ABF uses ‘Al Capone’ tactics to hit illicit tobacco market
ABF Assistant Commissioner Tony Smith says the Border Force will use an ‘Al Capone’ strategy to crush the illicit tobacco trade.
The Australian Border Force is taking an “Al Capone” approach to Australia’s illicit tobacco market, with the Albanese government aiming to make the multibillion-dollar trade so hostile that criminals are forced out before prosecutions are even needed.
The strategy, led by Labor’s new Illicit Tobacco National Disruption Group, aims to target mid-level networks behind the black market rather than focusing solely on ringleaders and kingpins.
Speaking with The Australian, ABF Assistant Commissioner Tony Smith said the approach was designed to hit “enablers” across the supply chain to make it too risky for them to operate.
“It really is about using capabilities to break the business model, to really make the environment hostile,” he said. “There’s not necessarily always going to be a prosecution outcome.
“It’s almost like what we refer to as the Al Capone effect, where if you really want to tackle organised criminals, sometimes you come at it from the side and take a different approach to dismantle that enterprise.”
The disruption group brings together federal and state law enforcement agencies and government partners, including the Australian Federal Police, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, Austrac, Department of Home Affairs, Australian Taxation Office, Services Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
By leveraging the powers of these agencies, the ABF hopes to dismantle networks at every level from importers and transporters to small business operators and retailers.
Mr Smith said success would not necessarily be measured in prosecutions but in forcing operators out of the market entirely. “Success is really making that environment so hostile that those middle-level criminals and those people that are enabling illicit tobacco to be sold simply stay away from being involved in that activity because it is too hostile,” he said.
“They may not see themselves as being high-level criminals. They might look at illicit tobacco as a victimless crime. Success looks like our ability to make it so hostile that they realise it’s not something they want to get involved in.”
The ABF has already ramped up enforcement, detecting more than 23,000 shipments of illicit tobacco and seizing 2.57 billion cigarettes in the last financial year – a 38 per cent increase on the previous year.
Mr Smith said more than 800 international referrals from partners in Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East had resulted in 400 successful interceptions before shipments reached Australian ports.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s announcement at the weekend comes off the back of The Australian’s investigation into the underworld trade, which has exposed the brazen, widespread operations saturating the market and fuelling a multibillion-dollar industry that has led to exorbitant hikes in insurance claims and a bloody turf war involving hundreds of fire bombings and multiple deaths.
The Australian also revealed how state governments were at odds with their federal counterpart in Canberra over repeated tax hikes on legal tobacco that made illicit alternatives more lucrative.
Now the ABF claims the government’s new initiative will make the illicit market economically unsustainable and, hopefully, reduce the availability of unregulated products.
Since 2024, the Albanese government has committed more than $350m to combat illicit tobacco, vapes and nicotine products. The National Disruption Group itself has been funded through part of $188.5m provided to the ABF specifically for tackling the illicit tobacco market.
The nation’s peak body for convenience stores, the Australian Association of Convenience Stores, which suffered a $2bn collapse in sales over the past four years, said while the initiative was welcome, the government had not “grasped the scale of the problem”.
Chief executive Theo Foukkare said while another taskforce looks good on paper, without new funding or a proper plan, Australia was just fighting a $10bn black market with loose change.
“It’s time to stop talking around the issue and start fixing it, and that means cutting tobacco excise drastically, setting a national target to cut illicit tobacco and seriously looking at regulating alternative nicotine products like they do overseas,” Mr Foukkare said.
“The ABF are being asked to fight this massive fight with one hand tied behind their back.”
By targeting mid-level operators rather than high-profile criminals, the ABF hopes to dismantle networks from the ground up, hitting their finances, logistics and operations simultaneously.
Mr Smith said the Al Capone-style strategy could redefine enforcement across other black-market commodities, but its success ultimately depended on reducing the economic incentives driving Australians to the black market in the first place.
“Whether they are people who are owners of tobacconists or whether they are the people that run the facilities or the transportation drivers, we’re looking at every angle along the pathway,” he said.
More Coverage
