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CRIME

Denmark’s police launch push to disband Bandidos biker gang

Denmark's police have launched an investigation aimed at disbanding the Danish branch of the notorious Bandidos biker gang, which has been blamed for a string of crimes since it was established 30 years ago.

Published: 2 June 2023 15:47 CEST
Denmark's police launch push to disband Bandidos biker gang
A Bandidos banner hangs on the gang's clubhouse on Industriparken 31 in Jyderup in northwest Zealand. Photo: Ritzau/Scanpix

Denmark’s justice minister, Peter Hummelgaard, announced the investigation’s launch in a press release on Friday, saying that he looked “very positively” at the National Unit for Special Crime seeking authorisation from the chief of police to launch the investigation. 

In 2021, Denmark’s Supreme Court ruled that the Loyal To Familia gang could be disbanded under law, making it punishable to wear the gang’s symbols, for instance. 

For the Bandidos gang to be similarly disbanded the police and prosecutor’s office must show that there is sufficient evidence that the organisation has an “illegal purpose” to overcome the right to free assembly enshrined within the Danish constitution. 

The Bandidos gang, formed in San Leon, Texas, as far back as 1966, and expanded into Europe in 1989, setting up in Denmark in 1993. It now has branches and clubhouses in several places in Denmark. 

According to the press release the National Unit for Special Crime hopes to complete its investigation by the end of the year. 

Both the US Department of Justice and Europol, the EU police coordination body, describe the Bandidos to be a criminal organisation.

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CRIME

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

Denmark’s government wants authorities to be able to move children out of families in which parents are gang members and is likely to formalise the measure in parliament.

Published: 9 April 2024 13:38 CEST
Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

The justice spokesperson with senior coalition partner the Social Democrats, Bjørn Brandenborg, told regional media TV2 Fyn that he wants authorities to have the power to remove children from their families in certain circumstances where the parents are gang members.

Brandenborg’s comments came on Monday, after Odense Municipality said it had spent 226 million kroner since 2009 on social services for eight specific families with gang connections.

“There is simply a need for us to give the authorities full backing and power to forcibly remove children early so we break the food chain and the children don’t become part of gang circles,” he said.

The measure will be voted on in parliament “within a few weeks”, he said.

An earlier agreement on anti-gang crime measures, which was announced by the government last November, includes provisions for measures of this nature, Brandenborg later confirmed to newswire Ritzau.

“Information [confirming] that close family members of a child or young person have been convicted for gang crime must be included as a significant and element in the municipality’s assessment” of whether an intervention is justified, the agreement states according to Ritzau.

The relevant part of November’s political agreement is expected to be voted on in parliament this month.

READ ALSO: Denmark cracks down on gang crime with extensive new agreement

Last year, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told political media Altinget that family relations to a gang member could be a parameter used by authorities when assessing whether a child should be forcibly removed from parents.

In the May 2023 interview, Hummelgaard called the measure a “hard and far-reaching measure”.

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