Kazem Hamad threatening Vic tobacco shop owners to pay up from Middle East
He may be 12,000km away but organised crime boss Kazem Hamad remains active in Victoria’s tobacco wars, allegedly striking fear into shop owners with threatening phone calls.
Police & Courts
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Organised crime kingpin Kazem Hamad is terrorising tobacco shop owners directly by phone from 12,000km away.
Many victims of Melbourne’s tobacco war have found Hamad’s voice coming down the line to shake them down for money in the past six months.
Hamad is living in exile in the Middle East where he is working remotely after being deported from Australia after finishing a prison sentence for high-level heroin trafficking.
From there, he is suspected of having made a fortune from importing and distributing illicit tobacco but also from extortion activities.
Apart from challenging the existing dominant syndicate for market share, he has been sending cronies into the shops as part of a lucrative standover campaign.
The associates relay his demands and, if unmet, Hamad is put on the phone to reinforce the message.
There have allegedly been at least two such cases this month linked to this practice.
Hamad is trading on his fearsome reputation for violence and ruthlessness to demand $2000 per week payments from each store.
Those who don’t pay up are at risk of having their stores torched, as has happened to more than 30 businesses since March last year.
It is alleged Hamad’s latest phone call to a rival trader was made to a Craigieburn smoke shop owner on Tuesday night.
Police have accused two men of entering the Fairways Boulevard convenience store with a phone and demanded to speak with the owner.
A male voice — believed to be Hamad — allegedly threatened the owner and handed down an ultimatum.
He demanded the shop owner pay up or else his store would suffer the same fate as other stores incinerated in the past year.
It is alleged that a verbal altercation broke out and the two men fled in a silver Mercedes Benz.
The pair were later arrested and made no application for bail as they faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Greenvale man Mostaf Al Shaikhly, 21, was charged with extortion with threats to destroy/endanger property.
His associate, 21-year-old Mahdi Al Harbiah, from Mickleham, was charged with the same offence.
In another alleged threat made over the phone, a court heard Epping man Majid Alibadi, 25, was captured on a Glenroy tobacco store’s cameras handing over a phone to a worker.
It is alleged he muttered: “Listen to my friend,” before Hamad demanded the man pay $2000 a month or his store would be erased.
Alibadi was described as the “regional operations manager” for Hamad’s syndicate as it wreaks havoc in Melbourne.
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