Bandidos, Hells Angels bosses charged as probe into fake safety scam widens

The bosses of two of Victoria’s most feared bikie gangs, the Bandidos and the Hells Angels, have been charged over allegations they obtained falsified qualifications as part of a criminal racket that has infected the Labor government’s Big Build.

Hells Angels supremo Kane Montebello and Bandidos president Codee Staff are veteran bikies who both worked as CFMEU health and safety officials before the revelations in The Age that forced both men from their union roles and led to the Kourakis royal commission.

Staff is also the lieutenant to fellow Bandidos leader and ex-CFMEU Big Build official Joel Leavitt, with the pair currently running a construction industry labour hire and consulting business. Kane Montebello is the brother of serving CFMEU senior organiser Matt Montebello.

On Wednesday morning, Victoria Police’s Taskforce Hawk charged Kane Montebello and Staff with procuring fake building industry certificates from notorious industry conman Jack Younes.

Though the charges have not been proven, if the two former CFMEU health and safety delegates were operating with false building industry qualifications – posing a potential safety risk – it would further highlight how the construction union abandoned its principles when it embarked on the bikie-gang recruiting spree around 2021.

The charges come a month after The Age revealed that Younes, who also goes by several aliases, has for at least three years been distributing hundreds or even thousands of fake building qualification certificates to Victorian construction firms and workers, including many operating on the Big Build.

The charging of Montebello and Staff comes after another ex-union delegate and former Mongols bikie boss, Tyrone “Little Ty” Bell, was charged by Hawk in September with also procuring fake qualifications from Younes for his construction industry health and safety consultancy.

Staff gained infamy on the Big Build after he assaulted a female worker on his rail level-crossing lunch break in late 2023. He was working as a taxpayer-funded CFMEU health and safety official at the time.

A video of the assault was anonymously sent to the union in 2024 and captures Staff kicking the woman as she lies on the ground while he screams at her that he will “cave” her head in and calls her a “f—ing dog”.

The charging of Staff, Kane Montebello and Bell by Hawk over the fake qualifications scam is part of the police taskforce’s strategy to disrupt the activities of bikie gang members in Victoria’s construction industry.

In a statement, police said Staff had been charged with making a false document and was bailed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on May 7, 2027.

Montebello was charged with two counts of making a false certificate and one count of driving while suspended. He was bailed to appear at Ringwood Magistrates’ Court in March 2027.

Between 2020 and late 2024, the CFMEU helped the Bandidos, Hells Angels, Finks, Rebels and Mongols outlaw bikie gang clubs all gain deep footholds in the state’s construction sector by giving gang members roles as union health and safety officials, including on Big Build projects.

Since the administrator of the CFMEU has prohibited bikies from holding union roles, several gang members have pivoted to working with labour hire companies or industrial relations and safety advisory firms.

While police can only probe alleged criminal activity, the Kourakis royal commission has far greater powers and scope to probe suspected wrongdoing and is already circling a CFMEU-backed labour hire company, BK, that employed bikie gang members and their friends, associates and girlfriends.

Bandidos Staff and Leavitt repeatedly used their power as CFMEU representatives between 2022 and 2024 to demand that labour hire firms employ their preferred candidates, according to multiple Big Build sources who briefed this masthead on condition of anonymity.

The Taskforce Hawk fake qualifications probe overlaps the royal commission’s investigations because one of the dual rackets on the Big Build involved the union forcing major contractors to engage select labour hire companies who in turn provided traffic management workers who are alleged to have sourced their qualifications via the black market.

One official source, not authorised to speak publicly, said in October that the fake qualifications who allegations could run into the “thousands” and queried why WorkSafe Victoria had stalled in alerting the industry and public about the alleged scam given the safety risks that workers with false qualifications were posing on multiple sites.

The launching of royal commission public hearings this week along with the police arrests – including Monday’s charging of a Big Build labour hire employee with drug trafficking – have thrust the Building Bad scandal firmly back into the headlines on the eve of the state election.

Premier Ben Carroll has repeatedly insisted his decision to call a royal commission will lead to a deep cleanout of rorts and wrongdoing in Victoria’s construction and infrastructure industry.

The scandal has also increased the focus on the actions of former premier Jacinta Allan, whose refusal to call a royal commission contributed to her removal as premier.

This week, the royal commission has heard evidence that a major Big Build contractor was warned that an unnamed minister’s office wanted it to cave into to CFMEU demands to hire select labour hire firms on a major rail project.

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