Where there are smokes there are fires: Inside Victoria’s tobacco war

The world wide web has changed the way we do business. In days long forgotten Zoom was what you did when you were driving to a meeting, Marketplace was a destination you visited to purchase vegetables and a jam donut, while Spam was a preserved meat product often fried with pineapple.

This means, he says, crime novices with little or no police records may be persuaded to “have a crack”. Banks estimates protection alone is making the syndicates more than $100,000 a month, the big shops are moving up to $50,000 in stock a week and the “industry” is making millions a month. Pictures found on his computer via a smuggled dongle showed up to $15 million in cash, bricks of cocaine and multiple weapons.

Some of these syndicates did co-operate when it came to large drug shipments, but when it comes to illicit tobacco, it is a fight to the death.“The brutality hasn’t gone away. The violence used to be personal, and now it is a struggle over the business,” says Banks. Police alone rarely defeat organised crime, because the crooks have identified a market they can supply. Smokers, sick of massive government taxes on what remains a legal pastime, see nothing wrong in going to the backyard suppliers to buy smuggled cigarettes.

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