AUSTRAILIA - 'Nike bikies', the Bandidos Centro, in Crime and Misconduct Commission''s spotlight

OFF THE WIRE
Josh Robertson
 heraldsun.com.au
MOTORCYCLE gang members who don't even pretend to ride are part of the rise of new organised crime groups in Queensland.
Their key figures met as children doing traditional Serbian dancing in a Wacol church.
Some of their number first came to police attention after a humiliating pack rape on a Gold Coast teenager.
Now Queensland's newest outlaw motorcycle crew, the Bandidos Centro chapter, is embroiled in a Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) investigation of murder, drugs and violence.
The archetypal new school of "Nike bikies", Centro is stacked with recruits who don't ride motorcycles, and their attempts to open a Fortitude Valley clubhouse have so far foundered.
But they have stamped themselves as serious and violent players, according to the CMC, which is investigating whether some of their members were involved in the murder of Eight Mile Plains man Jei "Jack" Lee in April.
One Centro bikie fled overseas 19 hours after the murder.
Days later, Bosnian-born clubmates were allegedly involved in a brawl with Hells Angels associates in a Mt Gravatt restaurant.
That triggered a cross-club feud and a spate of bashings, arson and gun attacks.
The last was on Inksanity, a Milton tattoo parlour co-owned by convicted cocaine trafficker George Bejat, 26, who met some of his fellow bikies as children at the Serbian Orthodox Church in Wacol.
Weeks later - as associates were put behind bars for contempt for refusing to answer questions in relation to the Lee murder probe - Bejat and other Centro bikies travelled to Phuket, Thailand.

Visiting Bandidos were earmarked for attention by Phuket police in May, after Denmark police shared intelligence on Danish Bandidos and Hells Angels laundering money in Thailand.
Busted for trafficking at 19 and sentenced to four years' jail, Bejat has become a role model to Centro prospects, who associates say are offered free bikes and cash for menial tasks such as chauffeuring and deliveries.
"They see George, the cars, the gold chains ... they're petty thugs who hold down jobs but join up thinking they're going to make money," one said.
"For the club, it's all about more muscle and more power."
Centro was founded by Matthew Cross, the son of an old-school Warwick bikie who once mowed down a traffic cop on his president's Harley Davidson.
Its multi-ethnic ranks include Fijian-born ex-rugby player Joshua Vosuqa - who was jailed in 2006 over a vicious attack which ended the career of a Commonwealth Games decathlon hopeful - as well as an Iranian and a Filipino.