Criminal tip offs key to busting ‘next level’ illegal tobacco trade

Police are relying on insider tip offs to help shut down Victoria’s “next level” illegal tobacco trade that has plagued the state.

Authorities are relying on tip-offs from criminal insiders to bust huge illegal tobacco shipments as they battle a “next level” influx of the illicit product driving Victoria’s raging tobacco wars.

Officers have uncovered as many as 90 million illegal cigarettes in a single week in Melbourne alone, and “trusted” industry snitches are providing much of the intel leading them to entire shipping containers full of cigarettes being seized.

Australian Border Force officer Jake removes boxes of illegally imported cigarettes out of a shipping container. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

It comes as police most recently laid arson and extortion charges against 25-year-old alleged key player Majid Alibadi over a series of blazes across the city as feuding organised crime groups grapple for control of the growing trade.

Australian Border Force (ABF) Illicit Tobacco Taskforce (ITTF) Commander Penny Spies told the Herald Sun that criminal insiders working in operations run by bikies, Middle Eastern or Chinese organised crime figures were crucial to uncovering illegal shipments of cigarettes, loose tobacco- also known as “chop chop”, and counterfeit cigarettes.

“Intelligence that comes from sources close to the activity are always highly lucrative,” Ms Spies said.

“They understand how the syndicate operates and they absolutely understand how they’re trying to circumvent enforcement efforts, whether that be at the border or domestically. Trusted insiders are very useful.”

Under Operation Jardena, the force works with inside sources ranging from syndicate snitches to airport or freight staff who have used their behind-the-scenes access to freight or shipping services for criminal activity.

Border Force HQ finds illegal tobacco in shipping containers. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Australian Border Force officer Jake stands in front of a shipping container full of illegally imported cigarettes. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Intelligence from all sources leads to about 20 million illegal cigarettes being seized every week in Victoria.

But Border Force officials say crime syndicates are smuggling such a high quantity of tobacco into the country that having one large haul out of multiple shipments busted by authorities barely dints their cash flow.

After the Herald Sun revealed in December that criminals were becoming so brazen in the

lucrative illegal tobacco trade that they no longer bother concealing large shipments, acting ABF Container Examination Facility commander Nez Karakaya said her team now uncovers entire shipping containers full of unconcealed cigarettes.

“It’s a volume game. They’re just pushing so much to the border … if you have five containers coming through, and you lose one, you’re still a winner,” she said.

“If it’s costing you $100,000 to bring in one container and there’s 10 million sticks in there, you’re making a million off your next container”

“It’s almost at the point where a (criminal) group losing one container is just collateral damage.”

Border Force HQ has uncovered large shipments of illegal tobacco coming into Victoria Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Despite the ABF uncovering more than 1.7 billion illegal cigarettes and 867 tonnes of loose tobacco nationwide in the past year, the thriving market is having dire consequences on Melbourne’s streets.

Criminals are not only cheating the public out of billions of dollars in steep taxes, but the profits have driven contract killings, dozens of firebombings at tobacconists and vape shops and the desecration of the grave of Meshilin Marrogi, the late sister of convicted underworld murder George Marrogi.

Offshore syndicate leaders such as exiled key player figure Kazem Hamad remain one of the biggest challenges for border authorities and police as they co-ordinate enforcers and standovers involving “very public displays of violence” from overseas.

“What we’ve seen playing out in Victoria is really symptomatic of organised crime involvement in the market and there’s significant community risk as a result of that kind of activity,” Ms Spies said.

“The scale and scope of the problem is huge. Despite us seizing record levels of illicit tobacco at the border, you can still access illicit tobacco in Australia”

Ms Karakaya said: “It’s next level to see on the news how shops are getting burnt down for these cigarettes that we see here.

“There have been times where we’ve had close to 150 million sticks within our facility.”

So much of the illicit product is making it past border patrols that artificial intelligence will be brought in to patrol more shipments without disrupting the freight industry.

More than 866 million illegal cigarettes have been seized in Australia since January.

The ABF established its dedicated illegal tobacco task force in 2018, but a record $188.5 million was pumped into efforts to thwart the rapidly growing illegal tobacco trade just last month.

Ms Spies said: “We haven’t seen funding like this before … it just goes to show the scope and scale of the problem and that real drive to do more”.