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The Tobacco War: Australia's Billion-Dollar Black Market | Chris Vedelago · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Apote production.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to real crime at Adam Shand, I'm your host.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand. Australia is in the group of a new
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: illicit tobacco war, at least a new front in a
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: conflict that is now part of the underworld landscape.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: The federal government's tobacco excise now since at more than
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: one dollar fifty per cigarette, pushing a standard pack past
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: fifty dollars in retailer.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: The capture of king pin Kashamad in Iraq earlier this
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: year might have seemed like a win for law enforcement.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Hammand has made reportedly billions from his control of the market,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: which now makes up forty percent of the illicit drug
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: trade in this country.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Kamad is believed to have orchestrated a criminal network generating
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: billions of dollars annually from the black market's cigarette trade.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: However, nature and the criminal element abhors a vacuum, and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Hammad's capture seems to have destabilize the market once more
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: as other players seek to take up over Aldhammad languishes
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: in a jail cell in Baghdad.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Victoria police have recorded a spike in arson and firearms
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: incidents across Melbourne suburbs, with investigators linking the attacks to
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: rival factions competing for control of the state's illicit tobacco
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: distribution network.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: The fire bombings, the shootings and other violent attacks, so
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: returning with a vengeance as the brief period of equilibrium
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: this market has been destroyed. Walkley Award winning journalist Chris
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: vite Lago of The Age newspaper has been at the
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: forefront of coverage of this issue.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: And joins me now to discuss where this is going.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome to real crime, Chris. Thank you.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: You like me began as an economics business reporter, which
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: gives you a pretty good understanding of the market forces
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and the government's role in this while Underworld.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: War Yeah well yeah, I mean, and teach you how
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: to chase paper and understand numbers through certain degraud. I'm
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: still not great with numbers. They still rely on the
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: exal spreads. You need to do a lot of my work.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: But the tobacco story at the heart of it is
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: is is a story about economics and about government policy settings,
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: about tax creating this huge opportunity for organized crime to
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: move into something that was relatively minor ten years ago.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of places to this.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So I guess we should talk about where everything is
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: right now. A market is now in disequilibrium and we're
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: seeing people trying to capitalize on a fragmentation. Again, I
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: guess of the market after Kassamad was captured, where did
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Kasamad sit?
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Until recently before his capture in January, he was at
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: the very top of the pyramid. And he had effectively,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: after two years of fighting, had created a cartel that
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: was controlling distribution retailing of illicit tobacco in Melbourne.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And I mean, as the AFP.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Said, five states and territories, and the market had stabilized,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: prices were stable, the violence had dropped off pretty substantially.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Occasionally there would be a random fire for someone.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: Who wasn't paying their extortion tax, the tax, the kaz
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: tax to the syndicate. But basically, in December of twenty
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, he had control of the market and
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: the prices were low, Supply was everywhere, like everywhere. There's
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: something like thirteen hundred and fourteen hundred elicit shops in
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Victoria alone.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The government at.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: That stage hadn't taken any steps to shut them down,
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: and they were running full or some of them running
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: twenty four hours a day.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And let's not get stuck on personalities, because this has
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: really all occurred because of government excise. If we go
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: back to about twenty seventeen, we see excise on cigarettes.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Percy got about sixty one cents. It's now to buck fifty,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I believe, yeah, over a buck fifty. So kaz saw
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to consolidate the market and it's all happened
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: really quickly.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, it's literally arrived. It started in March twenty
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: twenty three. The violence started in March twenty twenty three.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: The amount of cigarettes that have floated into the market since.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Then is in the billions.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: I mean they're producing them demand on order in Dubai
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: and in China, and they're shipping here by the containing
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: a lowed ten eleven million in a container. They are
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: ever everywhere, and it's all about exploiting this huge price
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: differential between a legal pack of cigarettes at fifty dollars
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: and an illicit pack at what in December was twelve dollars.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Now you're a smoker, yes, not helped by this story.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: No love this story. So your face with a dilemma
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: is a smoker. Like most smokers, you can buy the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: fifty dollars product or the fifteen dollar product. It's virtually
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the same, isn't it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Look there there's some people debate about the quality of
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: the cigarettes, and depending on where you're buying them from,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: what country they're coming from, whether they're known as illicit whites,
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: which is a manufactured properly manufactured brand, versus a counterfeit
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: brand that might be coming out of a shop in Cambodia,
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: there is a quality differential. Some of them are quite gross,
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: but if you're buying that kind of illicit white version,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: you can't really tell the.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Difference because Manchester is the brand everyone bars. Yeah, that's
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: what I've seen those. I mean, there's a shop around
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the corner here that sells them of it. To look
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: at them at it, look look the same. They'll kill
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you just the same as the other one.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, and they just cost a fraction of what normal
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: ones do. I mean, it's a big business Manchester. They
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: make billions of cigarettes a year and a lot of
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: that supply is added to Australia and they're.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Not breaking the law.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: They're producing cigarettes in Dubai and other places and it's
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: up to what the actual buy at the wholesalers do
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: once they've got them.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: This is what's interesting about this, because the supply chain
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: itself for an illicit product in Australia is completely legal
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: until it gets off the boat.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: In Sydney or Melbourne.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: It's manufactured legally in Dubai, it's exported, it tranships through
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Singapore Vietnam completely legally. It's only when the container comes
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: off in Melbourne or Sydney, where it's labeled homewares or
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: shoes that the crime actually occurs. And it's still not
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: a crime in this city, state, country to buy illicit
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: tobacco as an individual.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: The crime is importing it and selling it.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: This is a federal government created problem, I guess, the
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: same way prohibition created al component and the Chicago gangsters.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: They're doing the same thing, and you wonder why they're
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: not getting it.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: They're also seeing over that period their exercise numbers crash. Yeah,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: as people are noting the tax paid product, and yet
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: they're not doing anything.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: We'll not doing anything effective anyway. We'll say task.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Forces and all this earn of sounding language and things,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: But to me, it seems like this is a federally
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: created problem that the stites are having to solve at
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: the local level.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Look, it was a great idea to begin with. Jack
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: up the price of cigarettes through the X size. You
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: create a disincentive for people to smoke because it gets
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: too expensive, and the government makes a lot of money.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And that worked for the first few years.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: After twenty seventeen, the problem was the gap became too
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: much and it became exploitable and very lucrative to exploit it.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: The government refuses adamantly to drop the excise tax, and
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: a part of that, in my personal opinion, is blowback
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: from the health sector, because if you lower the tax,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: you're probably going to see an increase in smoking in
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the medium term as people return to illicit cigarettes when
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: they're cheaper. But they also don't want to give up
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: whatever tax they're getting from it. So even though it's
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: a fraction of it was ten years ago or five
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: years ago, they don't want to surrender collecting that tax
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: by dropping the price of cigarettes by thirty dollars.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complete fallacy. May be these lowest smiking
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: rights so just bullshit. Anyway, that was saying people are
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: not being picked up by the fact that they're smking
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the illicit brand. How did they come with these smiking
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: rights anyway?
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Well, see, there's always surveys, right, they do surveys of people,
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: but there's also waste water testing, which normally we associate
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: with cocaine or methamphetamine.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Basically, the government tests the water that's going.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Through the waste treatment plant and they say, oh, look
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: there's been a five percent increase in cocaine use. Those
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: figures suggest the tobacco use is on the increase. When
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: the next set of like kind of household survey house
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: surveys about smoking comes out, we're likely to see a
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: big jump because people will admit to taking drugs in
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: these surveys, so they're not going to deny smoking illicit cigarettes.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: We're just waiting for that evidence to come through. Now
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: that the number is gone up, and when you speak
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: to people, anecdotally, everybody believes it's going to go up.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Especially when you go to a pub or a club
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: in this town.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: You look at what people are smoking in this areas,
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: it's all Manchester and Double Happiness.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Nobody's buying Marlboro anymore. You don't find empty Marboro packs
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: at a prop and it's also vipes as well. It's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: not just the.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: Tobacco itself, and the vapes themselves became a major problem.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Originally envisioned as a healthier version to smoking, a nicotine replacement.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Aid, there was some RGI bargie but whether or not they.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: Should be legal or not, and the illegal market moves in,
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: and Kashimad was very successful in infiltrating that market as
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: well by cutting deals with Chinese crime gangs to send
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: a particular brand here by the hundreds of thousands, and
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: for a long time that brand became the number one
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: starkest in these illicit tobacco shops, of which he was
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: taking a cut as well.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: This was all happening pretty quietly. People were aware of it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm saying these things have always been a
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: listed tobacco in the community, but I think this has
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: been a bit of a win for journalism and yourself
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: in particular. You began to highlight it. What were the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: first steps in that process for you?
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: Well, basically, the first fire that's ever believed to have
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: been associated with the tobacco war occurred on March twenty fourth.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: That's very specifics from the police at the time.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: The fires started off slowly.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: By about June or July of twenty twenty three, they
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: had become a weekly occurrence. In the beginning, when I
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: originally started looking at this, I wasn't particularly interested in
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: the tobacco. It had always been there until we started
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: to really see who the players were that were involved,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: serious hardcore organized crime players and they uptick in serious violence.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Then we realized this.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Was actually a massive issue, and this thing had been
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: asleeper for a long time. These thousand shops had opened
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: up and nobody was paying attention. Local health authorities that
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: were supposed to be doing inspections weren't doing them because
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: they had become aware of who was involved, and they
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: weren't going to send their unarmed inspectors who all you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: inspected grease traps at restaurants in to deal with organized
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: crime figures selling tobacco. And you know, it was not
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: a state based policing issue for Victoria police.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: They don't handle ilicit tobacco.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: They only became involved and started Task Force because of
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: the violence, the shootings, the firebombings. The government at the
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: border were seizing things and seizing increasing amounts of it,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: but nobody was really drawing the whole picture together. It
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: took Kasmads starting the tobacco war for people to really
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: sit up and realize this was a huge, multi billion
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: dollar industry. It had been allowed to go unchecked effectively
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: by the government for four or five years, and now
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: we've got this massive problem where these guys, they're cashed up,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: they're armed up.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I tell this story often.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I can usually go now to a court hearing for
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: someone who's been arrested and tell what syndicate they're associated
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: with based on what lawyer shows up, because even the
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: low level street guys are getting very very strong legal
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: representation because there's so much money slashing through the system.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And the thing about illicit tobacco is the gile terms
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: are pretty short compared to cocaine, meth, the rest of it.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you look at the legislation, it might say
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: all this this offense is punishable by five years or
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: ten years. I think they're going to increase it to
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: fifteen years for tobacco smuggling. Most judges do not hand
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: out heavy duty prison sentences for effectively evading at tax duty.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: You'll be lucky to see somebody who gets a few
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: months a year, depending on the size of the shipment
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: in their criminal history. This is a low risk, high
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: reward for the people who do this. You're not likely
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: to get heavy prison sentences. You're most likely to get
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: some kind of community based order. But on top of that,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: the money to be made I mean the steering Criminal
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: Intelligence Commission estimates you only need to get about one
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: and twenty one and thirty containers through to make a profit,
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: So you can lose ninety percent of your gear and
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: still come out ahead when you're buying a container for
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in du buy and
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: selling it in the shops at ten million total, or
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: you're selling it wholesale at five million a container. The
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: arson penalties, I mean, arson is a serious crime, but
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: lots of people they'll get a year or two years,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: but not much more than that because most of these
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: arsons are property damage. They're not burning people. With one
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: notable exception exactly most of the time it's property damage,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: and it might be a million dollars or the property damage,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: but you'll get twelve months or fourteen months.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: In terms of the importation, we've seen a lot of
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: big words task forces and so forth about stopping this,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and we've got an under control. I think you put
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: it that these imports are like water around a rock. Yeah,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it's a beautiful line to describe it.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Well, it is because you're talking about volumes. Like if
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: the border force could spend all day, every day seizing
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: tobacco and they still wouldn't get it at all. With
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: the war in Iran at the time the war occurred
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: in the Strait of Hormors was closed.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: The records, I have said, there's about five.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Hundred million cigarettes sitting on boats and in the docks
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: in Dubai ready to come to our part of the world,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: just our part of the world, not anywhere else. The
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: volumes you're talking about are enormous and while there can
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: be big seizures, and the ABF put on a note
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: today that they basically effectively in the last three months
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: what they called almost a kilo ton of tobacco, which
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: is a thousand tons. I know I'd only heard it
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: in reference to nuclear weapons, but I kill a ton
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: of tobacco. That's a lot of tobacco, and it has
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: strangled supply, it's reduced it. But in another analogy, imagine
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: trying to pinch a garden hose with your fist. You're
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: gonna close off some of the water, but eventually you're
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: gonna have to let it go. Yeah, discus yet, Yeah,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: And so like, they have done some great work with
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: the seizures, and then the amount in the shops is declining.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: In both vapes and illicit tobacco. The prices have gone
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: up fifty or sixty seventy percent. Some of that has
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: to do with the seizures. Some of that has to
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: do with the fighting that's going on inside the market
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: now that kaz has been arrested, but a lot of
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: it has to do with the fact that there hasn't
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: been a ship in a tobacco that's left the strait
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: of Hormonths since the twenty eighth February.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: So we can blame Donald Trump for that as well.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: He's actually done probably more to restrict cigarette sales in
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: this country than the government. And you know, I had
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: somewhat tobacco industry inside her telling me that realistically, you
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: should probably appoint Kasima as the health minister because it's
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: his policy that dictates the amount of cigarettes to get
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: smugged in this country, not the government.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable positions were a god that was nothing special
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: in the criminal world, goes to jail lights on this thing, sees.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: An opportunity of the market.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: At that time, the Hadara family seemed to dominate a failey.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It wasn't the consolidated industry. What opportunity did he see
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: and how did he go about grabbing it?
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: This is one of the most interesting parts of this
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: whole story is when he was arrested in twenty fourteen
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: for heroin smuggling and he lost his bail in twenty fifteen.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: He's been in jail between since September twenty fifteen up
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: until July twenty twenty three, so he was out of
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: the market effectively. Somehow inside he cooks up this scheme
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: and he makes connections and he's got people on the street,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: and he realizes that there's so much tobacco out there
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: that somebody needs to take control of it in a
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: cartel sense. And what ended up happening was the Hadara
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: crime family and some people from the Mongols and the
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Nomads and various other players Sam Abdul Raheem. They realized
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: they were starting to bump ump against each other about
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: distribution and supply. So they called a meeting and they said,
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: let's form a cartel. And the information that we have
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: is that Kaz basically Center representatives said I want to
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: see the table, and they said no, and Kaz's response says, well,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: I'll take the table, and that's what he did. He
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: did it through extreme violence, and families like the Hdars,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: who've been in power since probably twenty twelve twenty thirteen,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: weren't prepared to deal with the amount of violence he
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: was willing to dish out.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And it was constant, and it was.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Firebombings, it was shootings, it was bashings, it was a
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: grave desecration, there was murders. The wave of violence he
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: unleashed on these people forced them all to come to
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: an agreement with him. You get out of the market
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: or you follow my cartel, the commission, as he called it,
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: And we.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Saw this period of equilibrium short as it was while
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: this was going on. What amazes me is wow Ahmad
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: was arrested at all and had they keeping him there?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: How did that happen? We always expected this would never happen.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: He was in Iraq, and frankly, the government of Iraq
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: can't stand Australia.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Because of the war.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of bad feeling and a lot of
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: hurt about what happened during the invasion of Iraq, and
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: afterwards there's not a lot of cooperation like black letter
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: law cooperation about treaties, extradition treaties, cooperation treaties. But basically
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: kas made what looks like two fundamental mistakes. One he's
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: been associated with the murder of an innocent person who
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: was burned to death by accident quickly. So basically, in
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: January of twenty twenty five, two men were sent to
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: burn a house out in the Western suburbs and they
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: got the wrong house and some say even the wrong suburb,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: they were that far off, and they burned a house
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: where an innocent woman, Katie Tanney, was living. She was
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: house sitting for her brother and she died in the
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: fire along with the family's dog.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And that was the first innocent life that we known
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that's been taken in this.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Prior to that, according to federal police, kaz Ha Mad
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: for some reason agreed to accept a firebombing contract from
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: what appears to be the Iranian government right yes to
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: firebomber a synagogue in Caufield the Adas Israel Synagogue. That's
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: the intel the AFP has put out that basically, he
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: took a job from the Revolutionary Guards to burn this
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: place and he did, and that made him a national
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: security threat. It went from something to do with tobacco
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: and associated violence on the state level to a terrorism issue,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: and that's when the pressure really ramped up. And what
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: we've heard is that after that happened, the reluctance of
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: the federal police or the Attorney General at the federal
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: level to engage with the country that has the death
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: penalty for certain crimes dissipated. They decided this man is
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: a serious problem, and so they began sending officers and
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: intelligence to Iraq about what Kaz was doing. And as
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: part of that, we understand that they had developed information
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: that kas was trafficking drug inside Iraq, which is a
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: crime punishable by death, and the iraqis execute people all
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: the time for judge trafficking, and that is what sparked
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: has erased.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's that, Clint, Each wood Line man's got
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: to know his limitations. Even Caso mar I mean a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: guy that's made billions, I mean, that's that's the report
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: here thing. You know, I guess greed can even hit him.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, you wonder how does he enjoy his money
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: living in Iraq? How's he living? Any any clues on that?
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Look, we'd heard that he lived in a kind of
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: a high end compound, secure fortified compound where a lot
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: of wealthy people in Iraq live, with all the trappings
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: you can possibly imagine for someone who makes lots of
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: money in the stock market or illicitly.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: He was living well.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it all comes crashing down. You think
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: with his arrest, what do you think happens now? We
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: haven't heard much about extraditional who's going to who's going
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: to eventually house this bloke in a jail.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: We originally thought that this was a move to extradote him,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: but what he subsequently learned, they don't want it back
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: here because if they bring him back here, there's all
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: sorts of legal complications about trying him. But then also
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: has in him because as we've seen the first time around,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: they put him in Barwin in one of the most
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: high security units for eight and a half years, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: he came out stronger than he went in. So from
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: the perspective of law enforcement. They would prefer if this
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: problem is resolved overseas. What happens, I don't know. He
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: was arrested mid January. It's been what three months. Other
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: than a single press release put out by the Iraqi
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: judicial authorities, we've heard nothing, and two proof of life
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: photos that they gave the AFP published.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: We don't know where he is. He's in a secret
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: prison somewhere.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: We hear all sorts of stories about what's happening, but
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: as far as we know, he's still in custody. But
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: there's been no hearings or there's no trial date set
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: that we're aware of. We don't even know if he
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: is tried, will we even be told exactly.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: The cynical view is that he's got a lot of
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: money he can pay his way out of the poorest
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: justice system.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe we were being unfair to the Iraqis. Look.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Speculation has that that money might be actually a millstone
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: for him in there, and that people inside the system
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: might want to take that money from him, and that's
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: why he's being held in communicado.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: We hear all sorts of rumors, nothing confirmed.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've been working your sources heart since we've seen,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: you have articles.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: They're terrific.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: By the way you speak of this uncertainty about his
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: fate is driving uncertainty of the market.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Here what's going on?
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: So basically after he disappeared, there was a kind of
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: a quiet week and then all of a sudden fires
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: started and it was not just in Melbourne. There was
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: fires in Brisbane, fires in New South Wales. There was
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: rg Bargi out west in wa and then there was
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: fires in Melbourne, stuff we hadn't seen in a while.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: And then there was also a dramatic escalation in a
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: matter of about a week and a half where there
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: were shootings, including like a drive by shooting of a
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: cafe in Altona where a whole bunch of people were
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: sitting out of the front. It's unclear who was actually
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: the target in that, but they just opened up and
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: hit somebody.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And then businesses related to.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: People who work in the tobacco area, so like ice
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: cream parlors, barbershops, they were being lit up as well.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: This old ram the car in the front of it
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: and then set it on fire or throw molotovs through
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: the windows.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: There was a real uptick and some of that was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: as we.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Understand that people were looking to test the waters to
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: see if they could get in and start taking over
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: shops they used to have, or they wanted to move
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: in and take over new shops. And then Kaz's crew
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: was striking back, saying no, no, no, no. He may
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: not be here, but the order remains the same. And
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: so there was I think I counted before April, I
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: think there was on the order of about thirty attacks
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: the National line, fire bombings, assaults, shootings.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: So the three one three is I think they're cool.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: He's main gang.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I've lost it later effectively or released communication lines to him.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Eventually someone must just say, well, I can just take
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: up it from him from within his crew, you would think,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: and try to maintain this stranglehold on the market.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Somebody's pulling strings and we don't know who it is
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: because there's two ic his cousin, Armad al Hamsa, he
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: was arrested in Katar. He's disappeared as well. So the
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: top two in the rankings are gone. But somebody's still
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: calling the shots because the tax is still being collected.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Somebody's ordering violence. The cigarettes are still flowing, albeit in
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a reduced form. Somebody's in charge, but we have no
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: idea who it is.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And the battle for control of this market reminds me
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the Gangland War in Melbourne in
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the early two thousands, which was simply also about control
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: of a market, different features to it, and back then
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: people were being paid one hundred thousand dollars to do
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: hits on rivals and so forth. But now you've got
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: seemingly an endless queue of soldiers working for five hundred
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: bucks or something like that to burn places and do
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: worse potentially.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of the interesting developments that came
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: with this. So if you want to break it.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: Down, there's effectively two types of soldiers in this war.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: There's the low total pool street guys who are basically
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: they're actually half the time don't even know who they're
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: working for. They're just giving instructions to an encrypted app
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: burn this place for five hundred dollars or a thousand
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: bucks or ten thousand the price fluctuates depending on the
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: target and the like. Those are kind of the disposable
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: street soldier guys that we see all the time in
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: the balaklavas, lighting themselves on fire by accident.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I still gotta love that. Yeah, so you knuckle, hate,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: gout and fly. I'm sorry it's happening, mom and dead,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: but please, it happens all the time.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's been guys bust with his pants burned
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: off running around Preston because he set fire to himself
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: while he was trying to burn a place. The next
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: step up from that are there these kind of professionals,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: and these guys are commanding huge amounts, Like some of
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: the contracts that we've seen is a million dollars, two
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: million dollars, and some of those contracts get executed. I
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: mean Sam Abdul Raheem, known as the Punisher, there was
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: an open contract for a million dollars on him. Somebody
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: killed him, somebody's presumably claim that million dollars. And the
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: people who did that was an highly organized, discipline, four
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: person hit team that managed to do that job in
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: less than twenty four hours.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you think that was paid? Oh yeah, yeah, sheeez.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Because I've always thought when you put out a contract
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: for a million dollars, you take it right, you're making
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: yourself a target because if you're paying over the yards,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: you can get someone else to knock your hit man
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: for less and save some money.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: It happened.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: One of the people on that team didn't end up
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: getting killed a couple of months later, but the other three,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: whoever they are, are still out there, and we've seen up
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: to two million, I think is the highest line I've
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: seen on Somebody just.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Shows you the money in this industry. Yeah, exactly, like
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: just I mean, I went to a bail hearing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: When the guy got bail, Kaz ordered a Rolls Royce.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And a Lamborghini to pick him up from the romance center.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: All of these guys standing around these fancy cars and
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: us for our photographers as this guy walks out with
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: his plastic bag with his clothes in it and gets into.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: A Rolls Rice.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because people still hark back to
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the Carb Williams and Tony mock Bells and things, and
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: they seem like a little quaint cottage industry operators compared
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to these guys and the numbers we're talking here, and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't seem to have captured the public's attention
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the way that the those guys did back in the day.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Is this just an Anglo Saxon view of the world,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: or what's going on?
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I wondered that I don't know. It could very well be.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's been twenty years, right, people read the
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: media and consume the media a lot different than they
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: did back then. I mean people hung on every word
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: written in the newspaper about this sort of stuff. Now
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: the numbers are much lower about subscribers and trying to
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: reach digital audiences about this stuff. Yeah, it could simply
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: be we just don't have the cut through as the
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: industry that we used to.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe, But I mean I'm amazed because I'm still getting
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: asked to retell the story of Carl Williams twenty years later,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: and I go, why are you still interested in this story?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: And that people still want to make films talk about it.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: But this seems to be a really dangerous moment in
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: this particular story, where this disequilibrium fragmented people making money
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: or seeing an opportunity. Could we be really seeing the
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: dawn of a really nasty period of bloodshed.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: It's possible.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: And look, there's been times a couple of years ago
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: now where they were lighting fires at restaurants below apartment towers, right,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: like medium high rise apartment towers in Docklands. And I
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: watched the cop testify that it was only a matter
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: of time before we had a mass casualty incident. I mean,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: one apartment building had to be evacuated twice in the
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: same weekend because the restaurant had been set on fire twice.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: There is a possibility, and the police have worn this
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: multiple times, that somebody or more innocent people are going
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: to die because of the recklessness of the way that
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: this stuff is conducted. Like it's literally I went to
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: a job last week. They got the address wrong again.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: It happens all the time. For whatever reason they're not
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Google searching, I don't know, but they burned the wrong
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: plays And for a while we were seeing a lot
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: of targeted attacks at people's homes, and a goodly number
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: of those were mistakes. A real possibility that innocent people
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: will die in this. If the violence continues to get worse.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's the inflection point. Also, so when
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: the public generally feels a threat. I remember during the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: gang label some of the cops used to say, oh,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: this is a self cleaning oven. We just stand back,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: turn up the heat and watch them burn themselves to ash.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: But when it starts to.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Involve local areas, shops, people feeling unsafe. You got a
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: election coming up here in Victoria as well. You would
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: hope this gets onto the agenda. But how much can
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the state police forces or state governments do when the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: federal government wants to hang on to its diminishing excise
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: take and doesn't do anything decisive about this problem.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: Well, for steep police, I think the best analogy is
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: they're the ambulance at the bottom. There's no fence at
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: the type or very a fence full of holes, and
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: they have to clean up the mass with the violence.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: It's not being stopped at its source point, which could
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: be either better border controls, a more advanced border screening system.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: It could be dropping the xys to take the power
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: and the pressure out of the market. But right now,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: basically the steep police force, they're the ambulance at the
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: bottom picking up the mess. And there's a lot of
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: these guys. I mean, before kaz Is arrest, we were
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: aware that something like six of his top people were
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: in Iraq.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: They were basically you can't get.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: To them right, no matter how strong or dedicated to
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: Lunar Task force is in Victoria, you can't mess with
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: somebody who's in Baghdad.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: You can arrest the street guys.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: But when there's guys out there seemingly bottomless supply of
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: people willing to do arson jobs for a thousand bucks,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: what can you do with that? You can arrest them,
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: lock them up, they get out, and there's always somebody
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: else standing there.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think someone's going to take over from Caz
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and I guess having he's demonstrated the potential.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: This is, by the way, not a new method.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: We've saw this back in the thirties, you know, in
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the fifties where the gangsters in America would try to
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: consolidate markets and create cartils and things. So this is
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: not new, but I think the response has to be new,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: and I think following the money seems to be the.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Most effective way because you hit them where it hurts.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: We're seeing vast capital flows coming out of smuger's pockets yep.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Through these channels, we're seeing alls. Trek now is looking
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: at tightening bank regulations. I think is a thousand plus
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: accounts have been stopped.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I believe for this is that going to be effective?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think, well, that's.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Interesting because I do what often is called mystery shopping,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: which is basically I go around to shops and I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: buy cigarettes to figure out where the price is at,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: and then I chat to.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: The people and ask about supply and the like.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: I kept noticing ATMs inside these shops and I didn't
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: really think about it. And Ostrak has now moved on
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: them because these ATMs are part of the problem, and
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: the money flows are part of the problem. And one
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: of the biggest things they have is where is all
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: this money going. And for a while Vicpole thought, particularly
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: for the shops that we're doing trading cash and the
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: extortion tax, there must.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Be a house somewhere in the suurbs. It's just filled
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: to overflowing with cash.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: That's always the problem for me is where to put
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: the cash. But now there's like there's crypto, right. Crypto
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: is a game changer, and you can take a suit
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: case of money and go them buy crypto from someone
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: and maybe you take a twenty percent discount. If you
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: give them a hundred thousand, you get eighty thousand in crypto,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: and next thing you know that crypto's being withdrawn somewhere
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: across the world untraceable.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It's a big problem for them.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: Like in all of this too, One of the things
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: that's flowing through all of this is encrypted apps WhatsApp
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: and threema and signal. I see the stuff come up
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: all the time in court hearings. Cops can't penetrate this.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: So unless the guys leave the messages on their phones
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: when they get arrested, the orders and who's responsible is
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: shielded behind impenetrable effectively encryption, and so you've got guys who,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: even if they wanted to roll, can't tell you who
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: ordered them because they don't know.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Fascinating We did say that EPP and on the FIDS. Yeah,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the international law enforcement put together.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: That seemed to be effective, but I'm not saying many high.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Profile prosecutions or convictions out of that.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Has that been largely pr and hot do you reckon? Now,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: But there was a couple of the guys because they
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: arrested hundreds of people that were challenging the legal basis
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: for it. And I'm probably gonna get some of this misinterpreted,
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: but basically it was like, was it a form of
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: entrapments and then arguments around and the accepting the messages
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: where they legal did you have a warrant. All this
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: sort of stuff which has been playing out in multiple
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: states in superior courts all over the place. Was the
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: operation legal? I think it's come down as effectively that
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: it was. But there's a lot of people working their
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: way through the system right now on an on charges
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: that just haven't gone to trial. Right It's going to
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: happen probably this year, next year. I mean, I don't
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: know if you read the paper today. The system moves
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: very very slowly. The courts are backed up with youth
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: crime stuff with bail. It takes a long time to
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: process these people, and they're highly complicated cases.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: The problem is, even if it is legal, you can't
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: even do it once.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good trick. What's the next trick
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: in the law enforcement bag? Do you think to head
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: this off?
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: I would assume, having read that stuff about that new
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: program Claude that can exploit vulnerabilities in people's operating systems,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking they're hoping that AI has got a solution
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: to this, to penetrating encryption. They yeah, ask GAI to
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: do it because they can't get through it, and the
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: cooperation from the companies that design this software is virtually
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: non existent. They protect the privacy of their customers, which
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: is fantastic if privacy and securities are concerned for you,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: But it's terrible if the police are trying to look
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: for drug traffickers and pedophiles.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Now this has all happened within about ten years, remarkably quickly,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: and it's been excise related.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: What do you see as the next ten years.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: We've seen in the federal Health Minister say getting rid
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: of the excise is like running the white flag up
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the pole submitting.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: But will they have any choice?
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So we're going to have to see the federal government
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: effectively be competing for the remaining smokers by dropping the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: exercise to head off this criminal element.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: It's going to reach a bottle on that point where
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: once the street of hormones opens up again and the
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: ABF can't keep up with the flow and the situation
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: remains the same or worse. I think they're eventually going
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: to have to make a decision they have to change
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: the excise. I think that's ultimately what's going to have
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: to happen because the illegal market is now so large,
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: I mean illegal tobacco accounts.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Depending on who you listening to, you up to sixty
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: five percent of the market.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: I've seen projections from tobacco industry companies who expect that
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: figure to be ninety percent within two years. Now it's
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: a bit of a publicity stunt, but British American Tobacco
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: has said they're thinking about pulling out of the market altogether. Yeah,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: I'm sure other tobacco companies would have happy to take
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: whatever their share is, but some of the projections, I'd say,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: so the market could be fully illegal within two years.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: At that point, the government won't be getting anything. And
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: then you got to ask yourself, like, is it better
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: to get something than to get nothing and take a
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: little bit of short term pain by dropping the tax
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: in order to drow on the illictit market. And look
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: back when this started and I was talking to people,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: the only thing that syndicates really feared at the start
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: was the taxes. If you bring out a twenty dollars pack,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: their market is harder, right, because if you're at Coals
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: and you're buying your groceries, then you're gonna buy your
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: cigarettes there if they're twenty dollars. If your cigarettes are
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: twenty dollars down the street at they listed shop, then
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: you're gonna go down then. But if you've got a choice,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: I think people would choose the legal market because it's convenient.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a very rosy outbook, I'm afraid now,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: But governments have been addicted to the syntaxes forever. If
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: nothing changes, when we look at to twenty thirty six,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: how does it look.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's a completely organized crime dominated market. And then
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: all the flow on effects from that because organized crime,
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: the tobacco money doesn't stay as tobacco money. It's used
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: for drug importations, weapons, ordering violence. I mean, they'll be assets,
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: whole assets that these people control because they need somewhere
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: to put their one hundred million dollars. You could be
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: talking about further corruption of the property industry.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: The banking sector. Who knows.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's one thing about these guys that I've
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: learned in all this. They always find a way to adapt.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: And I had a cop tell me once, I love
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: my job. I love doing my job, but I don't
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: do this twenty four hours a day.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: These guys sit in a room and they think.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: About this stuff and they operate twenty four hours a day.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: So whatever barriers they put up they'll find a work around,
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: and if we don't stop it, it's just more money
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: to organize crime for more violence.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: That's why nicotine is the hardest thing to withdraw from,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: because of the money the whole thing. Mate, It's been
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: fantastic to talk to you. No, I really admire the
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: work you're doing, your old school journey, working your contexts
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: and using your skills and background to understand the whole
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: market plus the underworld that's involved as well.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Thanks for timer, Thank you very much. Amazing.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: That was Chris Feedlaga of the Age newspaper on what
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: seems to be a very dire situation.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: What do you think if you're a smoker, love to
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: hear from you.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: If the government was to drop the exercise, would you
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: go back to the legal product or have you made
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: the switch permanently? Do you have information for you, Clara
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: about gang activity related to tobacco retailers.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: If you want to report a crime, please.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Call crime stoppers and oneted town to triple three, triple zero.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: If you don't trust the cops, you'd always.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Get in touch with me at Adam Shanner writer at
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: gmail dot com. This has been Adam shann for real Crime,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
• 36:32
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• 36:36
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