Latest news with #CoffinCheaters
News.com.au
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Bikie WAG turned comic spills on secret club hierarchy and life inside the Coffin Cheaters
When Nikki Justice knocked on the door of the Coffin Cheaters bikie clubhouse for a strip gig she'd been booked for, she wasn't expecting to find love. 'In my head, all the bikie's I'd been around were these old, fat, scary men,' she told Gary Jubelin's I Catch Killers podcast this week. 'And the guy who answered the door didn't look like that at all. He was younger, in his early thirties, and I suppose I was a little surprised that he wasn't this big dirty bikie that I was expecting.' The 39-year-old has turned her colourful past - the daughter of a drug-dealer who went on to marry into a bikie gang - into a career in standup comedy, quipping that when it comes to trauma, 'if you don't laugh, you'll cry'. Nikki - who describes herself as 'the Ray Gun of stripping - seriously, I was so bad at it,' had initially not wanted to accept the gig at the clubhouse, but was happily surprised by what she saw. She didn't realise it then, but she'd just met the man she'd marry - a card-carrying member of an outlaw motorcycle gang. 'We hit it off quite quickly,' she reflects, 'and we were living together a few weeks later.' 'I think at first I found the whole bikie thing exciting,' she admits, 'when they'd go on the runs, or any time there was a funeral, there would be hundreds of bikes, and there was something exciting about being part of that procession.' And while initially, the carefree Nikki and her bikie beau relished their party lifestyle, it wasn't long before things changed. 'Within seven months of being together, I was pregnant,' she says. Nikki, who has since left the heels and pole behind to pursue a career in stand-up comedy, draws a lot of comedic inspiration from her life as a bikie wag. She paints a picture of a club run 'more like a footy club', where 'family nights' were the norm and the occasional topless waitress would play temporary nanny to Nikki's kids. 'I had to work, and I'd left my kids with their dad. I walked into the clubhouse and my little, two-year-old son was being bounced on the knee of this stripper,' she laughs. 'I know she had her boobs out and her boobs were just bouncing up and down and she's got my kid and I'm like … oh. This is cool.' 'Did you consider what being the partner or wife of a bikie might entail?' asks Jubelin, to which Nikki replies: 'I don't think I really did until I was already in it.' And just what did being a bikie wag entail? 'All of a sudden [after the pregnancy] instead of us being young and partying, I was in a serious relationship and we were settling down and having kids,' she reflects, 'and that's when I realised - oh, this is gonna be hard. Because I settled down and stopped partying, and he didn't.' 'And you know that old adage,' says Jubelin, 'the club comes first.' 'And I HATE that saying,' Nikkie responds, 'and you hear it all the time. It's something that gets said a lot, and it would be upsetting, but I think that if there was a family emergency or something, most of the guys in the club would want their members to go and sort that emergency.' Nikki says that while most of the other bikies in the club were 'lovely' some could definitely test her patience. 'There were definitely some that I despised,' she admits, 'there's some members that would be sleazy and you'd be like, 'how can you be sleazy? I'm your friend's wife!' For Nikki, getting her head around the double standard was always a struggle. 'They go on about loyalty and respect, and it's like, well, that's not loyal or respectful [to make advances at another member's wife]. 'You just kind of have to laugh it off.' Nikki says some of the most difficult challenges came when she discovered what some members had done in their pasts. 'There were some members who I knew had done some really bad things and I didn't respect or like that,' she explains. 'So it was definitely hard knowing that you were around some people who went against your own moral values. You kind of just had to swallow things sometimes and suppress it, I guess,' she continues. 'But there were good and bad. It's like in any industry, I think there's good and bad. Even in the police force, there are good cops and bad cops. Most of them were good people in a moral sense, apart from the little crimes they might commit here and there.' And while initially the 'bad boy' allure of her bikie beau, along with the excitement of being part of the club, kept things interesting, she says becoming a mum quickly led the shine to wear off. 'I had this idea in my head of what a happy family was gonna be like when I had one,' she explains. 'I was trying so hard to make it like that. But it is really hard when your partner's a bikie and he isn't prioritising your family the way that you want him to.' Although, she admits, the club she found herself part of was quite the family affair. 'We used to have family nights,' she explains.'They'd have a monthly thing where each month a different member would be in charge of bringing in all the food and we'd have a family night where the kids and everyone would all come. Those parties, at least earlier, would be kid-friendly,' she continues. 'They wouldn't bring the strippers out till later.' There was a hierarchy among the women in the club too, says Nikki, albeit a brutal one. 'A lot of the wives didn't like the strippers,' says Nikki, 'and because when I met my ex-husband I was the stripper, it took a while for them to warm up to me, because I was the enemy. It was b***y - it was very b***y.' But 'bitchy' was the least of the grim realities for some women associated with the club. 'The derogatory term is 'moles', but there was a hierarchy among the moles too,' says Nikki. 'There were women called 'onions' - women who would sleep with the bikies but didn't 'belong' to anyone in particular, and were just kind of passed around.' 'Was there a sense of menace in the air?' Jubelin asks. 'Oh yes,' Nikki replies. 'Almost every party would end with someone getting punched. And I used to worry, because my brother used to hang around, and I was always worried he was the one who was going to get punched.' And while Nikki has since split from her ex-husband and left the club life behind her for a career in stand-up comedy, she admits that she was, on occasion, part of the drama. 'I slapped a stripper with a thong once,' she chuckles. 'A foot thong. She'd stolen it from me, so she deserved it.'
Sydney Morning Herald
30-06-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Perth businessman guilty in $3 million bikie money laundering scheme
Instead, Puttick was actually taking large quantities of dirty money, which he deposited into multiple accounts at a Victoria Park Commonwealth Bank branch, before giving it back to the same people electronically in the form of a 'loan'. Puttick was first arrested in December 2020 after he was pulled over by police in Thornlie. He was then taken to a storage unit in Canning Vale where a search warrant revealed a safe containing almost $750,000 in bundles of $50 and $100 notes. A search of Puttick's phone also allegedly found encryption software with messaging capabilities that could not be intercepted. Puttick was at the time a recipient of JobSeeker and Newstart allowances from Centrelink, the court was told, and therefore did not have the legitimate financial capacity to have been in receipt of large sums of cash. Now it can be revealed that that cash was dirty money, given to him by outlaw motorcycle gang members for him to cycle through accounts and feed back to them to make it look like they were legitimate funds. Puttick was paid a cut of the proceeds. Last month, two of Puttick's clients on trial alongside him were found guilty of engaging in transactions that involved money or property that was the proceeds of an offence. Husband and wife Anita and Stefano Bova were also on trial alongside Puttick. Stefano was found not guilty of any wrongdoing, while Anita had to withdraw from the trial partway through due to medical reasons. She will face court again at a later date. Fury was the first to be sentenced in 2023 after pleading guilty to receiving money that was the proceeds of an offence. Bank records showed more than $137,000 being filtered back to him by Puttick in the form of a loan, but no repayments were ever made. The original source of the cash was never identified, but the 35-year-old member of the Coffin Cheaters was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his involvement. Lange, also a member of the Coffin Cheaters, was sentenced to 14 months behind bars in March this year after the 49-year-old father-of-three was convicted on four counts of engaging in a transaction involving money that was the proceeds of an offence. In late 2019 and early 2020, Lange gave Puttick nearly $84,000 of dirty cash for him to launder, receiving it back in four separate instalments into bank accounts linked to companies he was linked to. He was arrested in May 2022 and pleaded guilty to the charges. He'll be eligible for parole in October. Fellow bikie Warren Goedhart, 46, was sentenced last month after he pleaded guilty to nine counts of engaging in a transaction involving the proceeds of an offence. Goedhart, a married father of one, laundered more than $191,000 through Puttick, which he used to service his South Lake mortgage held in his wife's name. The court heard the dirty cash originally came from his deceased grandmother's estate that she had accumulated through illegal activity. Goedhart was sentenced to a total of 21 months' imprisonment with eligibility for parole after serving half the sentence. Giovanni Bova, 59, was sentenced alongside Goedhart. He was convicted of engaging in a transaction involving the proceeds of an offence and possession of money reasonably suspected of being stolen. Bova got Puttick to launder $200,000 he then used to buy a house, but instead will spend the next 3½ years behind bars. Former promising footballer Riley Hutchinson and Coffin Cheater Shaun Collard both chose to spend their freshly laundered money on cars. Loading The pair were sentenced together last Friday after they were found guilty by a jury of a similar raft of crimes. Hutchinson, 31, spent nearly $300,000 of money laundered by Puttick on three vehicles, including a $100,000 Mercedes Benz. He was sentenced to two years and nine months behind bars for his involvement in the scheme. Collard gave Puttick almost $150,000 in cash for him to launder. He spent the money that was filtered back to him via two separate companies he was linked to on a Toyota Prado and a Toyota LandCruiser. Collard also pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis plants to sell and was convicted of possession of money unlawfully obtained after over $60,000 in separate bundles of cash with his DNA on it was found inside the cannabis grow house. The father-of-four, who is 39, will spend the next 4½ years in prison. Puttick will be sentenced later this month.
The Age
30-06-2025
- The Age
Perth businessman guilty in $3 million bikie money laundering scheme
Instead, Puttick was actually taking large quantities of dirty money, which he deposited into multiple accounts at a Victoria Park Commonwealth Bank branch, before giving it back to the same people electronically in the form of a 'loan'. Puttick was first arrested in December 2020 after he was pulled over by police in Thornlie. He was then taken to a storage unit in Canning Vale where a search warrant revealed a safe containing almost $750,000 in bundles of $50 and $100 notes. A search of Puttick's phone also allegedly found encryption software with messaging capabilities that could not be intercepted. Puttick was at the time a recipient of JobSeeker and Newstart allowances from Centrelink, the court was told, and therefore did not have the legitimate financial capacity to have been in receipt of large sums of cash. Now it can be revealed that that cash was dirty money, given to him by outlaw motorcycle gang members for him to cycle through accounts and feed back to them to make it look like they were legitimate funds. Puttick was paid a cut of the proceeds. Last month, two of Puttick's clients on trial alongside him were found guilty of engaging in transactions that involved money or property that was the proceeds of an offence. Husband and wife Anita and Stefano Bova were also on trial alongside Puttick. Stefano was found not guilty of any wrongdoing, while Anita had to withdraw from the trial partway through due to medical reasons. She will face court again at a later date. Fury was the first to be sentenced in 2023 after pleading guilty to receiving money that was the proceeds of an offence. Bank records showed more than $137,000 being filtered back to him by Puttick in the form of a loan, but no repayments were ever made. The original source of the cash was never identified, but the 35-year-old member of the Coffin Cheaters was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his involvement. Lange, also a member of the Coffin Cheaters, was sentenced to 14 months behind bars in March this year after the 49-year-old father-of-three was convicted on four counts of engaging in a transaction involving money that was the proceeds of an offence. In late 2019 and early 2020, Lange gave Puttick nearly $84,000 of dirty cash for him to launder, receiving it back in four separate instalments into bank accounts linked to companies he was linked to. He was arrested in May 2022 and pleaded guilty to the charges. He'll be eligible for parole in October. Fellow bikie Warren Goedhart, 46, was sentenced last month after he pleaded guilty to nine counts of engaging in a transaction involving the proceeds of an offence. Goedhart, a married father of one, laundered more than $191,000 through Puttick, which he used to service his South Lake mortgage held in his wife's name. The court heard the dirty cash originally came from his deceased grandmother's estate that she had accumulated through illegal activity. Goedhart was sentenced to a total of 21 months' imprisonment with eligibility for parole after serving half the sentence. Giovanni Bova, 59, was sentenced alongside Goedhart. He was convicted of engaging in a transaction involving the proceeds of an offence and possession of money reasonably suspected of being stolen. Bova got Puttick to launder $200,000 he then used to buy a house, but instead will spend the next 3½ years behind bars. Former promising footballer Riley Hutchinson and Coffin Cheater Shaun Collard both chose to spend their freshly laundered money on cars. Loading The pair were sentenced together last Friday after they were found guilty by a jury of a similar raft of crimes. Hutchinson, 31, spent nearly $300,000 of money laundered by Puttick on three vehicles, including a $100,000 Mercedes Benz. He was sentenced to two years and nine months behind bars for his involvement in the scheme. Collard gave Puttick almost $150,000 in cash for him to launder. He spent the money that was filtered back to him via two separate companies he was linked to on a Toyota Prado and a Toyota LandCruiser. Collard also pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis plants to sell and was convicted of possession of money unlawfully obtained after over $60,000 in separate bundles of cash with his DNA on it was found inside the cannabis grow house. The father-of-four, who is 39, will spend the next 4½ years in prison. Puttick will be sentenced later this month.
