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The president of the Bandidos bikie gang’s Melbourne chapter has been charged with blackmail as part of a rolling investigation by the elite Victoria Police taskforce combating organised crime in the state’s construction sector.
Napoleon Brown, 32, on Wednesday became the sixth suspected underworld-linked figure charged by Taskforce Hawk over an alleged Bandidos-directed extortion plot to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars over a construction dispute.
A warrant was executed at Brown’s Mill Park property, where police say they uncovered “a significant quantity of cash” and seized two mobile phones.
The blackmail probe began earlier this year, with Joel Leavitt, another suspected bikie boss who previously held influential CFMEU posts on major Victorian government Big Build sites, arrested and charged in March.
Taskforce Hawk has run several operations leading to high-profile arrests of construction industry and bikie gang figures.
While the extortion plot allegedly involving Brown and Leavitt is the most serious case to be brought by the taskforce, it has also arrested ex-union bosses John Setka and Derek Christopher over far less serious alleged criminal activity as part of a concerted effort to combat entrenched lawlessness in Victoria’s multibillion-dollar construction sector.
Underworld figures have also been arrested over unrelated firebombings of building companies.
Taskforce Hawk was created in response to revelations by this masthead’s Building Bad series of rampant organised crime infiltration and corruption in the building industry, on Big Build projects and within the formerly Setka-led CFMEU.
The union remains in administration and is undergoing significant reform, with many Setka-era officials no longer part of it.
In a statement, a Victoria Police spokesperson said Taskforce Hawk has been targeting “the infiltration of serious and organised crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) into major Victorian government infrastructure projects and the construction industry” and “continues to proactively target organised crime associated with the sector, including a focus on any individuals employed within the construction industry who have known links to organised crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs”.
The continued success of Taskforce Hawk in making arrests stands in contrast to the federal police, who are running separate probes into money laundering and corruption in the building industry.
The AFP has raided several premises linked to high-profile Melbourne underworld identities but is yet to lay any charges. The federal agency is running the most significant construction industry corruption probe into suspicions that ex-CFMEU boss John Perkovic received at least $3 million in bribes and inducements from building companies.
The alleged extortion plot involving Brown, Leavitt and four other men involves an alleged demand to a property developer to pay $663,000.
The Melbourne Magistrates’ Court has previously been told that Leavitt, on January 18, allegedly attended a cafe in Yea with five others to “discuss money owed” from a business loan gone bad.
The alleged victim refused to attend and asked Leavitt to instead meet him at a meat factory in Brooklyn. Police allege that after Leavitt left the cafe, owned by the man’s wife, a convoy of three cars drove by the complainant’s house, beeping the horn as they passed.
The next day, Leavitt and patched bikie members on motorbikes and in cars went to the Brooklyn factory and demanded the money, with the Bandidos president explaining “someone has to pay” and that he “could be very convincing when he needed to be”, the court heard.
The court was told the alleged victim denied owing money and now lived in such fear that he had left his home, closed down his family’s cafe and been unable to work.
Leavitt served as an influential CFMEU health and safety representative on the state government’s Hurstbridge rail upgrade and Melbourne Metro between 2019 and 2024.
Even when Leavitt was forced from his union role after being shot at a bikie gang clubhouse in mid-2023, he continued to work on Big Build and other major Victorian sites. A court heard he recently started a labour hire business to provide workers to the construction sector.
Brown, who has also been charged with possessing the proceeds of crime, has been bailed to face court on Friday.
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Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email.From our partners
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