(video)–THE most powerful outlaw bikie in the nation has been secretly jailed.
Comancheros national president Mick Murray was spotted in cuffs last week being placed in a prison van.
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It can be revealed the bikie boss has been fighting authorities since mid-last year.
He is believed to be the subject of an investigation by Victoria Police’s anti-bikie Echo taskforce but is said to have repeatedly refused to co-operate with authorities. The Sunday Herald Sun has chosen not to reveal further details for legal reasons.
It is not known who will step into the Comancheros leadership void during Murray’s next stint in jail, which could be up to two years. It is believed his jailing has created difficulties about where to place him because of his high profile. He is believed to be at either the Metropolitan
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Comancheros boss Mick Murray. Picture: Hamish Blair
Remand Centre or Melbourne Assessment Prison but details are being kept secret.
He is likely to be moved to the maximum security Port Phillip Prison where other Comancheros are held.
Heavily tattooed Murray only has a criminal history with convictions for affray, attempting to pervert the course of justice and committing an indictable offence while on bail.
He spent 68 days in custody before being bailed over 15 charges he faced in 2016. He pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to time served and a $10,000 fine, after which he returned to run the Comancheros.
Murray has been a prime target for the Echo taskforce for several years. Over the past two years dozens of Comancheros members have been charged and jailed.
Victoria Police last year charged 19 people either linked to or members of the Comancheros after a massive operation that included widescale phone tapping. It included Murray’s “right hand man” who is facing charges including inciting underlings to commit arson and to traffic drugs, dealing in the proceeds of crime and conspiring to commit arson.
Comancheros national president Mick Murray.
Murray, national head of the Comancheros for at least two years, has been in dispute with the Australian Taxation Office over a $13 million tax debt since 2014. He was late last year ordered to pay $3.72 million.
Police raided Murray in February 2014 and seized financial documents, with his and his wife assessed as having failed to pay income tax between 2008 and 2013.
Before moving to Melbourne he was an enforcer for the Comancheros in Sydney and took part in the infamous gang war with Notorious.
Murray, considered leadership material, became a loyal ally of organised crime figure Jay Malkoun and took the reins as Victorian president after his departure for Dubai in 2013.
The bikie boss was photographed sitting next to Mick Gatto at a Danny Green fight in 2012 — an early sign of his growing importance in Australia’s underbelly.
But photos of Murray looking threatening brought him to the public’s attention after his Hallam gym and tattoo parlour were sprayed with bullets in suspected Hells Angels attacks the same year.
The Comancheros were suspected of a series of shootings and the firebombing of a Kittens strip club. Picture: AAP
Under his leadership the Comancheros in 2015-16 were suspected of a series of shootings and the firebombing of a Kittens strip club — which had contracted Clay Auimatagi, a security industry rival of Murray’s. Auimatagi was also shot outside his own gym in Narre Warren. That crime remains unsolved.
It is believed the club’s management paid the gang $250,000 to stop attacks on its venues.
The Echo taskforce is also trying to solve the drive-by shooting of former senior Comanchero Robert Morando, who survived being gunned down near his Narre Warren South home.
Police raids on Comanchero gang members have resulted in seizures of drugs, cash, guns and explosives including a Russian-made grenade.
Two years ago the Australian Defence Force was called in and homes evacuated in a Blackburn South street after the bomb was found.
It was deemed to be “real, live and capable of exploding”. Intelligence gathered stated the grenade “far more powerful and therefore far more deadly than those used by the ADF”.
The Comancheros are an international bikie gang with known chapters in Spain, Estonia and Russia.
