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What’s Fuelling Melbourne’s Explosive Tobacco Wars? Ex-Cop Explains

Fire-bombings across suburban Melbourne have been terrorising citizens for the last 18 months. But why are they happening?

Former AFP officer Rohan Pike said high taxes and opportunistic criminals are leading to catastrophic levels of illegal tobacco being siphoned through Melbourne streets. 

Former detective Rohan Pike deep dives into Melbourne’s Tobacco Wars on the Crime Insiders podcast:

Australian consumers buy illegal cigarettes for almost half the price of legal cigarettes. Tobacco shops that sell legal cigarettes can’t compete.

“The health department are desperate for people not to smoke or vape. And so their solution is to just ban these things or prohibit them via the tax in the case of tobacco,” Pike said.

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Organised criminal gangs have been running Australia’s illegal tobacco market ever since it was first grown as a crop here.

But now gangs have swapped out farming for importing to meet demand for the cheaper, black market tobacco.

Fire bombings earlier this year were the result of heating turf wars between criminal gangs who sell imported tobacco.

More than 60 fires in Melbourne stores, centres and restaurants have been linked to the tobacco war.

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