A former senior bikie who turned his back on crime has urged young people to avoid the “facade” of gang culture, calling it evil.
Vince Focarelli – once the South Australian state commander of the Comancheros who survived five assassination attempts – spoke on the latest episode of The Felon Show podcast.
The show features reformed criminals talking about how they changed their lives and made amends for their past, something Focarelli has been trying to do since his stepson was killed in a gangland hit in 2012.
The 45-year-old said he hoped his appearance on the podcast would speak to the “soul of young people and especially our brothers who are in gangs and doing certain things.”
Former Comanchero bikie leader Vince Focarelli (pictured) survived several bullet-riddled assassination attempts before giving up a life of crime
Urging young people to escape the lure of gang culture, Focarelli said cars, money and women are an illusion that would fall apart (pictured with bullet scars from the assassination attempts on his life).
“It’s all good, wearing a gold chain and walking with the boys with your chest pumped and having a girlfriend who says she loves you,” Focarelli said.
“But that’s until you have to do gangster stuff, when the shooting and murder happens, it’s no joke.”
“Muslims, non-Muslims, it doesn’t matter, it’s disgusting, hurtful and putrid, it’s very satanic.”
He said teenagers were deliberately targeted by those who held the reins of biker gangs in order to instill illusions of camaraderie in them early in life.
“The so-called love, respect and brotherhood in these organizations are not real… The only love and respect is for money and power.
‘As soon as you enter this life, it becomes dark.’
Vince Focarelli appeared on The Felon Show podcast to discuss how he transformed his life (pictured)
Focarelli told podcast host David Obeda, himself a former gang founder who was deported to New Zealand, that it’s not just those directly involved who have been affected by the violence.
“You get shot, someone dies, you get locked up… the suffering doesn’t stop there, it spreads to your loved ones.”
Focarelli said it was the murder of his 22-year-old stepson, Giovanni Focarelli, that was the catalyst for him to reevaluate his life.
“He was ten times the man I’ll ever be, he had an infectious smile, even my enemies loved him,” he said.
Vincenzo Focarelli (left) said the murder of his 22-year-old stepson Giovanni Focarelli (right) was the trigger for him to re-evaluate his life as a criminal
The Bikie had a $900,000 bounty on his head when a gunman, who was never caught, fired bullets at him and his stepson in their car in Adelaide’s northern suburbs around 9pm on 29 January 2012.
Focarelli dragged Giovanni’s lifeless body into the back seat.
“I grabbed his chin and tried to blow air into him.”
The elder Focarelli was hit by four bullets and bleeding as he sped away and stopped a police car.
He spent several days in the hospital before ripping out his IVs and discharged himself.
He had refused to cooperate with the police investigation and was admittedly seeking his own justice, but was instead quickly arrested by detectives on drug and firearms charges and spent 14 months in prison.
He spent the first few weeks of his sentence in “depressing” solitary confinement, where he missed Giovanni’s funeral and had no distractions to repeat the night of his shooting.
When he got out of prison he was a devout Muslim and vowed to reform his life.
By 2016, he and his wife had opened a restaurant in Adelaide called La’Fig Cucin, which would feed the homeless and less fortunate weekly at its Tuesday night soup kitchen.
Focarelli and his wife (pictured together) opened a restaurant called La’Fig Cucin in Adelaide in 2016 and used their position to feed the homeless and less fortunate
In 2017 he fled South Australia to live in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to avoid criminal deportation, leaving his behind wife and a stepdaughter in Adelaide.
He risked having his Australian visa canceled under the Migration Act, which gave then-Home Secretary Peter Dutton the power to deport a non-citizen deemed a threat to community security.
Believing it would be revoked and he would be sent to a remand prison, he left the country before a trial could begin.
A year later, he appeared in a video promoting a Sharia-compliant cryptocurrency called “ Bayan Token based in Singapore.
“My name is Vince Focarelli and I believe in God,” he said in the video after providing a brief introduction in Bahasa Indonesian.
“I believe if you do good, good will come back to you.”
