Hells Angels, Head Hunters and the Filthy Few: The History of Outlaw Bikers in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Aotearoa New Zealand has recently seen a growth in outlaw biker membership since the Australian Rebels MC patched over several chapters of the tribesmen MC in 2011. From these bases, they spread throughout Aotearoa New Zealand becoming one of the largest outlaw biker clubs in the country. The Rebels were not the first overseas-based club to establish a presence in Aotearoa New Zealand and would not be the last as Australia deports outlaw bikers with Aotearoa New Zealand citizenship back to their birth country. This paper provides an overview of the two major phases of outlaw biker internationalization in Aotearoa New Zealand while highlighting the developmental and historical changes in this process between the twentieth and the twenty-first century. In so doing we can compare the nuances of expansion within Aotearoa New Zealand and emphasizing continuities and similarities, but also departures from the global experience of outlaw biker internationalization. This article provides an up-to-date account of outlaw bikers in Aotearoa New Zealand up to 2020 since Jarrod Gilbert’s historical account in 2013, extending our knowledge of a little known part of the outlaw biker world.

Notes

¹ This article focuses on the outlaw motorcycle clubs of Aotearoa New Zealand and does not explore the world of the patched street gangs or youth gangs as these groups are worthy of their own research. The patched street gangs do not ordinarily center their gang culture around American motorcycles like the outlaw bikers.

² Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand.

³ Barker lists a “Big 5” including the Sons of Silence. The Mongols replaced the Pagans MC in American in the top four clubs.

⁴ The Bandidos recently went through an internal split with the US distancing itself from Europe, Asia and Australia (Bain 2017: 61). Aotearoa New Zealand possibly follows Australia in this new division of territory.

⁵ A practice that the Canadian government has been doing since the early 2000s (Campbell and Edwards 2013: 323).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carl Bradley

Carl Bradley is a Research Fellow with Massey University, Centre for Defence and Security Studies. He researches the changing culture of Outlaw Bikers and Patched Street Gangs as well as indigenous response to colonization. Email contact: [email protected].