NSW Police is expanding its anti-bikie squad to continue "hunting down" outlaw motorcycle gang members who have moved operations from Sydney to the regions.
Senior police say bikie gangs are leaving the state's capital to avoid attention from the "relentless" Raptor Squad.
Permanent arms of the squad will be based in the Hunter and Illawarra regions, where police say more than half of outlaw motorcycle gang members are now based.
Premier Dominic Perrottet said the expansion would take affect from Monday, when officers will start "hunting down" targets.
"Today we say to bikie gangs across New South Wales; you cannot hide, the police are coming for you," he said.
There will be 29 Raptor officers in the Hunter and 25 south in the Illawarra, bulging the squad to about 150 members.
It follows a trial expansion, to combat rising organised crime in regional areas, which began in 2018.
That pilot lasted 18 months, but senior police later sought a new permanent Raptor presence after seeing a "spike" in bikie activity outside of Sydney.
Commander Detective Superintendent Andrew Koutsoufis warned that the bolstered Raptor Squad "will be relentless".
"And I look forward to maintaining the pressure against the worst of the criminal element using the best that our police has to offer," he said.
Raptor Squad, formed in 2009 to focus on bikie gangs, has been key in police efforts to curb Sydney's deadly underworld war.
It became a permanent squad in February, 2021 to target a wider network of criminal groups after a string of public shootings.
Its heavily armoured officers are often tasked with raids on organised crime syndicates and making high-risk arrests.
Since 2009, Raptor has made 7,500 arrests, laid 19,000 charges, seized 2,000 guns and "tonnes" of drugs, Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said.
"But probably more important than anything else, countless less victims have been victims because of the presence of firstly Strike Force Raptor and now the Raptor Squad," he said.
Deputy Commissioner Hudson said creating full-time regional arms showed there were "no safe havens" for organised crime.
The majority of NSW's bikie gang members are now based in northern regions of the state, he said.
Former Raptor commander Jason Weinstein previously said the squad aimed to "lawfully harass" alleged criminals into being caught or giving up.
Its tactics have drawn criticism, with criminal lawyer Ahmed Dib questioning whether harassment should be allowed.
"You're innocent until you are proven guilty so if you're being targeted [that] has almost reversed that mantra to being guilty until proven innocent," he told the ABC in 2021.
The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission found three Raptor officers "engaged in serious misconduct" in 2019 when they "intimidated and harassed" a lawyer representing a bikie in Grafton, in Northern NSW.
Five men arrested by Raptor officers at a Western Sydney petrol station in September 2021 were awarded more than $60,000 after a court found "serious discrepancies" between the police version of events and what was shown on camera footage.
