Deadly Shootouts & Betrayals: Inside the Bandidos | United Gangs of America

-Sunday, high noon.

A busy strip mall in Waco, Texas is about to become a war zone.

As churchgoers return from service,

the parking lot at the Twin Peaks restaurant

suddenly fills with 200 bikers in town.

They're there for a big biker conference called

the Confederation of Clubs.

-This was kind of like a United Nations assembly,

if you will, of bikers.

-Members of the Bandidos,

the largest and most infamous club in Texas,

arrived to find that a rival gang, the Cossacks,

have taken over the patio.

-You had a large amount of bikers

from two rival factions show up.

-It became clear

that this was not just going to be a Sunday morning meeting.

-The Bandidos and the Cossacks

had been at each other's throats for months.

-There were incidents across Texas.

People were getting hurt.

-Tensions with the Cossacks

came down to a patch called the bottom rocker.

The Bandidos wear "TEXAS" in capital letters.

No other club has that right.

-Who wears it is a big thing.

We won't certainly tell anybody they can't wear it.

We tell them they should earn it.

Because in the biker world,

everything you wear is earned, right?

You don't earn it, you don't wear it.

-Legendary Bandido Jerry Pierson, AKA Scratch,

rolls into the parking lot

and sees the lot full of rival bikers.

He knows something's about to go off.

-Everybody had been told to kind of keep their eyes out.

There's something that's not going right.

-Scratch is right.

Someone has snitched to the Waco Police

and they're ready and waiting with SWAT teams in tow.

-We get off of our bikes and they all come out to the patio.

And all hell breaks loose.

[ Gunshots ]

-Three small caliber shots happen.

And at that point in time, everybody took off running.

[ Gunshots ]

And then I start hearing rifle fire.

-Three of their SWAT officers opened fire.

-That was going on behind me.

That was going on with that patio.

They were bum-rushing me.

You try to survive, protect your brother.

A couple of guys had that metal whip out, come up behind me,

beat me in the back of my head.

-It was just chaos, and pandemonium, and blood,

and people were running for cover to save their lives.

-It was a shootout that looked like a scene

out of Quentin Tarantino movie.

[ Sirens wailing ]

-By the time it's over, nine bikers are dead on the pavement,

177 people are arrested.

-I saw everything from pistol casings to rifle casings.

There were pools of blood.

One of the most violent,

gruesome crime scenes I've seen in 35 years of service.

-The Bandidos were packing all kinds of weapons,

hundreds of weapons.

AK-47s in their cars, knives in their boots, Glocks.

-The Bandidos pin the death toll on the police.

-The crime scene after Waco was horrific.

It was a over-the-top reaction by law enforcement.

-The shootout goes down as the worst massacre

in biker history

and locks in the Bandidos as biker legends.

-The Waco incident really put the Bandidos on the map.

Probably the most significant event ever in the United States

involving outlaw motorcycle gangs as far

as violence is concerned.

-They did refer to them as the mafia on two wheels.

♪♪

-They're war mongers.

I mean, this is part of their identity and their persona.

♪♪

-Every young guy likes the outlaw,

whether it's, you know, in movies or whatever.

Who wouldn't want to be an outlaw?

♪♪

♪♪

[ Motorcycle engines revving ]

-The Bandidos are founded in 1966 in San Leon, Texas

by a Vietnam vet named Donald Eugene Chambers, AKA Mother.

Back then, the Hells Angels are the biggest biker gang

on the map,

but they haven't staked their claim in Texas.

Chambers sees an opening and jumps.

-They come home from serving their tours of duty

and they're looking for a brotherhood

like they had with their military brothers.

-Chambers adopts the colors of the Marine Corps,

scarlet and gold,

and sets up a chain of command from his time as a Marine.

-He adopted many of the same rank and file

structure that they had come from.

They have a president, a vice president,

a sergeant-at-arms, treasurer, secretary, a road captain.

And so there's an organized structure to this gang

which makes them different from street gangs.

-He takes the name of the Mexican bandits

who live by their own rules,

the Bandidos.

The back of every cut is emblazoned with the club name,

the territory, and center most,

the club's emblem, the fat Mexican.

-Now what does that mean to me?

Everything.

The fact I'm in the Bandidos

means I'm a known gang member just for wearing it.

-By 1974, Donald Chambers flames out.

-Donald Chambers is the brother

that started the whole thing

and he ended up getting convicted of murder.

-He tracks down two drug dealers who tried

to cheat the gang by passing off baking soda as amphetamines.

He orders the dealers to dig their own graves.

Then one by one, he takes them out.

[ Gunshot ]

-Back in the early days,

outlaw bikers were outlaw bikers to the full extent.

-Chambers is sentenced to life, but the club rides on.

-To survive that long, think about it,

and they rise to be the top,

it's pretty impressive.

-Elite one-percenter clubs like the Bandidos

carry a reputation.

They've been called the worst of the worst.

-The one-percenters are pretty much willing to do anything

when it comes to their club.

They will really get into the drug game.

They get into the prostitution rings.

They'll get into the murders.

They'll be willing to do pretty much anything.

-It's in the DNA of a person to be a one-percenter and,

you know, they're Type A individuals,

very competitive, you know, alpha males,

and it's just the nature of the beast.

-Secrecy is sacred, even down to a club member's real name.

-Nobody ever knew my real name.

Names don't repeat themselves

because there's ain't any other Shadow.

There's only one.

You can't replicate somebody else's name.

Only on one condition.

If they're still alive and you go after them

for their permission to use their name.

-Club initiation is broken up into two parts,

hanging around and prospecting.

-I hung around with the Bandidos

as a non-patch wearer for a while.

Kind of like, you know, test driving a car for a little bit

and they were test driving me.

-As time goes on,

the club makes a big move into organized crime.

-That criminal activity involves drug trafficking,

gun running, you know, extortion,

things of that nature.

So that's what you're really signing on to.

-The club will use anything they can to get what they want.

Intimidation is a tool.

-By the mid-'90s,

the Bandidos are fast becoming a force across the country,

moving roughly $100 million in gun running, meth, and cocaine.

-They're involved in the meth trade,

in drug trafficking, in arms deals,

and they're very instrumental

and very savvy in having this network

so that they can keep growing and expanding their enterprise.

-Members pay dues back to the gang

for the privilege of belonging

and a lot of those dues that are paid back are elicit.

They're derived from criminal activities.

-There was just one problem.

The Hells Angels.

-The Hells Angels is the gold standard

of the outlaw biker world.

-For years, the Hells Angels and the Bandidos

coexisted under a shaky truce.

-It amounted to respect.

If a Hells Angel wanted to travel from California

to Florida and they were going to go through Texas,

it was expected that they would call Bandidos' members in Texas,

say, "Hey, we're going to be driving through,

riding our motorcycles through," and ask for permission.

-Before long, that truce goes up in smoke.

Over the next two decades,

tensions explode around the world.

Nothing is off limits.

-Deaths were in the dozens and it became an all-out war.

-Things had never been good between the two clubs

in Northern Europe,

where drive-bys and shootings had become the status quo.

-The reason they're all vying for territory

and trying to put their foothold

into international countries and organizations

is because it's helping them grow their business.

And their business is drug trafficking and

arms trafficking.

-It's just a matter of time

before the Hells Angels make their move.

In March 1996, it all goes down at the Copenhagen Airport.

Members of the Bandidos and Hells Angels

are returning home from a biker conference.

In a twist of fate, they're all booked on the same flights.

By the time those flights land,

the Hells Angels are ready and waiting.

The Bandidos exit the gate and head to their cars.

At that moment,

half a dozen Hells Angels appear out of nowhere

in the parking lot and open fire.

Bullets hit the cars point blank.

One Bandido is killed and three are injured.

A few months later, the Bandidos retaliate.

-The Hells Angels in Copenhagen

hosted an annual Viking party at their club house.

-Over 150 people are attending the party.

Some are gang members. Most aren't.

♪♪

Suddenly, a rocket-propelled grenade penetrates the side

of the building's concrete walls and slams into the bar.

Two people are killed and 19 are seriously injured.

The RPG had been stolen from a nearby weapons stash

of the Swedish army.

-It's not going to be easy for anybody to get

an RPG rocket launcher or anything like that.

But overseas,

you've got -- black markets are a complete different thing,

and I'm sure the one-percenters got their hands in

those black markets,

so it would be easy for them to pick up that hardware.

-Law enforcement doesn't hold back.

They call the Bandidos "kamikaze pilots"

who are "scum."

-The people that are attracted to these gangs,

that are recruited into these gangs

have that military background. They're trained in combat.

They train other people in that club.

-The authorities have had little luck penetrating

these secretive gangs.

They're now pinning their hopes on persuading both sides

to sign a peace agreement.

-After the missile attack,

both clubs realize chaos is bad for business.

There's a truce.

-A truce has been called between the leader

of the Hells Angels and the head of the rival Bandido gang.

-And the Bandidos ride on.

This new phase is being led by a Bandido

who's steadily ascending up the command chain.

He's got a talent few people possess.

He's an expert at leading a double life.

-Jeff Pike was one of the long-time Bandidos members.

He had been a member since 1979.

-Pike is a former altar boy who's come from California,

yet thou shall not kill doesn't apply to him.

-He moved to Texas at 18,

allegedly because the drinking law made it legal

to consume alcohol at 18.

He started working in construction

and then bought a motorcycle.

And it wasn't until after that that he joined the Bandidos.

-He's a family man who restores classic cars

for a living as he bides his time.

-He rose through the ranks slowly.

-The new Bandidos are not the old Bandido.

We get along with everybody.

-One day, Pike meets a heating and air conditioning

repairman from San Antonio.

His name is John Portillo.

The two men form a bond that would span decades

and take the Bandidos from a biker club

to a worldwide multimillion dollar criminal enterprise.

-Jeff was a unique cat, man.

He was so laid back.

I mean, and the dynamic between the two.

John, you knew he was coming at you.

Jeff was silent and he seemed like a CEO businessman.

They did complement each other.

-There's one person

who will be crucial to helping Jeff Pike and John Portillo

in their rise to power,

and she's never told her story on camera until now.

-[Bleep] is my name

and I am chapter girl of the Bandido motorcycle club.

-For the first time,

a former chapter girl of the Bandidos biker club

has agreed to appear on camera.

Her face is obscured for her protection.

Tara is married to a cop and a mother of two

when she's first introduced to Andrew "Corky" Gomez,

vice president of the Southwest San Antonio Bandidos.

-He pulls up with six motorcycles into the front yard.

That was the moment I felt the power.

-Tara starts an affair with Corky with no idea

that it will place her on a collision course

with Jeff Pike and John Portillo's rise to power.

Bandido women fit into a distinct role --

property of or proud Bandido old ladies.

-An old lady is a wife of or the girlfriend of a member.

-Women are never made members, but they can be property of.

They are there to serve.

-I was property of Southwest San Antonio Chapter.

I was a piece of property.

I was like a motorcycle.

I never knew I could say no, and I was okay with that.

-They have an identity. They have a purpose.

They can carry out some of the orders of the gang

and rise up in rank.

-Tara gets a rude awakening on Bandido life.

-For the first year, and this is a bylaw,

everything belongs to the club.

They will take everything out of your house,

your tool shed, your, you know, garage,

pretty much take whatever they want.

-Tara runs the escort service and deals drugs,

giving her easy access to meth.

-Well, I did a lot of drugs.

Back then, it was crank, suitcases full of it.

I would do the drops and the pickups.

I didn't make money. [ Chuckles ]

The club made money.

-Dealing meth is big business.

The drugs come from Mexico,

worth an estimated $600 million on the street.

-The Bandidos got a better deal when buying bulk narcotics

because they had the organization behind them.

They were a known commodity, a known organization,

so there was no risk to their supplier

that they would be ripped off or turned into the police.

-The drug money funds Bandido activities,

including a large cut

that goes to chapter president John Portillo.

-Drug dealing eventually gets to the national chapter.

John would send people over to pick up the money.

He knew how many calls I would take the girls on.

-In 2001,

when a Bandido is shot and killed outside a billiards club,

the Bandidos are out for blood.

-They made T-shirts that said, "Cut one, we all bleed."

They conducted their own investigation

and then concocted a plan to retaliate.

-The club learns the killer is a member

of the Two Six gang named Robert Lara.

That's when Corky asked Tara to undertake a deadly mission,

one that will lead to disaster.

-Andrew said,

"We really need to get those people that got my brother.

Will you do that, baby? Do you love me, baby?"

And I said, "Yeah, I love you. I can bring him to you."

-Tara agrees to infiltrate the Two Six gang

by sleeping with Robert Lara.

-I was the decoy.

Nobody anticipated me to be with the Bandido motorcycle club.

-She did that over the course of several months,

including getting romantically involved with Robert Lara.

-Robert broke down and he told me, "I killed a Bandido."

I acted like I had no idea and he just started crying.

-But after months of gaining Lara's trust,

Tara finds out that Two Six gang members

have been tipped off to her Bandido connection

and plan to kill her.

She goes to John Portillo.

-I was going to die that Friday.

That was for sure.

John said, "They're going to kill you?"

And I said, "Yes, they're going to kill me."

And then he said, "Okay. We'll take care of it."

-The Bandidos hash out a plan.

Tara will lure Robert Lara to a rest stop south of San Antonio.

-I knew this would be this guy's last day.

I bought him the best beer he wanted.

We were kind of drunk, at that point, you know?

A lot of time went by.

I kept thinking, like, "When are these people coming?"

Then, out of nowhere, the passenger door opens,

they rip him out, and he's like, "Don't hurt her.

Don't hurt her."

I still remember that.

And they shot him, I think, 16 times.

-For Tara, there is no remorse.

-It was either me or him.

I had no conscience. I was just a soldier.

-Bandidos involved in the murder are rewarded with patches

that say, "Expect No Mercy."

The patch is said to be given to any member

who has drawn or spilled blood for the club.

-That patch is famous.

If you're wearing it, you would owe to the club.

You had to make that choice.

If I had that day back, I'd give the patch back.

-John Portillo and Jeff Pike's reputations

are locked in,

and Tara is made an official chapter girl.

-John was like, "You scare me."

He goes, "I'm going to call you Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

He's like, "We really appreciate this."

-As thanks,

she's given permission to get a Bandidos tattoo.

-The tattoo is located on my right hip

and it is about six inches in diameter.

-That's a big deal in their world

because you're not permitted to have Bandidos tattoos

if you're not a member,

which kind of showed their appreciation

for what she had done for them.

-I felt very privileged, you know?

I thought it was pretty cool.

I'd never seen a Bandido tattoo on a girl. [ Chuckles ]

-And so that was her reward for participating

in this gangland hit.

-Law enforcement knows the Bandidos are behind the hit,

but they can't prove it.

-I had nothing.

I was never on an insurance policy.

I never had a house

or a phone number in my name, anything.

I was, like -- lived off the grid.

That was a problem for the feds.

-So Pike and Portillo continue their rise.

Pike's behind the scenes, while Portillo works the cameras.

-We are not a criminal organization.

If a brother is caught dealing dope or anything illegal,

that's individual achievement.

He's on his own. We don't condone that.

-Portillo was there to take some of the heat off of Pike,

that Pike was the mastermind behind

some of these enterprises,

and that Portillo was there to take the brunt off of him

in terms of media and public-facing understanding.

-This is the 21st century.

We know we can't live like that, anymore.

Most of us are all businessmen or have jobs.

-You know, I never had to worry about riding around

and getting shot at or stupidity happening

because you had two adults that were in charge of the club.

John and Jeff both kept the lunatics in their boxes

so stupid things didn't happen.

-The club's success hinges on growing their numbers.

There's money to be made on the streets

through drug trafficking and prostitution.

-One of the things that they really vie for

is this international presence

because their main trade is drug trafficking.

-That includes shoring up an unholy alliance

with a prison gang,

one that controlled the drug trade in Texas.

-The Texas Mexican Mafia is a Texas prison gang formed

in San Antonio in the late-'80s.

They charge anybody that traffics narcotics

in San Antonio what's called the dime,

which is a 10% extortion payment.

Well, the Bandidos had an arrangement

with the Texas Mexican Mafia and their leadership

where their members that dealt narcotics

didn't have to pay the 10% dime to the Texas Mexican Mafia.

-By 2005,

Jeff Pike is poised to make a move

on then Bandido president George Wegers.

That year, Wegers trips up and Pike pounces.

Wegers appears in a TV documentary about the Bandidos.

Pike explodes.

When Wegers goes down on a RICO charge,

Jeff Pike becomes the new president of the Bandidos.

-This is strange in retrospect because Pike, himself,

gave several interviews.

-Do you think of yourself as an outlaw?

-[ Laughs ]

I haven't broken a law in decades.

I don't know what you're talking about.

-It's only a matter of time

before Pike and Portillo's leadership is challenged.

In a small farming village,

a power struggle leads to a slaughter,

one that pits brother against brother

and opens up an old wound with the Hells Angels.

-On a small farm in the middle of nowhere,

a power play is about to go south.

Canada had long been considered off-limits to the Bandidos.

It was Hells Angels territory.

But many of the Hells Angels rejects

still wanted to join a club.

-A lot of the people who became part of the Bandidos

were not accepted into the Hells Angels.

So they felt slighted

and this was an opportunity to join another group

that was just as dangerous, just as powerful.

-They're going to either recruit those support clubs

to form allegiance to the Bandidos

or they're going to take them by force.

-President Jeff Pike thinks the Toronto chapter

is getting sloppy and isn't pulling its weight.

-There was internal battling between these two factions

to take control of the Bandidos in Canada for good.

The Bandidos in Toronto were not paying their dues.

They didn't have operating bikes.

They're using drugs, so they are going to be sloppy

in terms of organized crime.

They're not being careful about what they're doing.

-Things get worse when it looks like a Bandido

steals a Hells Angels' drug stash.

-A tow truck driver may have picked up a car

in which there was coke from the Hells Angels in the trunk.

So when he opened that up,

he may have taken the coke out

and that could have led to some of what happened.

-It all comes to a head that April.

Pike expels Toronto chapter president John Muscadere

and all of his members, ordering them to give up their patches.

Muscadere refuses and makes a bad call.

He sends an e-mail to chapters worldwide calling for a vote.

-Jeff Pike basically responded and said, "Bandidos don't vote.

You do what you're [bleep] told."

-Disobeying club leaders,

the Toronto chapter launches into full-fledged mutiny.

They call themselves the No Surrender Crew.

So a Bandido named Wayne Kellestine, AKA Weiner,

steps in to clean up the mess.

-We have a small problem here.

Oh, my [bleep] God.

I look like I just climbed out

of a [bleep] hillbilly [bleep] convention.

-Weiner's rap sheet is a mile long --

assault, drugs, and arms dealing.

He's got a swastika mowed into the grass on his farm to boot.

-That is the most beautiful flag in the world right there.

I love that flag.

-On the night of April 7, 2006,

Weiner makes his move,

inviting the No Surrender Crew over

for an official club meeting known to bikers as church.

-They came completely unprepared,

had no idea that they were going to be lambs to the slaughter.

-The night is full of heavy drinking, dancing,

and singing the German national anthem...

-♪ Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles Duetschland ♪

-...before Weiner suddenly pulls out a gun

and starts to kill his former members

in an execution assembly line.

Muscadere, once Weiner's good friend, asks to go first.

-Muscadere was quite defiant the whole way along

and he kept saying to Kellestine,

"Go ahead, just shoot me.

Shoot me in the head."

[ Gunshots ]

-One of the members was Jewish.

They made him wait till the end to be killed

so he could see all the others murdered first.

-That was torturous.

-Police are tipped off to four abandoned vehicles

in a field outside of Shedden.

-"CTV News" has learned

that police have converged on a property said

to be associated with bikers.

-You've got these eight bodies

and they've been placed in various cars

with the hatchbacks open so the bodies are fully exposed.

They wanted to pin these murders on the Hells Angels.

-But when police discover the bodies,

they find evidence of the No Surrender Crew

entering Wiener's farm and never leaving.

-It was not a very well-conceived plan.

-Within days, five Bandidos, including Wiener, are in cuffs.

-Fellow Bandidos members are charged with first-degree murder

in what police describe as "internal cleansing"

by the biker gang.

-After an exhausting seven-month trial,

Kellestine and the rest were convicted of a total

of 44 counts of first-degree murder

and four counts of manslaughter.

-It's never proven that Jeff Pike condoned the executions,

but the bad publicity leads him to walk away from Canada.

-I think Pike wanted to wash his hands of Canada,

wanted to be done with it.

-And Jeff said, "Unh-unh."

I mean, you know, they keep on doing that,

that's going to put us on Homeland Security's watch list,

and once you're on that, you ain't getting off of it.

And we're not doing anything.

We don't operate our club that way.

So there was a decision to separate.

-By late-2006,

Pike and Portillo had achieved the unthinkable --

the club had overtaken the Hells Angels in numbers

and were the largest biker gang in the world.

Roughly 2,000 members in 16 states

and another 1,400 members worldwide.

But to the Bandidos, there's no place like home.

-Texas was the most important state to the Bandidos.

It was where they were formed and it was the only state

that there was no other one-percent

outlaw motorcycle organization.

And they defended it.

-Territory is very important.

That's the way you earn something

and make a name for yourself, right?

-And if you disrespect them where they live,

you'll feel the pain.

-Anthony Benesh was shot and killed in front of his children

as he left an Austin pizza restaurant.

-Surveillance video shows his girlfriend and sons

running for help.

-Prosecutors say the Bandidos did not want

a rival gang to diminish their power and territory.

-Benesh was a member of the Hells Angels

who was trying to start a branch in Texas

and had been warned by Bandidos members to cease that activity.

-The hit has Bandidos written all over it.

-It sounds like Anthony Benesh was making a number of enemies

in a number of places.

-Evidence of who sanctioned Benesh's move points right

to the Hells Angels president, Sonny Barger.

-Sonny Barger had kind of given them informal approval

to do it to the extent of, "Well, go ahead and do it.

We're going to deny that we gave you approval.

But if you survive in a year, we may own up to it."

-Jeff Pike and John Portillo skate on the murder,

but they're now on law enforcement's radar.

-During Jeff Pike's tenure,

there was a patch going around the Bandidos that was Omerta.

The word has its origins in the Italian Mafia's

code of silence --

do not talk, do not cooperate with law enforcement --

and members would wear that patch.