In Victoria, the Taskforce Morpheus day of action – which ran on Wednesday, September 10 – focused on swooping on OMCG members, including the Mongols, and their associates for firearm prohibition order searches and other offences including affray and drugs.
Victoria Police arrested nine people and laid 42 charges as part of the operation.
Detectives from Echo Taskforce, VIPER Taskforce and Hawk Taskforce, as well as police from the regions, teamed up to conduct 20 FPO searches in multiple Melbourne suburbs, as well as Shepparton, Tatura and Smythes Creek near Ballarat.
Four new FPOs were also served on OMCG members.
Six of the arrests resulted in charges for an alleged affray linked to an assault in a correctional facility in Lara, near Geelong, on December 7 last year.
The other arrests related to various criminal offending.
Across the country, police arrested 41 people in total, resulting in 120 charges.
Police also conducted 43 FPO compliance checks, 21 search warrants, seized two replica firearms, an amount of ammunition, more than 100kg of methamphetamine, 231ml of anabolic steroids, 447 tablets of prescription medication, about $20,000 worth of illicit tobacco and more than $32,000 cash.
Echo Taskforce Detective Acting Inspector Ben Oakley said the day of action showed just how serious police were in tracking down outlaw motorcycle gangs to hold them to account for their offences and keep Victorians safe.
“OMCGs remain a significant national problem — they’re motivated by profit and greed and infiltrate communities, industry and businesses,” he said.
“We’ll also continue to work alongside our law enforcement partners interstate to target any offending regardless of where it occurs.”
Anyone with information about OMCG activity is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report to crimestoppersvic.com.au
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