Comanchero bikie gang accused of plotting building industry empire

The Comanchero outlaw bikie gang is suspected of seeking to build a construction empire in Victoria via union-backed front companies and by infiltrating CFMEU ranks, according to law enforcement intelligence aired at a Queensland inquiry.

On Wednesday morning, counsel assisting the Queensland Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, Eddy Gisonda KC, described how law enforcement agencies had in 2024 gathered intelligence, including extensive phone data, indicating the Comancheros had launched a concerted effort to create a building industry empire in Victoria and Queensland.

Gisonda also tabled CFMEU-backed enterprise bargaining agreements allegedly secured by Comanchero-linked building firms in Victoria, including an EBA signed off by the CFMEU administration last month.

The role of the CFMEU administration’s Victorian chief, Matt McGowan, in signing off on an EBA for the bikie-linked firm Form Solutions in July raises fresh questions about the absence of checks and balances applied by the Labor-backed administration.

A separate investigation by The Age has established that basic due diligence should have revealed to the administration that Form Solutions had business links to the Comancheros and had also been previously refused a licence to operate by Victoria’s Labour Hire Authority.

Between 2023 and 2025, Form Solutions was directed by the wife of former Comancheros president Bemir Saracevic.

There is no suggestion that McGowan knew of the firm’s bikie links, just as there is no suggestion the Victorian secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union knew that an EBA he signed off on last year involved another company with Comanchero links.

That firm is FSA Kerbs and Placement Pty Ltd. The signing of its EBA was witnessed by Saracevic’s wife as well as Comanchero gang affiliate Krstomir Bjelogrlic in April 2025. It is unclear how much work, if any, FSA did in Victoria.

However, the revelations raise serious questions about why the CFMEU administration, which is responsible for cleaning up the union, is apparently failing to undertake proper background checks when agreeing to EBAs that give the union’s stamp of approval for a company to operate on major projects.

The AWU is facing similar questions, although its secretary Ronnie Hayden – who signed off on the Comanchero-linked EBA in 2025 – has previously called for more government intervention to ensure unions are not unwittingly supporting underworld-linked figures. CFMEU administrator Michael Crosby issued similar calls as recently as July.

The alleged bikie involvement in the construction sector has become a focus of the Queensland inquiry after it was revealed on Tuesday that leading Australian infrastructure firm BMD was implicated in a suspected bikie stand-over plot .

It allegedly involved Melbourne Comanchero enforcers travelling to Brisbane in June 2024 to threaten to burn down the house and kill the children of a CFMEU activist on a BMD site.

A blow-by-blow account of the alleged stand-over plot was unveiled during the grilling of BMD executive Robert Pickard on Tuesday afternoon.