They say loyalty runs deeper than blood in the bikey world. But what happens when that loyalty is tested by betrayal, murder, and the pursuit of power?
In May 2024, the largest mass resignation in Australian underworld history, sent shock waves through the criminal landscape.
36 members of Australia’s biggest bikey gang, the Rebels Motorcycle Club, walked away from everything they’d built, everything they’d sworn to protect.
They kept their Harleys as a final insult to Sydney. They abandoned their patches in an act of defiance that would change the bikey world forever.
This wasn’t just a resignation. This was a declaration of war from within. Tonight, we uncover the dark secrets behind the internal collapse that’s tearing apart Australia’s most powerful criminal empire.
A story of greed, suspicion, and ultimate betrayal that began with a sniper bullet in the darkness of a Perth racetrack.
Chapter 1. The empire that was. To understand how Australia’s biggest bikey gang fell apart from the inside, we need to go back to when the rebels ruled the underworld like kings.
Founded in Brisbane in 1969, the Rebels Motorcycle Club grew from a small group calling themselves the Confederates into a criminal empire spanning continents.
At their peak, they commanded over 70 chapters across Australia and more than 1,000 patched members, making them the largest outlaw motorcycle gang in the country.
Their patches told the story of their power. A Confederate flag with a skull wearing a cap.
The infamous 1% symbol marking them as outlaws who lived outside society’s rules. Their motto said it all.
Rebels forever. Forever rebels. For decades, this seemed unbreakable. The man who built this empire was Alex Vela, known in the underworld as the Maltese Falcon.
Born in Malta in 1953, Vela arrived in Australia as a teenager and quickly made his mark.
He was a boxer, a businessman, and eventually the national president who transformed the rebels from street thugs into sophisticated crime bosses.
Vela understood something other gang leaders didn’t. The real money wasn’t in street level violence.
It was in building networks, drug trafficking, money laundering, legitimate businesses that could wash dirty cash.
The rebels didn’t just control territory, they controlled markets. By the 2000s, police estimated the gang was involved in everything from methamphetamine trafficking to extortion.
South Australian police reported that 80% of nightclubs and bars Adelaide used security companies owned by bikey gangs with the rebels at the center of this web.
But empires built on violence and greed carry the seeds of their own destruction. In 2014, Alex Vela’s world came crashing down when Australian immigration authorities canled his visa while he was visiting Malta.
The Maltese Falcon was grounded, unable to return to the kingdom he’d built. The question became, who would inherit the throne?
Chapter 2, the Air and the Heartland. When Alex Vela was stranded in Malta, power passed to his nephew, Damian Vela.
At 43 years old, Damian found himself controlling one of Australia’s most feared criminal organizations.
But ruling an empire from Sydney while trying to control chapters across a continent the size of the United States would prove more challenging than anyone imagined.
The real power center of the rebels wasn’t in Sydney. It was 3,200 km away in Western Australia, where a man named Nick Martin had built his own kingdom.
Nick Martin wasn’t just the WA president of the rebels. He was a legend in the Australian underworld.
Tough, charismatic, and absolutely ruthless, Martin had survived assassination attempts and gang wars. He occasionally stepped up as acting national president, a towering figure who commanded respect through fear and loyalty in equal measure.
Martin ruled Western Australia like a medieval lord. Members paid their dues and cash directly to him.
He lived in a mansion, drove luxury cars, and wasn’t shy about spending club money on his lifestyle.
Some members whispered about missing funds and expensive home renovations. But nobody dared question Nick Martin openly.
Carl Labrook knew better than most. For more than a decade, Labbrook served as Martin’s sergeant-at-arms, his right-hand man in the Western Territories.
Labrook had joined the rebels 25 years earlier and worked his way up through absolute loyalty and dedication.
He was Martin’s enforcer, his financial manager, and arguably the most trusted man in the WA chapters.
But trust in the bikey world is a dangerous commodity. Everything changed on the night of December 12th, 2020 at the Perth Motorlex in Quinana.
Martin was watching drag races with his wife Amanda and thousands of other families when death came for him from the darkness.
At exactly 8:33 p.m., a single rifle shot cracked through the night air. The bullet fired from 335 m away struck Martin in the left side of his chest.
His last words, spoken to his wife as she tried to give him CPR were simple and devastating.
Babe, I’ve been shot. Nick Martin died in Amanda’s arms while children screamed and families ran for cover.
The king of the Western Territories was dead, killed by a professional sniper in the most public assassination in Australian criminal history.
Chapter 3. The sniper in the Shadows. The assassination of Nick Martin wasn’t a random act of violence.
It was a precisely planned execution that revealed the deadly new reality of Australian organized crime.
Police launched Operation Rell, one of the most intensive investigations in Western Australian criminal history.
What they discovered was chilling in its calculated brutality. The killer was a 35-year-old former Army sharpshooter with military experience in Iraq.
He worked for an organization called Shadows of Hope. Described as operating in war zones around the world, this wasn’t some street thug with a grudge.
This was a professional killer for hire. The man behind the contract was David James Pi, a former Rebels member who had switched allegiance to the rival Kancheros gang.
Pi allegedly offered $150,000 for Martin’s death, one of the largest murder contracts in Australian criminal history.
The planning was meticulous and terrifying. The assassin spent weeks researching Martin, analyzing his social media, conducting surveillance of his home, even flying a drone over his property to check security arrangements.
He visited the Perth Motorlex multiple times, studying the layout, observing Martin’s usual seating position, calculating the perfect vantage point for the shot.
On December 12th, the killer arrived at the Motorplex as a regular spectator, then left during the evening to retrieve his weapon.
He dressed in a camouflage suit, cut through a hole in the perimeter fence he’d prepared earlier, and crawled into position in heavy vegetation.
For 10 to 15 minutes, he watched Nick Martin through the scope of his Tika rifle, waiting for the perfect moment.
Around them, 2,000 people enjoyed a family night out, completely unaware that a professional assassin was taking aim at one of Australia’s most notorious crime bosses.
The single shot that killed Martin also wounded Ricky Chapman, the boyfriend of Martin’s stepdaughter, who was struck by bullet fragments.
A 5-year-old child was sitting just behind Martin when the shot was fired. The assassin escaped in the chaos, but he made one crucial mistake.
Weeks later, he took his rifle to a licensed gunsmith and asked for the barrel to be replaced.
That decision would eventually lead police straight to his door. In March 2021, they arrested him at his home in Wiki.
In December 2021, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison with a minimum of 18 years after pleading guilty to murder.
He agreed to testify against David Pi, who still faces trial for allegedly masterminding the killing.
But Martin’s death created a power vacuum that would tear the rebels apart from within.
Chapter 4. The Money Trail. With Nick Martin dead, Carl Labrook found himself in an impossible position.
As Martin’s trusted sergeant-at-arms, he became responsible for the financial affairs of the WA chapters.
What he discovered in the aftermath would set him on a collision course with National President Damen Vela and ultimately destroy the club from within.
The first problem was immediate and practical. The Rebels WA operations dealt primarily in cash.
Martin had insisted that members pay their monthly dues in cash, partly because banks had closed his accounts due to his criminal reputation.
This left hundreds of thousands of dollars in club funds sitting in safes, car boots, and hidden locations across Perth.
Labuk testified in court that Martin wasn’t transparent with the club’s finances and described his leadership style as a bit more of a dictatorship.
Members suspected that club money had gone missing, possibly funding renovations to Martin’s expensive home.
The Rockingham City chapter had actually left the rebels before Martin’s death because of all this drama and became the Mongols, showing the depth of the financial disputes.
After Martin’s assassination, Lbrook tried to bring transparency to the chaos. He implemented a system where sums of $10,000 to $20,000 would be counted, verified, and sealed before storage.
Without bank accounts, the money went into safes at his home. But personal problems complicated everything.
Labrook’s partner was suffering from post-natal depression and at one point threatened to set the cash on fire.
For safety, he moved large amounts of money to other locations for storage. This decision would come back to haunt him.
On December 28th, 2022, police pulled over Labrook’s BMW in Ridgewood and made a shocking discovery.
$27,850 in cash was sitting on the back seat, wrapped in Christmas paper like a festive gift.
Hours later, they raided the home of Kelly Kursley, a member of the famous racing family and close friend of Lab Brook’s partner.
There they found another $247,700 in vacuum-sealed plastic bags. The total seizure was $455,550 in cash, all packaged in a way that suggested criminal activity rather than legitimate club business.
Labbrook was charged with possessing stolen or unlawfully obtained property. He insisted the money belonged to the rebels and was being saved for a high court challenge against WA’s tough anti-bikey laws, but prosecutors argued that the manner of storage and packaging suggested something more sinister.
The case dragged on for over a year with Labbrook fighting the charges in court.
But back in Sydney, National President Damen Vela was growing suspicious. Police sources believe that forces linked to Vela demanded transcripts of Labbrook’s court appearances.
Wanting to know exactly what was being said about the club’s finances. The request was more than just curiosity.
It was a challenge to Lab Brook’s integrity, a suggestion that perhaps he couldn’t be trusted with the club’s most sensitive secrets.
For a man who had devoted 25 years of his life to the rebels, who had served as Nick Martin’s most trusted lieutenant, the implication was devastating.
Chapter 5. The Eastern Betrayals. While Carl Labbrook fought court battles in Perth, Damen Vela was dealing with his own crisis of loyalty on the East Coast.
The year 2022 had been devastating for the Vela family and by extension the rebels hierarchy.
In early 2022, Ginolla, Damen’s cousin and a respected member of the rebels, died suddenly in New South Wales.
The loss hit the family hard, but what came next was even more shocking. At Gino’s funeral in January, his son Jesse Vela stood before the mourners and delivered what seemed like a tribute to both his father and the club.
Speaking in the emotional cadence of grief, he read a poem that included the club’s sacred motto, rebels forever, forever rebels.
The words seemed to cement Jesse’s loyalty to the organization that had defined his family for generations.
As the nephew of former president Alex Vela and cousin of current president Damen Vela, Jesse was Biky royalty.
His allegiance seemed unquestionable. But in the underworld, forever can be surprisingly short. Just months after declaring his eternal loyalty, Jesse Vela shocked the criminal world by patching over to the Keros, the rebels most bitter rivals.
Photos appeared on social media showing Jesse wearing Comancherro colors posing with their new president, Alex Mi.
The betrayal was personal, professional, and symbolic all at once. When Bikey royalty switches sides, it sends a message that no loyalty is sacred.
No alliance is permanent. For Damian, Jesse’s defection was more than just a family betrayal.
It was a threat to his authority and a potential trigger for war between the two most powerful gangs in Australia.
Police had legitimate fears that the switch could spark a violent conflict as both organizations positioned themselves for advantage.
The defection also emboldened other members who were questioning the direction of the club under Damian’s leadership.
If Alla could abandon the rebels, what did that say about the organization’s future? These eastern betrayals would pale in comparison to what was brewing in the west, where Carl Labbrook’s patience with Sydney’s leadership was reaching its breaking point.
Chapter 6, the war with the Mongols. The final straw for Carl Labbrook and the WA chapters came during the rebels brutal conflict with the Mongols gang.
A war that would expose the fatal disconnect between Sydney’s leadership and the members actually fighting on the streets.
The Mongols had established themselves in Perth after defecting rebels members formed the new chapter.
This wasn’t just about territory. It was personal. These were former brothers who had turned against the club.
And in the Biky world, such betrayals demand blood. What followed was a vicious tit fortat war that saw drive-by shootings, firebombings, and constant violence across Perth’s western suburbs.
Rebels members were arrested, charged, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their role in the conflict.
But here’s where the story takes a dark turn that would ultimately destroy the club.
While WA rebels were going to prison for defending the club’s honor, the national leadership in Sydney provided little support for their families or legal defense.
In the bikey world, this represents the ultimate betrayal. When a member goes to prison for the club, the organization is supposed to take care of his family, pay for his legal defense, and ensure he knows he hasn’t been abandoned.
It’s an unwritten code that keeps the entire system functioning. According to police sources, Labuk was appalled by the lack of support given to members who were jailed during the recent war with the Mongols gang.
These weren’t just soldiers. These were his friends, his chapter brothers, men who had risked everything for the rebels reputation in WA.
The perception that Sydney leadership was hanging the WA chapters out to dry created a resentment that went far beyond personal grievances.
It struck at the heart of what it means to be a rebel. The idea that the club looks after its own no matter what.
When Damian Vela’s people started demanding transcripts of Labrook’s court case, questioning his integrity over the seized money, it was the final insult.
Here was a man who had devoted 25 years to the club, who had served as Nick Martin’s most trusted lieutenant, who had tried to bring financial transparency after Martin’s assassination.
And Sydney was treating him like a criminal. The message was clear. Loyalty flowed upward to Sydney, but support didn’t flow back down to the chapters doing the real work.
For Lebrook, the decision became inevitable. If Sydney wouldn’t support the WA chapters, then perhaps it was time for the WA chapters to support themselves.
Chapter 7, the Great Exodus. The rebellion began quietly, as the most dangerous revolutions often do.
In the weeks leading up to May 2024, Carl Lbrook began having conversations with other senior members of the WA chapters.
The message was simple but devastating. Sydney had abandoned them and it was time to abandon Sydney.
What happened next was unprecedented in Australian criminal history. 36 members of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, nearly the entire WA membership, formerly resigned from the organization in a coordinated mass exodus.
But this wasn’t just about leaving. It was about sending a message that would echo through every clubhouse in Australia.
In the bikey world, when you leave a club, you surrender everything. Your patch, your colors, your bikey, everything that identified you as a member goes back to the organization.
It’s a ritual of humiliation designed to discourage defections and maintain the club’s property and power.
The WA rebels did something different. They kept their Harleyies. This wasn’t an oversight or an accident.
It was a calculated insult, a middle finger raised toward Damen Vela and the Sydney leadership.
Police sources described it as a rebuke to Sydney, a final gesture of defiance from men who felt they had been betrayed by the organization they had served faithfully.
The impact was immediate and devastating. Western Australia had been a rebel stronghold for decades, one of their most powerful and profitable territories.
Overnight, it essentially ceased to exist. Police sources estimated that fewer than a dozen committed fee paying members remained in WA, mostly in the once powerful Southwest chapter.
For Damian Vela, this was more than just a membership crisis. It was an existential threat to his leadership and the organization’s future.
If WA could successfully break away, what would stop other states from following? The rebels had always ruled through strength and fear, but now they looked weak and divided.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Vela was already dealing with internal disscent from Jesse Vela’s defection to the commanderos and ongoing pressure from law enforcement across multiple states.
Now, he faced the largest mass resignation in Australian underworld history. But Carl Lbrook wasn’t finished.
Having walked away from 25 years of his life, he was about to make another decision that would send shock waves through the criminal world.
Chapter 8, the commoner connection. The underworld held its breath, waiting to see what would happen to the 36 former rebels who had walked away from the organization.
Would they form their own club? Would they retire from the bikey world entirely? Or would they do something even more dangerous?
The answer came in June 2024 when Carl Labbrook walked into a Perth courthouse wearing black and gold, the colors of the Comanchos Motorcycle Club.
It was a subtle signal that detonated like a bomb through the Australian criminal landscape.
Lab Rook, the man who had been Nick Martin’s right hand for over a decade, was officially defecting to the rebels most bitter rivals.
This wasn’t just personal revenge. It was strategic warfare. The Commanderos are considered Australia’s most feared organized crime outfit.
Responsible for a gangland war in Sydney that left nearly 20 people dead in recent years.
They’re sophisticated, violent, and utterly ruthless in their pursuit of power. For the Comancheros, recruiting Carl Labbrook was a massive coup.
Here was a man with 25 years of inside knowledge about rebels operations, financial structures, and criminal activities.
He knew their strengths, their weaknesses, and most importantly, their secrets. Senior Command Cherro leaders flew to Perth immediately after the mass resignation, holding meetings with Lebrook and other disaffected former rebels.
The recruitment drive was swift and systematic. At least six former WA Rebels signed over to the new club within weeks, but the Comancheros were careful about who they accepted.
They ruled out recruiting any former Rebels who were currently behind bars and made it clear that even experienced Vickies would need to serve time as nominees before earning their patches.
This wasn’t charity. It was a business decision designed to test loyalty and commitment. The strategic implications were staggering.
Western Australia had suddenly shifted from being rebels territory to potential commonro stronghold. The balance of power that had defined Australian organized crime for decades was being rewritten in real time.
Police were bracing for retaliation. In the Biky world, such massive defections are often met with violence as the abandoned organization tries to prevent further hemorrhaging and maintain its reputation for strength.
But the violence never came. The rebels were too weakened, too fractured to mount an effective response.
Instead, they could only watch as their former kingdom crumbled and their enemies grew stronger.
Chapter 9. The ripple effects. The collapse of the rebels Western Australian Empire sent shock waves through law enforcement agencies across the country.
Police who had spent decades mapping the relationships and territories of outlaw motorcycle gangs suddenly found themselves dealing with a completely new landscape.
In August 2024, Carl Labbrook was finally sentenced for the moneyaundering charges that had started his conflict with Sydney leadership.
He received 14 months in prison with eligibility for parole after 7 months, but the legal consequences were minor compared to the organizational earthquake he had triggered.
During his trial, Labbrook dropped bombshell revelations about the internal workings of the rebels that provided unprecedented insight into how these organizations really operate.
His testimony about Nick Martin’s financial management, the suspected theft of club funds, and the authoritarian leadership style painted a picture of criminal organizations plagued by the same corruption and power struggles that destroy legitimate businesses.
Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies across Australia were scrambling to understand the new reality. The Australian Federal Police, state police forces, and specialized anti-bikey units had to completely reassess their intelligence and operational strategies.
The commandos’s sudden expansion into Western Australia represented more than just a membership game. It was a strategic foothold in one of Australia’s most lucrative criminal markets.
WA’s mining boom, isolated geography, and major ports made it ideal for drug trafficking, money laundering, and other organized crime activities.
But perhaps the most significant impact was psychological. For decades, the Biky world had operated on principles of absolute loyalty and severe consequences for betrayal.
The WA defection showed that even the most established organizations could collapse from within when leadership failed to maintain the social contract with their members.
Other clubs began experiencing their own internal tensions as members questioned whether their leadership would support them in times of crisis.
The rebels internal war had revealed the fragility of organizations built on fear and violence rather than genuine loyalty and mutual benefit.
Chapter 10. The new order. By 2025, the Australian bikey landscape looked fundamentally different than it had just two years earlier.
The rebels, once the undisputed largest motorcycle club in the country, had been reduced to a shadow of their former power.
The ripple effects extended far beyond Western Australia. The successful defection of an entire state’s worth of members emboldened descent in other regions.
Reports emerged of internal conflicts in other states with members questioning leadership decisions and demanding better support for those facing legal troubles.
Damen Vela’s position as national president became increasingly precarious. The man who had inherited the throne from his uncle Alex now presided over a fractured empire where loyalty could no longer be taken for granted.
The Command Cheros, meanwhile, leveraged their WA expansion to strengthen their position as Australia’s premier outlaw motorcycle gang.
Their successful recruitment of experienced former rebels gave them instant credibility and operational capability in a new territory.
Law enforcement agencies reported significant changes in criminal activity patterns across the country. Drug trafficking routes shifted, moneyaundering operations reorganized, and territorial disputes flared as the balance of power continued to evolve.
In Canbor, the Australian capital territory became an unexpected flash point with fewer anti-consorting laws and restrictions on gang colors.
The ACT attracted bikally groups from across the country. Police reported the presence of four different gangs in the territory by 2024, raising fears of potential violence reminiscent of the turf wars that had plagued the region 5 years earlier.
The cost of policing these developments was enormous. ACT police alone spent approximately $400,000 in resources and overtime payments monitoring Bley activities during 2024, highlighting the broader economic impact of the organizational chaos.
Conclusion: The price of betrayal. The story of the rebels internal war is ultimately a story about the price of betrayal.
Not just the betrayal of individual loyalty, but the betrayal of the social contracts that hold criminal organizations together.
Carl Labrook’s journey from trusted lieutenant to rival gang member wasn’t driven by greed or ambition.
It was driven by a fundamental breach of trust between leadership and membership, between those who give orders and those who carry them out.
When Sydney leadership failed to support WA members during their war with the Mongols, they violated the unwritten code that has kept Beaky organizations functioning for decades.
When they questioned Lab Brook’s integrity over money he was managing in the aftermath of Nick Martin’s assassination, they broke faith with a man who had devoted 25 years of his life to the club.
The consequences were swift and devastating. The largest mass resignation in Australian underworld history didn’t happen because of police pressure or legal troubles.
It happened because an organization forgot how to take care of its own people. Today, Carl Lbrook serves his sentence knowing that his rebellion has fundamentally changed the landscape of Australian organized crime.
The rebels empire built over 55 years crumbled in a matter of weeks because leadership mistook fear for loyalty and control for strength.
The Bea world continues to evolve with new alliances forming and old rivalries taking on fresh dimensions, but the lesson of the rebels internal war remains clear.
In a world built on loyalty and brotherhood, the greatest threat often comes not from enemies on the outside, but from betrayal within.
As law enforcement agencies adapt to this new reality and rival organizations position themselves for advantage, one question remains unanswered.
In a criminal world where loyalty can be bought and sold, where 25 years of service can be discarded over money and suspicion, who can really be trusted?
The answer may determine which organizations survive and which ones join the rebels in the graveyard of failed criminal empires?
In the end, the rebels learned the hardest lesson of all. An empire built on fear and violence may expand quickly, but it will always carry within it the seeds of its own destruction.
All it takes is the right betrayal at the right moment, and even the mightiest kingdoms can fall.
The internal war is over, the rebels lost, and the Australian underworld will never be the same again.
