The Bandidos Motorcycle Club is classified as a motorcycle gang by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in numerous countries. While the club has denied being a criminal organization, Bandidos members have been convicted of partaking in criminal enterprises including theft, extortion, prostitution, drug trafficking and murder in various host nations.
Australia
The Bandidos are considered an outlaw motorcycle gang by the Australian Federal Police. Numerous police investigations have targeted Bandidos members, and implicated them in illegal drugs supply and other crimes. Australia's first Bandidos chapter was formed in Sydney in August 1983. The club has around 400 members and 45 chapters in the country, and has recruited members of various ethnic backgrounds. The Australian Bandidos are allied with the Diablos, Mobshitters, and Rock Machine, while their rivals include the Comancheros, Finks, Gypsy Jokers, Hells Angels, Mongols, Notorious, Rebels and Red Devils.
Belgium
The Bandidos are designated a criminal motorcycle gang by Belgium's Federal Police.
At the request of Dutch authorities, Belgian police searched a property in Borgloon in May 2015 as part of an operation against the Bandidos that also included raids carried out in the Netherlands and Germany.
Bandidos members were among a number of people arrested in Limburg on 28 September 2020 as part of an investigation into a large-scale drug trafficking ring, which began after a shipment of almost 3,000 kilograms of cocaine was discovered at the Port of Antwerp in late 2019. Dozens of police raids led to the seizure of millions of euros in cash, gold and luxury cars.
An investigation carried out by a joint task force consisting of agents from the Belgian Federal Police and the Spanish National Police Corps resulted in a total of twenty-six raids being carried out in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain on 20 October 2021 in relation to a shipment of 11,497 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a consignment of scrap metal from South America to Antwerp, which was seized upon arrival at the port. Thirteen people were arrested in Belgium, and the president of the Bandidos in Spain – a Belgian national – was apprehended in Marbella on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and belonging to a criminal organization after he was identified by police as the organizer of the shipment. Four high-end vehicles valued at more than €700,000, jewelry valued at €300,000, €17,085 in cash, encrypted mobile phones and documentation were also seized.
Canada
The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) has designated the Bandidos an outlaw motorcycle gang. The club operated in Canada between 2000 and November 2007, with chapters in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. The Bandidos' Canadian chapters went defunct due to infighting, law enforcement efforts, and pulled status from the club's American leadership.
Alberta
Joseph Robert "Crazy Horse" Morin, president of the Edmonton chapter of the Rebels, contacted the Bandidos with the aim of patching over in October 2001 and the Edmonton Rebels became a Bandidos hangaround club in 2003. On 30 January 2004, Morin – by then a probationary Bandidos member – and hangaround Robert Charles Simpson were shot dead outside an Edmonton strip club. The murders have gone unsolved, although sources close to the investigation speculated at the time that Campbell and Morin were killed by a group opposed to the Bandidos' presence in the city. The Edmonton Bandidos chapter – made up of eighteen-to-twenty members – patched over to the Hells Angels' Red Deer-based nomads chapter in October 2004, effectively tripling the Angels' presence in the province.
An attempt by the Bandidos to establish themselves in Calgary in 2007 ended after a violent assault at a bar by the Hells Angels.
Manitoba
On 8 February 2005, a motorist was run off the road and kidnapped by several men before being taken to an undisclosed Winnipeg address and tortured for several hours. Two members of the probationary Bandidos chapter in the city – Ronald Charles Burling and Jason Llewellyn Michel – and another two men – Josh Adam Curwin and Billy Jo Ducharm – whom police were unable to identify as connected to the club were charged with aggravated assault and abduction. Michel pleaded guilty in October 2006.