Melbourne crime: Bikies and gangs fight over illegal tobacco trade

Organised crime identities and bikies are joining forces with international cartels to flood Melbourne with illegal tobacco as consumer demand surges.

Investigators uncover illegal tobacco operation at Broadford. Picture: David Hurley

Melbourne crime syndicates have made illicit tobacco the lucrative fourth arm of their drug networks, intensifying turf wars over market control.

Some of the biggest names in the city’s organised crime scene have joined forces with international cartels to flood Australia with product and run outlaw farms in rural Victoria.

Huge profits, lower risk of detection and lighter penalties have made it attractive to gangsters traditionally linked to heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking.

Middle-eastern organised crime identities and prominent bikies are among key players in the multi-billion dollar market.

Border force raid a Broadford property. Picture: David Hurley

Consumer demand for the illegal product has surged in recent years amid a boom in the number of tobacconist shops in the suburbs and rural centres.

The Herald Sun uncovered at least 40 vape shops and tobacconists in Springvale, Dandenong and South Yarra.

A series of investigations have recently exposed several vape shops and tobacconists across Chapel St and other suburbs selling illegal vapes to young teens in school uniform.

The Herald Sun revealed on Monday there were possible links between the shooting murder of career criminal Mohammed Keshtiar and the illicit tobacco trade.

Underworld sources say he was linked to an illicit tobacco syndicate suspected of being the nation’s biggest.

That ring is still operating full-tilt despite a hammering from law enforcement in recent years.

Last year, authorities busted numerous crops linked to the syndicate, including a high-yield plantation at Broadford, and seized equipment and weapons.

A major illegal tobacco operation was uncovered by multiple agencies. Picture: David Hurley

Australian Border Force had also thwarted attempts by them to import 283 million stick cigarettes and eight tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco.

But the Victorian-based group remains heavily involved in the local cultivation and importation and distribution of foreign product.

This was despite the authorities causing them an estimated loss of $400 million.

Another major bust in southeast Queensland resulted in three million illegal cigarettes and 380kg of tobacco being seized from industrial storage sheds and rural safe houses.

Profit margins are enormous in the illicit tobacco and vape world and are often invested in other criminal ventures.

A packet of cigarettes bought for a few dollars overseas can be marked up and sold illegally here for 10 times the purchase price.

Illegal tobacco in the back of a truck. Picture: David Hurley

There is a willing consumer market for a $30 pack when the price of a legal item is often above $50.

Some of the stick cigarettes imported from Asia are actually counterfeits of those made by the big companies.

There are other advantages over involvement in high-level narcotics trafficking.

Police and border authorities are already heavily committed to combating organised crime importations of drugs like heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine.

Penalties for those who are caught trafficking in tobacco are much smaller than those meted out for drug trafficking.

A Melbourne man whose large-scale cultivation activities cost $1.92 million in excise was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Another who dodged $437,000 in taxes by bringing in dozens of shipments in the post received 13 months.

The massive money at stake has generated friction.

There were underworld rumblings in the aftermath of Keshtiar’s murder that he was part of a shadowy group called The Commission, which was trying to control the market.

A message circulated after the murder, purportedly from a group opposed to The Commission, warned it to shut down or others would suffer the same fate as Keshtiar.

Two feared Melbourne gangland figures who are now living in the Middle-East are suspected of having fingers in the illicit tobacco pie.

One of them is a young crime boss who is among Australia’s top law enforcement targets.

There have been a series of firebombings of tobacco stores in Melbourne this year.

The most recent was an attack last Friday on an outlet on Hogans Rd, Hoppers Crossing.

Among other incidents was the torching of a Moonee Ponds outlet in June linked to prominent organised crime identity and kickboxer Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim.

Other previous arson attacks have been publicly linked by police to members of the Bandidos and Mongols bikie gangs.