By Lachlan Abbott
The police taskforce set up to tackle Victoria’s tobacco wars is now probing a suspicious fire that engulfed a Williamstown ice cream shop on Friday, just metres from another gelateria that a crime gang is suspected of repeatedly firebombing in recent months.
Firefighters were called to Nelson Place in Melbourne’s south-west shortly before 4am on Friday to extinguish the blaze that took hold of Capriccio Gelateria.
Fire Rescue Victoria said 16 firefighters brought the blaze under control within minutes and stopped it from spreading to nearby properties, but the shop and apartment above sustained significant damage.
Crews remained on the scene until 6.45am to extinguish the fire, then handed the scene to Victoria Police to investigate.
On Friday afternoon, police said they believed offenders had damaged the front of the business before setting it alight and that Taskforce Lunar was now investigating.
That taskforce was launched in early October to tackle the explosion in violent crime – firebombings, shootings and bashings – that erupted last year between rival Middle Eastern organised crime syndicates warring over the illicit tobacco trade.
More than 30 tobacco shops and other businesses have been firebombed since March.
Police said Taskforce Lunar investigators were treating the Williamstown fire as a targeted attack and would “look at any possible links to other recent fires”.
Last year, a series of firebombing attacks at Williamstown Ice Creamery & Frozen Yoghurt led to the shop’s operator hiring private security to guard the venue at night to deter any further incidents.
The Age reported in November that a crime gang, which couldn’t be named for legal reasons, is suspected to have targeted that shop in an attempt to shut down a competitor in the hospitality industry.
Taskforce Lunar did not lead the investigations into the earlier ice cream fires as they were seen as separate to the tobacco wars turf battle.
Williamstown Ice Creamery & Frozen Yoghurt is located about 100 metres away from the shop engulfed in Friday’s suspicious blaze.
Williamstown resident Leo Raffoul, who has lived two doors down from Capriccio Gelateria since 1969, said he heard the sounds of a sledgehammer smashing on the wooden door of the ice cream shop early on Friday.
Fire trucks and police cars arrived within minutes with sirens blaring, he said.
Leo Raffoul speaks outside the burnt-out shop on Nelson Place, Williamstown on Friday.Credit: Penny Stephens
“I’m really concerned because my mother – she is 96, and she has got medical conditions and lung problems – was coughing, and coughing, and coughing with all the smoke,” he said.
“Even though it was two doors [down], the smoke had gone all through the house.”
Raffoul said he wanted Hobsons Bay Council to install more CCTV cameras in Nelson Place.
Any witnesses, anyone with vision or information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or www.crimestoppersvic.com.au
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