Despite the fanfare, most bikies charged for minor offences

Geesche Jacobsen Crime Editor

May 11, 2009

MANY of the people charged by police under an operation hailed for being tough on bikies have been charged with traffic, street and other minor offences, figures show.

Many might have been arrested as part of normal police operations, not those targeting members of an outlaw motorcycle gang.

Overall, 975 people were charged with 2171 offences under Operation Ranmore, which started two years ago this month and predated the killing of Anthony Zervas at Sydney Airport and the new Strike Force Raptor.

However, figures obtained under freedom-of-information laws show that in that time only nine people were charged specifically with being a member of a criminal gang.

Nearly 300 people were charged with traffic offences, more than 140 with "judicial" offences, such as breaching bail, and 110 with property and street offences.

The Opposition police spokesman, Mike Gallacher, said the figures of Operation Ranmore had been "inflated by the inclusion of low-level offences".

"It is quite possible that a number of those charges … were the result of normal operations of general duties and highway patrol police stopping an offender who they found out to be a bikie, with that person being arrested then being included in Ranmore [statistics] even though the person may not necessarily have been targeted prior to committing the offence."

The figures show the state's Gang Squad charged only 40 of the people arrested under the operation, and most charges were laid by local police around the state.

More than 200 people were charged with assault or violence, but it is unknown how serious many of those alleged offences were.

Only 139 charges relate to drugs, firearms or weapons offences, which have been singled out as the main bikie criminal activities.

The Government has repeatedly praised Ranmore as successfully "tackling these thugs head on".

The commander of the Gang Squad, Superintendent Mal Lanyon, said police were targeting illegal activities by members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and their associates "right across the spectrum of offences", which included serious traffic offences. "If you target people that are carrying out illegal activities you are certainly making the state a safer place," he said.

He said local police were also conducting some intelligence-based operations which specifically targeted bikies, while highway patrol officers targeted serious traffic offenders.

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