The Nordic Biker War was a gang war that began in January 1994 and continued until September 1997 in parts of Scandinavia and Finland, involving the Hells Angels and Bandidos outlaw motorcycle clubs. The conflict is also known as the Great Nordic Biker War or Second Biker War () to distinguish it from the earlier Copenhagen Biker War, which took place between 1983 and 1985.Scandinavian approaches to outlaw motorcycle gangs Synnøve Økland Jahnsen, Australian Institute of Criminology (April 2018) Rockere – historisk baggrund Carsten Fenger-Grøn and Malene Grøndahl, Faktalink (2002)
The conflict arose from disputes over territory and organized crime rackets, as well as personal feuds within the biker subculture. Specifically, the members of both groups sought a monopoly on the right to engage in crime in certain geographical areas.Statusrapport Kriminalitet forøvet af rockere og bander 2009 Rigspolitiet (March 2009) The war resulted in the killings of nine gang members, with shootings and bombings totalling another 74 attempted murders.Bog går bag om rockerkrigen Berlingske (25 August 1999) The bikers utilized car bombs, machine guns, hand grenades, an anti-tank rocket, and small arms during their gang war, and assassination attempts were even made inside prisons.'Blondie' med i sin tredje krig Jan Søgaard, Berlingske (29 October 2009) The majority of the hostilities took place in or around Copenhagen in Denmark, Helsinki in Finland, Oslo in Norway, and Helsingborg in Sweden.
The biker war was also costly for the police, who struggled to put an end to the murders. In overtime for police officers alone, the cost was set at around 50–75 million kroner.Nervøsitet efter rockerdrab Ekstra Bladet (12 August 2000) Rockerlov, rockerforbud eller retssikkerhed Jakob Stensgaard, faklen.dk On 15 October 1996, a bill, known as ("the Rocker Act") in the media, was passed in the Folketing (Danish Parliament) which allows the police to evict motorcycle gangs from their headquarters.Jurist: Svært at bruge rockerlov Karsten Stefansdottir Egekvist, Politiken (16 September 2008) Rockerloven er en glidebane Jakob Stensgaard and Magasinet Faklen, Dagbladet Information (15 October 1997) Rockerloven 1996 Retsinformation (29 March 2014) As a result of the 1996–1997 period of the conflict alone, 138 people were sentenced to a total of 240 years in prison.Fængslerne frygter en ny rockerkrig Jakob Stig Jørgensen, Politiken (20 September 2012) Efterforskningschef: Vi vil ikke stå med et endnu større problem om få dage Pia Buhl Andersen, Politiken (19 September 2012) Several of those convicted were given life imprisonment for murder and attempted murder.Politichef forsvarer sig mod ros fra advokat Niels Rohleder, Dagbladet Information (31 August 1999) Specific wings for motorcycle gang members were created at Vridsløselille Prison and Horsens State Prison.Dømte rockere skal samles i københavnske fængsler Carsten Ellegaard, Jyllands-Posten (13 November 2002) Significant improvements were also made to the security of military weapons depots as a result of the Nordic Biker War after several burglaries.Folketingets Finansudvalg Folketing (2 May 2001)
The conflict effectively came to an end in the summer of 1997 when the two sides reached a peace agreement, with the well-known defence lawyer as mediator. On 25 September 1997, Bent Svane Nielsen of the Hells Angels and then-Bandidos president Jim Tinndahn announced during a press conference that the rival clubs had ended their war. Nielsen stated "We cannot give guarantees that there will be no more incidents, but we can actively intervene and ensure that those who defy the cooperation agreement are excluded from our biker culture."Skudoffer har selv to liv på samvittigheden Niels Holst, Politiken (29 October 2009) Rockerfred? Danske Nyheder (25 September 1997)
Background The Nordic outlaw biker culture emerged in Sweden with the establishment of numerous motorcycle clubs (MCs) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Organizing on two wheels: uncovering the organizational patterns of Hells Angels MC in Sweden Amir Rostami and Hernan Mondani, Springer Science+Business Media (24 May 2017) Motorcycle groups inspired by the British rocker subculture then began in Denmark in the 1970s. Beginning around 1980, Danish clubs became increasingly influenced by developments in the United States and began to refer to themselves as "bikers", the American term for motorcycle enthusiasts. The term "rocker" is still commonly used by the police and media in Denmark to refer to the outlaw motorcycle subculture. Relative to its population, Denmark in particular had the highest number of outlaw bikers in Europe and perhaps even in the world. Commander Troels Ørting Jørgensen of the Danish police told the Canadian journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden in a 2006 interview: "No one has ever done a sociological investigation as to why in this small, extremely peaceful country of Denmark we have so many chapters of outlaw motorcycle gangs. They are very much hardliners, they are fierce, they are violent. We are the country of Hans Christian Andersen. We should not create crooks like that".
As the biker milieu expanded in Sweden and Denmark, violent conflicts arose between motorcycle clubs and the authorities began to take an interest in the clubs while gang wars proliferated. Outlaw motorcycle clubs then began to appear in Finland in the late 1980s, during which time there was little distinction between club-affiliated bikers and independent recreational motorcyclists. Motorcycle gang violence did not occur in the country until the early 1990s.Riders ja Backsliders Jukka Lindfors, Yle (12 March 2008) Inter-gang violence escalated in the Nordic countries as motorcycle clubs became increasingly more involved in organized crime during the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in the arrival of larger international clubs. Biker gangs in the region previously consisted of locally bounded single chapters which later merged ("patched over") into the Hells Angels (HAMC) and the Bandidos as they sought protection in more powerful clubs. The Hells Angels arrived in 1980 and gradually established dominance over the Scandinavian biker scene, before smaller clubs banded together and began forming Bandidos chapters in 1993 in order to resist forced amalgamation by the HAMC.
The first Hells Angels chapter in Scandinavia was founded in Denmark on 30 December 1980 when Unionen MC from Copenhagena union of four local clubs, dating from 1977was patched over. Bullshit Motorcycle Club, a merger of two clubs opposed to the HAMC's dominance, settled in Copenhagen's Christiania and took control of the hashish trade in the area. Bullshit and the Hells Angels engaged in a conflict, that came to be known as the First Biker War or Copenhagen Biker War, between September 1983 and December 1985, resulting in the murder of eight Bullshit members (including three presidents), one Hells Angels member, and two innocent people. In addition, Bullshit MC members were also prime suspects for the murder of two non-bikers during the war. When the police visited the former clubhouse of Bullshit in 1986, they also found the corpse of a man beneath the clubhouse floor.TV-series "24 timer vi aldrig glemmer" (24 hours we'll never forget), episode "Mordet på Makrellen" (The murder of "The Mackerel") "Makrellen" (Henning Norbert Knudsen) was the first Bullshit president, hence the programme focused on his murder, but also on the entire MC-war. Broadcast on DR2 on 2 August 2012. This bikie war had a significant presence not only in the Danish media but also in southern Sweden. The first war was limited to Copenhagen alone, unlike the second, and the number of deaths during the Copenhagen war met or exceeded the number of deaths in the following war. Unlike the second war, the first had a clear winner and no "peace treaty" was required. Bullshit's members were younger and less organized than those in the Hells Angels, and they disbanded in 1988.Rockerne i Bullshit ejede deres kærester. Nu fortæller kvinderne deres egen historie Sara Mejlvang Møller, Vice (5 February 2018)
Expansion The Hells Angels subsequently expanded into Norway, opening a chapter in Trondheim on 1 August 1992 following a "patch over" of the Rowdies biker gang.HA-veteran døde i mc-ulykke Adresseavisen (15 May 2002) The Rowdies spent close to ten years as a Hells Angels support club and were eventually "patched over" two weeks after carrying out a July 1992 knife and chain attack on a rival club, which led to the hospitalization of several of its members. The Malmö club Dirty Dräggels then became Sweden's first Hells Angels chapter on 27 February 1993.Hells Angels utökar sin närvaro i Sverige Lars-Olof Strömberg and Jakob Kjelldén, Kvällsposten (12 May 2016) They were sponsored for membership by the Danish Hells Angels after vanquishing two other local clubs for the right to wear the Angels' "colors". In Finland, the Overkill gang of Helsinki were made a HAMC "hangaround" club in 1992 via an association with the Hells Angels of Denmark. Overkill became involved in a struggle with another local motorcycle gang, the Iron Hog biker club, for the Hells Angels' approval. On 9 February 1993, several Iron Hog members including the club's president was severely beaten by Overkill bikers at a restaurant in Järvenpää, and the club subsequently withdrew.Jengiläisten riidat toivat Bandidosin Suomeen 1990-luvulla Jarkko Sipilä, MTV3 (12 May 2015) The following day, Overkill member Riko Roimu told Finnish television: "We are an official Hells Angels hangaround club and I'm fucking proud of it". Police then carried out a high-profile raid, using a Patria Pasi armored personnel carrier and a Super Puma helicopter, on Overkill's headquarters in Tapulikaupunki, Helsinki on 3 March 1993, arresting five people.MC Overkill – vaarallisia vai väärinymmärrettyjä? Panu Räty, City (19 March 1993)