Bandidos MC
The red-and-gold “Fat Mexican” — the second great global outlaw brand and the Hells Angels’ principal rival everywhere outside North America. Born on the Texas Gulf Coast, the Bandidos grew into a multinational — and, in Canada, into catastrophe.
◆ Back to all clubs ◆Origins
The Bandidos Motorcycle Club was founded in March 1966 by Don Chambers, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, on the Texas Gulf Coast around San Leon and Houston.
The club’s emblem — a cartoon bandit in a sombrero clutching a pistol and machete, the “Fat Mexican” — and its red-and-gold colors became the second great outlaw brand after the Hells Angels’ death’s head. From Texas it expanded across the U.S. South and West, then internationally, until the outlaw world outside North America was essentially bipolar: Hells Angels versus Bandidos.
Structure & Global Expansion
Insider Edward Winterhalder‘s Out in Bad Standings is one of the clearest maps of how a global outlaw club actually operates — elected chapter officers (president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, sergeant-at-arms), national officers above them, and the mechanics of a “patch-over,” in which the club absorbs another and replaces its colors. Under U.S. national president George Wegers (“El Presidente”), the Bandidos patched over chapters in Germany (1999) and then, fatefully, in Canada.
Canada & the Rock Machine
Battered by the Quebec biker war against the Hells Angels, the Rock Machine — founded by Salvatore Cazzetta as a Montreal rival — was absorbed into the Bandidos around 2000, turning a local Canadian war into a front in the global Angels–Bandidos rivalry. Winterhalder coordinated the patch-over party that brought in more than sixty new Canadian probationary Bandidos.
The Shedden Massacre
The Canadian chapter ended in the worst mass killing in Ontario history. The Toronto “No Surrender Crew” collapsed into infighting and pressure from the U.S. leadership, and Wayne Kellestine summoned the members to his farm near Shedden. Over one night, eight men were murdered and left in vehicles in a field — the “Shedden Eight,” including Toronto president Giovanni “Boxer” Muscedere. Six men, among them Kellestine and the ex-police-officer Michael Sandham, were convicted of first-degree murder in 2009. The killing effectively erased the Bandidos from Canada. Two books document it: Peter Edwards’s The Bandido Massacre and Anita Arvast’s Bloody Justice.
Australia
The Bandidos were central to Australia’s outlaw history from its most infamous day: the Milperra Massacre of Father’s Day 1984, a shootout between the Comanchero and a breakaway Bandidos chapter that left seven dead. The club became a major Australian force; the informant story of associate Stevan Utah is told in Dead Man Running. See the World page.
Key Figures
Don Chambers →
Founded the club in 1966; the “Fat Mexican.”
Ed Winterhalder →
Ran the Canadian patch-over; wrote the insider account.
George Wegers →
National president during the global expansion.
Wayne Kellestine →
Architect of the Shedden massacre.
“Boxer” Muscedere →
Toronto president; killed at Shedden.
The Shedden Eight →
The eight men murdered on April 8, 2006.