There has long been a history of cooperation between outlaw biker gangs and the Mafia. In fact, it can be safely said that no group of outlaw bikers would pass up an opportunity to work for or with the mob. And valuable work they appear to have done.
Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, a high official of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms stated, “We know for a fact that outlaw motorcyclists have performed bombings and arsons for the more traditional organized crime groups. Additionally, at the time of the death of Phil Testa up in the Philadelphia area and when Nicodemo Scarfo took over the organized crime family there, there was certainly evidence that the Pagans were involved in the death of Phil Testa.”
Even though some mafiosi bridle at the suggestion, the bikers started off with the same philosophy in recruiting for the mob. Neither group ever strove to live lives anywhere like those of normal citizens. Both groups developed their own standards of morals, ethics, and boundaries of behavior. Bikers may sport symbols and mottos like “FTW” (Fuck the World), beliefs hardly at variance of the guiding principles of the Mafia.
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Outlaw bikers clearly adopt the principles that embrace the attributes of the mob, discipline and violence. And they have punishments for gang members who stray from their rules. Those can range from penalties such as burning off club tattoos to assassination.
Just as it can take years for a mob associate to work up to wise guy status, biker recruits do gofer duties for a long time, and they are expected to show their violent traits. Once in, they have to “roll their bones,” or kill somebody. If they flop at this, they themselves can be killed, as one defector has asserted, “because by this time they know too much.”
Outlaw bikers are ready to take on any chore for money. If the mob is big in stolen cars and chop shop activities, the biker outlaws do the same with motorcycle thefts and sell whole or by the parts through gang-run repair shops. They have a jump on the mob when it comes to prostitution services, as female associate members frequently are required to perform in club-owned nightclubs, bars, and massage parlors. And along with sundry burglaries, forgery, counterfeiting, fraud, loan-sharking and assaults, several gangs do a land-office business in stolen weapons, not simply handguns, known as “kid’s stuff,” but on up to explosives and on-order antitank weapons.
They are ever ready to “ride shotgun” for other criminal elements needing help in transporting drug shipments and international sex slaves. A recent estimate proposed that outlaw bikers control at least 40 percent of the U.S. methamphetamine traffic, and they have a considerable stake in handling cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Since they manufacture a good amount of their own products, they end up with a higher profit margin than many other dealers.
As a result some of the gang members have moved into the millionaire class. The President’s Commission on Organized Crime has pointed to reports that gang members were “abandoning their outlaw image, wearing business suits and driving luxury cars: in essence, becoming an outlaw motorcycle gang without motorcycles.”
Of course much of the manpower in outlaw gangs remains on two wheels, which still constitutes appeal to new members. Above all, the outlaw bikers are determined to maintain security in their ranks and to provide similar services for organized crime for a fee. Bikers maintain photo galleries of their members and of their enemies. The mob finds such services valuable as well. They provide the outlaws photos of defectors or witnesses they are interested in.
Since bikers circulate around the country, they have a good chance of locating a hidden quarry, especially in small-town areas where few mafiosi ever venture. In such duties outlaw bikers are better suited to solving some mob problems quickly. Bikers frequently disregard their own safety or even perils to bystanders when on such a mob chore. There have been instances when they have gunned their bikes up the stairs of courthouses and jails to get to a witness.
During recent periods when many of the Mafia families were in disarray, law enforcement experts feared the cyclists could move big-time into all elements of organized crime. But as the mobs righted themselves, it became evident the outlaw bikers lacked the expertise in too many areas.
Bikers were not about to invade the financial world as the mobs do on Wall Street, for instance. And there is no need for them to go to war with the mobs for such control. Biker outlaws are not known to go up against stronger opposition, concentrating more on hapless individuals. Thus, under the circumstances the status quo has continued in the mob–outlaw biker world.
