- Ex-Bandidos president Hamish Hiroki posts videos about his time in a bikie gang
- Hiroki left the gang after being in a negative headspace and attempting suicide
- He said he looked up to the people in the clubs but realised it wasn’t that great
- The former president is telling teenagers to do something better with their lives
A formerbikie boss has revealed why he threw in his patch and turned his back on a life of crime while urging teenagers not to join gangs.
Hamish Hiroki was the president of the New Zealand chapter of the notorious Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang, but left the club last year.
Since his departure Mr Hiroki has posted a series of YouTube videos explaining his reasons for leaving and telling teenagers they can do better things with their lives.
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- Since his departure Mr Hiroki (pictured with his wife) has posted a series of YouTube videos explaining his reasons for leaving and tells teenagers they can do better things with their life
Hamish Hiroki was the president of the New Zealand chapter of the notorious Bandidos motorcycle gang, but left the club last year
‘I know there’s a lot of young followers that are joining clubs now and I think they feel the need to join clubs because everyone else is doing it,’ he said in a video posted in May.
‘The reason I joined the club was a sense of brotherhood and a sense of belonging to something.’
The former president left the gang after falling into a negative head space and not wanting his son to follow in his footsteps.
Mr Hiroki explained that at the time he had moved to Christchurch and didn’t know many people.
‘I wanted to join it since I was a young fella, because they were always guys I had looked up to, but plain and simple, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into really, I thought I did,’ Mr Hiroki said.
He said he ‘lost himself along the way’ because he was just following what others were doing around him.
Mr Hiroki quickly climbed the ranks and became the boss of the first chapter he had ever joined.
The former president left the gang after falling into a negative head space and not wanting his son to follow in his footsteps
‘I know there’s a lot of young followers that are joining clubs now and I think they feel the need to join clubs because everyone else is doing it,’ he said in a video posted in May
He was deported from Australia on gun charges in 2011, and said he’d had enough of the baggage that comes with leading a motorcycle gang.
The former president said his first moment of clarity was when he visited his grandmother and she ‘noticed a change’.
‘She noticed that I certainly got a lot harder on the exterior and I couldn’t see that because you can’t see the changes when you’re with yourself every day,’ he said.
Mr Hiroki attempted suicide while in the Bandidos, and since leaving the gang has embraced positive thinking to change his head space.
He runs a weekly support group in Christchurch challenging men to do the same.
In his videos Mr Hiroki urges teenagers to look past joining clubs as there is no sense of brotherhood in a gang.
‘I’ve had guys turn on me that were my best mates… it’s not a brotherhood,’ he said.
‘It’s a false sense of belonging to something, then at the drop of a hat everyone can turn on you.’
Mr Hiroki said teenagers need to ‘think carefully’ about joining a club because it’s hard to leave once inside.
‘If you’re man enough to join that club you be man enough to leave that club,’ he said.
‘You came in the front door you go out the front door.’
