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Tobacco

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Kazem “Kaz” Hamad in about 2015.

‘Kaz tax’ hike: Illegal tobacco kingpin doubles his extortion fee to $5000

The “Kaz tax” is a protection payment extorted from tobacconists allowing them to sell illicit cigarettes smuggled into Victoria.

  • Chris Vedelago

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An image of the man police want to speak to in relation to the fatal house fire that killed Katie Tangey.

Breakthrough in tobacco war firebombing that killed Katie Tangey

Police have released an image of a suspect in the underworld-linked house fire that killed a 27-year-old burlesque performer in Melbourne earlier this year.

  • Alexander Darling and Marta Pascual Juanola
Illegal cigarettes on the black market are on the rise

Legal cigarette sales have plummeted and that’s all good, right? Wrong

The tobacco black market is thriving and, as senior economics correspondent Shane Wright tells The Morning Edition podcast, that’s creating problems for all Australians.

The budget bottom line has suffered a $31 billion hit from over-estimates of tobacco excise.

Vaping and black market tobacco burn $31 billion hole in budget revenue

Alcohol levies are raising more money for the budget than cigarettes as documents reveal Treasury was unprepared for the financial fallout from vaping and black market tobacco.

  • Shane Wright
60 Minutes investigation into tobacco wars.

Secret tobacco war briefings reveal authorities wasted years cracking down on illicit trade

Alerts circulated across state and federal agencies warned of large-scale tobacco smuggling into Australia, including some that may have been tacitly supported by Chinese government officials.

  • Nick McKenzie, Serge Negus and Chris Vedelago
Photographer and performer Katie Tangey, who was killed in the blaze.

Death of the first innocent: How the government bungled the tobacco war

Police say Katie Tangey’s death was entirely predictable as violent organised crime gangs fought their tobacco turf war.

  • Chris Vedelago, Marta Pascual Juanola and Rachel Eddie
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Tangey had a knack for make-up and photography.

Melbourne’s tobacco war claims the life of ‘completely innocent’ house sitter

A woman who died trapped in a burning home became the first civilian fatality in the gangland war over control of Melbourne’s illicit tobacco trade.

  • Cassandra Morgan and Marta Pascual Juanola
Two Ballarat tobacco shops went up in flames in the early hours of Thursday.

The tobacco war safe-zone where violent gangs are policing themselves

Criminal syndicates have called a truce over tobacco shops in one area of Melbourne as experts declare our crime-fighting strategy a failure that only a radical rethink can fix.

  • Marta Pascual Juanola, Chris Vedelago and Lachlan Abbott
The Queensland fire service is adding electric vehicles to its fleet.

Police treating tobacconist fire south of Brisbane as suspicious

Emergency crews arrived to find the tobacconist fully engulfed in the early hours of Saturday morning.

  • Courtney Kruk and William Davis
Underworld kingpin Kazem “Kaz” Hamad is extorting nearly $1 million a month from the state’s illicit tobacco shops.

Tobacco war kingpin making $1 million a month in ‘extortion tax’

Kazem Hamad’s crime syndicate now controls several hundred underground tobacco retailers, and it’s netting “monster” business for the underworld kingpin.

  • Chris Vedelago

Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/topic/tobacco-jqw