Illegal tobacco war escalating in Melbourne | 7.30 

“Organised crime, can be deadly” Thanks mate, very enlightening.

Well done Australian government, you've managed to create a black market in a legal drug. Now that's a good effort

All these politicians missed the lesson in high school on prohibition.

The government didn’t expect this, they made the tobacco use as expensive as a hard drug addiction, far more the marijuana.. now we are seeing the fallout! Wow shocked!

50gm tobacco has gone from $60 to $137 in 4 years. The black market is now thriving!

its not fake tobacco... it just hasn't been taxed... its still tobacco.. propaganda

THANK YOU TO THE CRIMS KEEPING ME IN CHEAP SMOKES I SALUTE YOU !

And why is it that whenever the cops can’t crack a case, the inevitable request for legislative change occurs. There is literally a $9m vicpol heli flying over my house right now on a training sortie, probably running at $5k plus per hour, they can probably see the corporate branded Vicpol HQ on swanston street from their cockpit. Why is it that the adequacy of the law, rather than resource allocation within law enforcement, is always questioned first? Mr Magoo could see the strong growth in very questionable, erstwhile underperforming fast food restaurants, car washes, etc springing up in Melbourne’s north, and the sheer number of g wagons and Lamborghinis belonging to their owners and see that something isn’t quite right…

If the government lowered the price of cigarettes, it would stop it immediately but the government makes millions from taxing them, we will see if it becomes a choice for them !

I bet those Border force boys have an endless supply of smokes to have during their numerous coffee breaks.

The excise is out of control, taxation and prohibition isn’t health policy. Give people safer alternatives.

$51 for legal smokes, there pricing is a little out of date try $70 per packet and up. No wonder the illegal smokes are so attractive.

Remove the tobacco tax no more black market for tobacco simple. Government creates the war, well done!

Seems we are at a turning point, if the taxes keep going up, the crims will import more and buyers will increase, so what does the government do then?

The Australian govt. Can slap themselves on the back for creating this problem

How dare they behave like the government.

What they don’t say is that alcohol costs Australia much much more in lives, health and law enforcement funding every year but politicians have learnt through out history that cutting off that supply leads to violent rebellion. Maybe if the government allowed organic chemical free tobacco suppliers to sell in Australia, instead of mega companies who want a monopoly on the industry, health would be almost a non issue.

it amazes me seeing young people smoking these days, im an ex smoker that grew up in a time when nobody knew any better and glad i finally got to quit 20 years ago before it all got beyond ridiculous

What do you mean it's all "fake, counterfeit" tobacco. It's tobacco isn't it? Just illicit as it's untaxed.

These tobacco stores are awesome... they all sell single ciggarettes and vapes!! And cheap packets of cigges BECAUSE THEY DONT PAY TAX HAHA... stuff you silly government 😂😂

If the shop sells Prime, Cheetos, Kool Aid, Vapes & Shisha you know it's dodgy

Mean while you can have meth in Canberra,

Any wonder when the governments pricing of tobacco has made this profitable for criminals. It was always going to happen in my eyes.

Funny thing is i can brew my own beer for my own consumption but i can't grow my own tobbaco for my own consumption and I'd get in more trouble than growing dope 🤷

Yeah well the more government taxes tobacco the more the black market succeeds. The Australian government has pretty much created a whole new black market from a legal product lol

2 groups caused these problems: 1. Government 2. Immigrants

get corporations to pay taxes instead of dodging it. They are the criminals.

If Albo had kept his election promises we could afford to buy the legal cigarettes but we are all broke then we have no choice but to buy the cheaper alternative as we cant afford the taxed cigarettes until he keeps his promises.

As an x smoker the government should but out of peoples lives , Gillard started this and I cannot believe the price of cigs at present A total over reach of power

So the illegal shops stay open though? Why are authorities allowing them to trade? If i opened an illegal smoke shop tomorrow, i would 100% gaurentee i would be shut down... what am i missing???

How utterly and totally predictable, yet successive federal governments failed to see the writing on the wall. The black market tobacco industry was alive and well in Australia's Vietnamese community over 20 years ago, and nothing was done to stop it, and nothing was done to make changes to the excise laws that allowed it to flourish. Next stop, ladies and gentleman, black market booze.

Gotta love the apparent surprise of the fuzz on this one. Numerous shopfronts operating in the area of the most recent violence who don’t accept card payments, have an instore ATM, and a cashier behind Perspex. Nine tenths of bugger all foot traffic. Hardly Sherlock Holmes stuff…cops very busy sweating small things. Yet the number of cash businesses continues to proliferate.

Money Talks and everybody walks

Put the taxes down problem solved

Lebanese vs Iraqis

The government has got itself to blame for this for putting up the prices on cigarettes

Of course the criminals will take advantage and of such a brutal and immoral tax on a legal products next one will be alcohol so much for living in a democracy the government telling me what i can or cant do

just did a quick search and it seems you can buy it online lol

Either make smoking illegal and treat the dealers as the illegal drug dealers or remove the mark up and instead increase health education.

Simple solution - Just drop the massive 65% tax on legal cigarettes. Problem solved.

What do you expect, government takes $40 tax on every packet billions not millions in excise

Australia becoming little America.

Put the legal prices back down n i wont support the middle eastern underworld but for now im im getting smokes for half the price so im happy in a way to support the underworld. Although i dont want to but ay the goverment is just as much of a gang themselfs, i see them thieving from everyday australians with those legal prices. 😂

I went to a servo and paid $68 for a 30 pack of PJ blues. Needs to stop

In the 80's SA introduced legislation to deter stores from importing cheap smokes from Queensland to avoid tax. If you wanted to buy these products and have them mailed to you, you needed to get a license and become a licensed smoker! It seemed stupid at the time but now we don't have people killing each other over tobacco, I wonder...

Blame the govt greedy tax on this if smokes were $6 like every where else in the world except NZ there wouldn’t be this

So a pack of 20 Marlboros that cost $2-3 in Indonesia but cost $30-40 here only yield a $1 profit for the vendor? There's profiteering going on here, but I'm not sure it's all illegal. I'm pretty sure the real cost of cigarettes in every country is $1 plus tax. The Australian government just went a little nuts with that plan.

I can use this for my eco class now

A war created by the Australian governments price hikes - for American viewers the price of a packet of cigarettes here in Australia is around $50 !!

So why don’t he police raid the smoke shops “

Why does the ethnicity of a criminal syndicate have any relevance whatsoever?

government tax 65% sorry, you forgot the excise tax so it is like 450% tax

Take of the government tax

They’re trying to do the same thing with alcohol, you mount think I’m crazy but give it another 10 years….

Love my double happiness

If the evey man was able to afford them this not be a thing hell there's all ways been chop chop but now when a 50g white ox is all most 100$ a pouch the government bring this on them self

The Police, the justice system, the Department of Immigration, Border Force, the ATO and the Health Department are run by public servants. What could possibly go right. Yes Minister.

Any wonder with the price gouging

Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view !" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam ." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window ? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment ?"

This was the start of the cost of living war on Australians. Gigs alcohol rates gst

Its a severe penalty to grow tabacco soooo make it legal for citizens to grow. Problem solved cigarettes are to dear and it's a severe penalty to grow tabacco in many parts of Australia. I made this comment before and it got Removed what does that tell you. the government made tobacco more illegal than cannabis. Both should be legal alcohol does worse damage.

Healthier for you.

Multiculturalism working fine here

@4:07 it’s more like $12 where I get them in Dandenong😂.

And this is a surprise, why, its been happening in the UK for years.

If its not profitable then surely the shop woihld stop selling it?

This is a classic case of I told you so. I saw this happening even at age 18

Wow! Who didn't see this coming?😂

Same story currently in the news. Hint: operation Bart, Vic ombudsman report. See who registered ownership of private security companies in Melbourne….

Taxation does nothing for stopping smoking except government profiteering.. if they wanted to stop smoking, like NZ, ban it for everyone born after a certain year... but that would stop the tax income.. so will never happen

If you don't sound Australian..you not Australian

WOW WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT 😂 Would be nice if people thought ahead when coming up with dumbass legislation like the cigarette tax... how did they not realise people would get desperate??

we all know exactly why this is happening. raise the prices more.

Here in Canada our main importer and manufacturing of illegal cigarettes is from the first nations. Packs of 20 are $5- $7 and you can get cartons of 200 for $40-$50.

Well we all know who is to blame for this tobacco shop fire bombing war it's the Australian federal government because of the heavy taxes that have been placed on cigarettes over the years and with the government planning on raising the prices continually we can only expect the war to continue when the cost a packet of cigarettes is about $35 so when smokers are faced with a choice of paying extremely high prices for legal cigarettes of course smokers will purchase the illegal cigarettes when they are so much cheaper than the legal cigarettes so if you want someone to blame for this crisis look no further than the government and with the cost of living crisis spiraling out of control it's only going to continue. If the government wasn't so hell bent on making people quit smoking through increasing the prices of cigarettes hoping that people will quit which isn't working they have effectively created this situation that is currently happening the more you try to outlaw something the more opportunities for criminals will be created so if you think it's the criminals that are to blame for the destruction of tobacconists shops you are wrong it's because smoking is additive and hard to quit so people are choosing to buy the cheap cigarettes to save money at a time when every cent counts if the government didn't have such high prices for cigarettes then we wouldn't have shops being burnt to the ground. Make legal cigarettes cheaper to buy and it will take the cheaper illegal cigarettes off the market but the Australian government doesn't have any intentions to do so and all it's going to cause is more criminal misconduct as criminals fight over supremacy of the illegal tobacco trade.

they should have just taxed tobacco for sky high prices

This is what happens when you tax tobacco through the roof. Do you see other countries waging gang wars over tobacco?? When you prohibit or highly tax a product. Gangs pick up the slack.

put the taxes down you peanuts problem solved.

nobody but the rich can afford to smoke legal smokes they are that expensive now !!!

Mid 1990s chop chop was all across Melbourne. Just less Asians running the shops now like franchises.

Oh wow, you just delete my comments…. Yikes. You do know there is an entire “force” recording everything you’re doing right? 😂

That is the problem with prohebition, is it not? But, hang on......didn't we do something like that about a hundred years ago while trying to rid society of alcohol?

Increasing the price of tobacco definitely didn't create a black market that didn't exist a couple years ago. More poorly thought out legislation.

They just want the profit in their own pockets

So just don't get involved in the underground crime ring and I'll be fine? Okay pretty easy to do.

Not shocked at this making tobacco stupidly over taxed and priced would help cause and illicit market for this and i dont even smoke.

Why is it the gov's business if you want to partake in a legal activity , like smoking. If they were serious they would outlaw it completely but they won't because of the cash flow it brings to gov and now the cash flow to cops and poles and lawyers from the black market.

Well I guess stock up before more burn down.

SMOKING SHOULD BE FREE

Blame the goverment...if cigarettes didnt cost a fortune...this wouldnt happen...cut the Taxes on Cigarettes...!!

Every gangsters had own choices to own business. Work.

Tobacco wars😅😂 Here we got crack, meth, coke, fenty, heroin wars but there its Tobacco lol. A tuff bunch of crims yall got. What next milk wars.😅😂

I’ve been smoking since I was 26 years old back in 1932 and it hasn’t affected me at all.

Slingin darts

Brilliant goverment policy’s black market wars over a legal substance they have to spend much more than they make so what’s the point just drop the price of cigarets and the problem will disappear ,there polices are not working ,it’s just causing trouble it’s like probation on booze in America you know what happened there ,old jimmy WA

Ha ha there ya go your government at work.

we created this.

I herd there were new players in town causing all these fires The FUKENESE DRAGONS look into it Vic Pol plz 🙏

Take tobacco prices and taxes back to 2010s should save the problem from worsening and introduce laws like New Zealand has that if you are born after January 1st and whatever year that will reduce smoking to those who already do and impose heavy fines for any that supply or smoke tobacco that are under the age

He his in india