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Shocking report on motorcycle gangs: ‘Increase in criminal Hardliners’

Google Translated from Dutch

At motorcycle club Hardliners, with many chapters in our province, an increase can be seen in the number of members who are or have been suspects in a criminal investigation. In addition, many gang members of motorcycle clubs appear to be involved in the trade and production of hard drugs. There is also a wish for an administrative ban. 

The five suspects were (at the time) members of MC Hardliners - Facebook MC Hardliners
The five suspects were (at the time) members of MC Hardliners – Facebook MC Hardliners

This is apparent from the progress report Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs of the National Strategic Consultation on Integrated Approach OMGs (LSO). This report is about the integrated approach to criminal motorcycle gangs by the police, the municipality, the Public Prosecution Service, the Tax Authorities and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee. 

The report also pays attention to MC Hardliners, a growing motorcycle gang with departments in North Holland, about which NH Nieuws made the story below in April. It is ‘a biker gang with a substantial size where subversive crime also plays a role’. 

The police now have almost ninety members of the Hardliners in their picture and 31 of them are or have been suspects of criminal activities. Members ‘behave like an OMG and emphatically provoke both other motorcycle gangs and the government’, is the conclusion. 

In April, five North Holland Hardliners were sentenced to prison for demanding EUR 10,000 from a man from Opmeer for raping and filming a niece of one of the motorcycle gang members.

But it doesn’t stop there: what also comes back in the report is that there is a gang war (especially in North Holland) between MC Hardliners and the  club Satudarah, which was banned in 2019 . The violent bomb explosions at homes in  Hoorn  and Zwaag are also linked to the motorcycle gangs. 

Motorcycle members at funeral

The (members of) criminal motorcycle clubs have shown themselves less in public space in the past year, partly due to the corona measures. Due to the closure of the catering industry, for example, it was not possible to organize meetings there.

However, there are also times when the clubs express themselves, such as at funerals (last week at the funeral of former Satudarah president Etou’s Belserang), demonstrations and activities that are used as a charm offensive, such as handing out hugs at a children’s hospital. , can be read. 

Motorbikes at the funeral last week in Amsterdam - AT5
Motorbikes at the funeral last week in Amsterdam – AT5

The generally reduced visibility does not mean that  outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) and their members no longer engage in organized or subversive crime. While members of certain gangs disappear from the picture of agencies cooperating with the report, they come back on the radar when investigating other so-called brotherhoods . 

Motorcycle gang members also make extensive use of encrypted means of communication, such as PGP telephones, the report says. These services are best known as the way criminals communicate.

The police hacked into some of those providers over the past two years, giving them access to millions of messages. It emerged, for example, that members of motorcycle gangs interfere ‘very dominantly’ in the production and trade of drugs and in doing so build up a criminal capacity, from which excessive violence arises.

culture of fear

Suspicious motorcycle gang members or witnesses of criminal activity make virtually no confessional or incriminating statements, according to the report. As a result, the criminal investigations have a long lead time. 

The police and the judiciary would continue to plead for targeted investigations into the motorcycle gangs, ‘a criminal and disruptive group’, but because of the many other subversive themes, the number of investigations is declining. According to the report, it is unfairly given less priority than at the start of the integrated approach. 

The conclusion of the report is that the integrated approach works: leaders and key figures of a number of larger criminal and violent motorcycle gangs were again arrested last year, such as from Motorclub Caloh Wagoh, Bandidos and No Surrender. 

In the meantime, eighty municipalities have also amended their General Local Ordinance in order not to allow outward appearances of prohibited organisations, such as their logo (colors), in public space. In North Holland there are already several municipalities that prohibit this, such as Haarlem, Hoorn, Heerhugowaard and Den Helder . 

Less visibility, does it get better? 

However, the reduced visibility does not mean that OMGs and members no longer engage in organized or subversive crime. Moreover, incidents still take place in the public space where the use of excessive force is not shunned and sometimes innocent civilians are also victims. 

That is why the National Strategic Consultation on an Integrated Approach (LSO) argues in favor of introducing an administrative ban. “Criminal enforcement is then possible immediately after an administrative decision by the Minister for Legal Protection.”

MC Hardliners, with a large following in our province, has been asked for a response. The lawyer of many suspected motorcycle gang members, Remco Kint, comes later with this.