Australia had a recent interesting incident recently involving a biker brawl at the airport. Makes for an interesting inspiration for a shadowrun scenario too.

Something eerily reminiscent of the early phase of Ghost Cartels is going on in Vancouver. The police are scrambling to find ways to deal with a burgeoning gang war.

Link. (Check out the cool interactive map linked on the right.)

Ah, the situation in Australia is like a powderkeg.

See the first post for the first part and then read this latest. Woohoo.

If only they were doing it for a good reason.

meth trade, internet censoring... yup, closely related stuff.

Gangs, cartels, anyway, this was in the news and wow.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_...drug_war_mexico
they made an assault on a prison transport convoy, something you might see in the movies.

The Bikie situation is interesting... I'm not from NSW (state where the attacks occurred) but the short of the long is that there are multiple bikie gangs in Australia. Some of them claim they are a bikie gang when the truth of the matter (based on my limited understanding) is they're little more than a group of organised thugs drawn together by ethnic ties but couching themselves as a bikie gang (Comancheros).

Historically most bikies lay low and don't cause a huge amount of strife publicly. They sort their own affairs out through mediation and behind closed doors. These thugs don't follow the same approach - they don't respect a lot of the conventions that have kept the media spotlight off bikies and kept things in their own (relative) order. As a result, they've created too much of a ruckus and too much negative publicity that it can no longer be ignored. The attack at the airport highlighted significant gaps in airport security and is a PR nightmare for the government, law enforcement and the bikie gangs.

Something has to be done and now it's too late to move things back. There's meant to be a national crackdown on bikies - except in my home state of Victoria (our state govt thinks they have it "under control"). Now there's a real fear by Vic residents that the bikies will migrate in droves to our state if they're outlawed in other states.

So yeah, watch this space. The next few months will be interesting times, for sure.

- J.

Sounds like the time for the certain sections of the police and more tradional bikies to quietly link up and get rid of these guys as soon as possible. When both sides of the law have it in for you I wonder how long you can keep operating before getting arrested or worse.

all this remindes me of some stuff thats been going on more or less for years here in norway.

Wasn't there an attack on one of the gang's headquarters by another gang in which an rpg was used?

some kind of explosive vs a regional club house (remember, they pass themselves of as legit organizations, with the odd rogue element) yes, but i do not think it was a rpg. been some years now tho, and these days i do not follow national news much...

just not worth the mental issues it can produce...

IIRC didn't that mainly come about by one of the gangs breaking into a Home Guard armory? I have vague memories of reading about how they used to be fairly dispersed, makes sense when dealing with local troops, and not as secure as they could have been.

i recall reading about a breakin like that, but im not sure if it was related, or if the breakin happened later.

been fairly quiet on that end these days btw, more noise from the immigrant teen gangs these days...

The RPG incident you are remembering could be from Denmark. Some years ago Hells Angels and Bandidos had their own little "war" here as well. Some of the attacks that I remember:
* RPG attack on a house - actually two people lost their lives AFAIR
* Attempted assassination of one of the top HA Dawgs (85 9mm shots and 1 handgrenade vs a guy in a prison cell = two or three flesh wounds)
* 2-300 shots vs. a gated house from a LMG - one innocent bystander walking his dog got grazed

Now, this is not counting those cases where other/more people got killed or badly hurt.

Not to bring too much game into this discussion but, this reminds me more of Cyberpunk Nomands and not gangs.
My last Shadowrun Campaign arc was speckled with Nomads. They can fit into Shadowrun.

especially now that large parts of the world have been reclaimed by nature...

In this case, mine were biker nomads. Odd folks who have sins and travel in huge packs. Some of them are artisans and they have truck with workshops built in.

One such group was invited to Seattle by Brackhaven, who appreciated their
"Family values"
"Integrity"
"Purity errr of mind"