.’ It turns out the Comancheros have tracks leading to South Africa – via tik, cocaine and ‘hacked’ devices.

A series of investigations and court cases, spanning several years and countries, points to members of a notorious outlaw motorcycle gang, Comanchero, which has roots in Australia and operates via South Africa.

Law enforcement authorities, including the police, have not officially confirmed that the biker gang is active here, but there is increasing evidence suggesting this is the case.

In Australia, there are many outlaw biker gangs.

According to a 2021 Western Australia Police Force document, the gangs have “high levels of involvement in methylamphetamine production and distribution, illicit firearms trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering, as well as serious violent crime.”

Massacre and more violence

That document added: “Violent conflict… is common and often takes place in public, exposing members of the community to extreme risk.

“Most notably in 1984, an incident now known as the ‘Milperra Massacre’ resulted in the death of seven people and a further 28 wounded when a gunfight erupted between members of the Comanchero… and [the] Bandidos [outlaw motorcycle group] in regional New South Wales.”

Laws and police crackdowns targeting biker groups were strengthened in Australia following a 2009 brawl at Sydney Airport between members of Comanchero and the Hells Angels.

Daily Maverick can now reveal that last year a former head of Comanchero pleaded guilty to drug charges in New Zealand – documents from that case show how he and associates planned to source 600kg of methamphetamine from South Africa.

There are also indirect links between Comanchero and this country.

Another motorcycle club, one that is banned in the Netherlands, has previously cropped up in South Africa – in January 2020, Timothy Lotter was murdered in a shooting in the Cape Town suburb of Goodwood.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Hits and highs: South Africa in the crossfire of warring drug cartels

Lotter, who was involved in private security, was also the head of the South African chapter of the Satudarah Motorcycle Club and there were suspicions in police circles he may have been involved in international drug trafficking.

Aussie Cartel

In terms of Comanchero, to illustrate its reach, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission issued a statement in 2021 saying a network of Australian organised crime groups, known as the Aussie Cartel, was a threat to that country even though not all were based there.

“The ‘Aussie Cartel’ is a network of independent operators and syndicates who join forces in an ongoing manner to share capabilities and invest in each other’s criminal activities,” it said.

“Many of the Aussie Cartel members are Australian Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCG) and they have significant influence over the OMCGs in Australia.

“Their reach extends into all states and territories and internationally.”

It said they used encrypted communication devices “hardening their communications from interception” and that they “specifically financed and facilitated the introduction of some of these devices to the Australian domestic criminal environment.”

New Zealand convicts

The case with direct links between South Africa and Comanchero involves a convict.

In December last year, Seiana Fakaosilea, originally from Australia and who later based himself in New Zealand, was sentenced to an effective 13 years and two months in jail after pleading guilty to drug charges.

He was the acting national commander of Comanchero.

Sentencing notes from the New Zealand High Court said Fakaosilea was convicted of “conspiracy to import methamphetamine and a further charge of possession of methamphetamine for supply.”

Fakaosilea had faced charges alongside others, including a man by the name of Richard Pelikani, who was involved with gangs.

Pelikani was convicted of conspiracy to import methamphetamine and jailed for nearly five years.

A third accused, in a parallel case, was Jie Huang, who, in December last year, was sentenced to more than six years in jail.

Meth import plans

The New Zealand High Court sentencing notes in the case against the accused, including Fakaosilea and Pelikani, said that in 2020, the police’s National Organised Crime Group started investigating a drug syndicate.

That syndicate was importing and moving commercial quantities of drugs around New Zealand.

“On 9 March 2020, police intercepted a conversation between Mr Fakaosilea and a co-defendant, Jie Huang, in which they discussed an importation of methamphetamine from Fiji to New Zealand,” the sentencing notes said.

“They also agreed to import a further 600kg of methamphetamine from South Africa. Mr Fakaosilea told Mr Huang he would bring Mr Pelikani over to Mr Huang’s house to discuss the South African importation. The next day, Mr Fakaosilea picked up Mr Pelikani from his home.

“They drove to Mr Huang’s house. There, the three discussed the South African importation.”

Fakaosilea was convicted over this South Africa plan.

The case points to Comanchero figures having drug trafficking contacts in this country.

‘Secretly monitored devices’

Meanwhile, there are indirect links between the biker gang and South Africa.

Some involve an encrypted device company that the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) previously ran, known as Anom.

Between 2018 and 2021 the devices were peddled among crooks who did not realise the FBI had access to the messages they were sending around the world, South Africa included.

Anom resulted in two major projects, the FBI’s Operation Trojan Shield and the Australian Federal Police’s Operation Ironside.

Operation Ironside had targeted, among others, many Comanchero members.

In South Africa, suspects taken into custody during broader Anom crackdowns included a bakkie driver who was detained in Pretoria in 2021.

Cocaine worth R400-million had been found in the hull of a ski boat that was trailing behind the bakkie.

Comanchero takedown in Turkey

Last month Daily Maverick reported that several arrests were carried out in Turkey and linked to Australia – and Anom.

At the time, at the start of November, Turkey’s interior ministry announced that Comanchero “was brought down”.

Among those taken into custody was Hakan Ayik, a Turkish citizen who allegedly headed Comanchero and was listed by Australia’s New South Wales police as a “most wanted” suspect for drug smuggling.

Turkish officials posted a video showing a man who appears to be Hakan Ayik, at the time of his arrest there. (Photo: Turkish Interior Ministry)

Ayik was also an accused in a US case – he allegedly peddled Anom devices to crooks without realising they were monitored.

Read more in Daily Maverick: South Africa’s lucrative drugs highway to the land Down Under

South Africa crops up again in this network.

When Ayik and several others were arrested last month, a Turkish interior ministry statement said gang leaders from Turkey and other states were in that country trying “to deliver the drugs they procured from South America to Australia, the Netherlands and Hong Kong via South Korea and South Africa, and commit crimes on a global scale”.

SA and cocaine planes

There were previous suspicions that Ayik used planes to fly drugs out of South Africa.

Drugs smuggled out of this country on aircraft to Australia were focused on again recently.

On 7 October 2023, 100kg of cocaine worth an estimated A$40-million (about R489-million) was intercepted in the cargo hold of a passenger plane that flew from South Africa to Sydney.

The Australian Federal Police had also arrested five suspects.