$500 to firebomb: How crime gangs are outsourcing Melbourne’s Bar Wars

The call to the suburban restaurant was unsolicited, initially appealing and ultimately threatening. We can supply you with discounted vodka, gin and whisky that will arrive in containers to be decanted into the bar’s empty bottles.

The owner didn’t need to smell the booze to smell a rat. To put the caller off, he said the restaurant only sold premixed cans and bottles.

The caller cut him short – “we know that’s not true”, they said – but the owner was adamant: there would be no deal.

At another restaurant, the owner wasn’t as firm. He was given samples that were up to standard for a house brand, but when the bulk booze arrived it “smelled like brake fluid”.

It arrived in 20-litre plastic containers with a decanting valve at the bottom. They were the same as those used for bulk cleaning products made from 70 per cent alcohol and imported from Asia. Legitimate bulk spirits arrive in 10-litre containers.

When he tried to cancel his order his club was firebombed.

An established supplier of retail alcohol reports that some long-term customers have discovered alternative sources. “One place that was taking 60 litres a week just stopped. When [the supplier] asked if there was a problem with the quality, they were just told [the customers] were going elsewhere,” said an industry source, who wishes to remain anonymous so they won’t be firebombed.

One customer would order between 60 and 100 litres of vodka a week. Then, without explanation, he stopped for an extended period. When he returned to place a large order his bar was firebombed.

It is not so much a case of buyer beware as buyer be bombed.

Police have announced Operation Eclipse, to investigate 16 firebombings, drive-by shootings or suspected preparations to attack licensed venues in Melbourne as well as two abductions connected to the industry. And no one is talking – yet.

The owners say there have been no extortion demands and are mystified as to motive.

“It is a battleground … We spend the nights trying to chase people off [to stop attacks],” says one police source close to the action.

It is a rule in the media that any major crime event in Melbourne must have a catchy name, which is why we have dubbed this “Bar Wars”. The crime version of Star Wars – get it?

Detective Superintendent Jason Kelly, in charge of the Anti-Gangs Division, says organised crime has become a service industry.

“The leaders can be offshore, interstate or sitting on a couch anywhere, using an encrypted app on a phone to put it out there that they have a job that is paying well.”

When there is a taker, there is another encrypted conversation dealing with the price and target. It is then outsourced, often to teenagers paid as little as $500. “As part of the contract it must be filmed and uploaded online,” Kelly says.

With many attacks in the CBD and nearby venues that are blanketed with real-time cameras, the offenders are being caught – 15 to date. But most times they don’t know who they are working for. “I was just told to grab him and bash him,” one told police.

Plus they are inherently stupid and underestimate the ferocity of fire, meaning they are at risk of being caught in the blaze, or “lit up”, the slang for such misadventures.

In one case their stupidity saved them. A couple of idiots were filmed standing in a puddle of fuel using a lighter to spark ignition. They had chosen the less combustible diesel, a rookie – and life-saving – error.

Historically, there have been some links between contract criminals and their clients. “Deals were done over a parma and pot at a pub,” says Kelly.

Now the police’s job is more difficult because of stranger-to-stranger arrangements via an app.

The first thing police need, Kelly says, is for the liquor and hospitality industry to come on board with information. Only when his detectives know what is going on will they be able to act. “We want to rip the Band-Aid off this thing.”

But the Band-Aid has a sticking point. If the firebombings are related to the purchase of illicit alcohol (and there are likely to be various motives for various attacks), the venue may lose its liquor licence and its insurance may be voided.

‘We want to rip the Band-Aid off this thing.’

Detective Superintendant Jason Kelly, Anti-Gangs Division

One industry source says it may take an amnesty from the Victorian Commission for Gaming and Liquor Regulation to get to the truth.

Kelly says police have open minds on the motives for the latest attacks but organised crime muscling in on the illicit industry is one possibility.

The illicit tobacco industry has slowed down due to the Middle Eastern impasse plus massive seizures by Border Force, and the firebombings at clubs and restaurants are straight out of the tobacco war playbook.

So how big is the market? The ATO says about 10 per cent of spirit consumption is supplied by the black market.

The ATO estimates the alcohol tax gap at $767 million, which the National Drug Research Institute says exceeds 19 million bottles of black-market spirits.

Here is the inside mail. There are spirits produced off the books by local distillers – one in country Victoria has been charged and convicted, another is suspected of producing five times the amount for the black market that they do for the legitimate one.

There are illegal products smuggled in from overseas, alcohol destined for hospital use has been stolen, legitimate brands have been secretly shipped to Australia to avoid excise and there are old-fashioned bootleggers.

The ATO says the toxic chemicals found in the backyard booze made from denatured alcohol normally used in paint stripper and brake fluid “are all unfit for human consumption and can cause serious illness or death”.

A spokesperson told us the booze came from “using base spirit containing harmful denaturants, deliberate under-reporting by alcohol manufacturers and distributors, intentional product misclassification to facilitate smuggling and product diversion”.

Before the spate of firebombings, police had a list of 80 venues suspected of selling the dangerous spirits.

Some bottle shops have been persuaded to stock unknown brands, often being told they are end-of-run bargains. The labels often contain spelling mistakes and the listed companies don’t exist.

Sample bottles have been tested at an interstate laboratory and every bottle has come back as illicit.

The illegal booze market has been controlled by four syndicates – three with bikie connections and one old-school mafia team.

A new crew, almost certainly connected with the illicit tobacco business, wants a piece of the action. If they follow the tobacco playbook, it begins with a series of firebombings and then the approach: we can guarantee your place won’t be hit if we control security, provide you with our alcohol and sell our drugs inside. In return, you will also pay protection as added insurance.

This may be bad news for nightspots but good news for police.

For more than two years Operation Lunar has investigated the tobacco war. Kelly says Lunar went from “ground zero” to making more than 220 arrests. The major boss Kaz Hamad has been arrested in Iraq (some in the Melbourne underworld believe he is dead) and his brother Maytham Hamad has been binned in WA.

Now police will use the same tactics to make inroads into the “Bar Wars”.

Kelly says: “We will do the same here whether it takes a week, a month or a year. We will cut the head off the snake.”

The police view is that there will be multiple reasons for the firebombings, involving feuds, finances, personal grievances, takeover attempts and the black-market booze market.

The owner of a constantly targeted nightclub held an emergency staff meeting in the club during the day to discuss the crises. Before the meeting could be called to order he was bashed by bikies and has wisely relocated overseas. His venue has since been torched.

Stolen cars used in the attacks have often been found dumped in the same region, suggesting a connection.

Police are warning potential targets to upgrade security. The Gotham City brothel, shot up on Thursday morning, was one of them. One restaurant is now spending $3000 a week on round-the-clock protection.

The tobacco shops were destroyed, while most of the booze bombings have been minor – considered as warnings rather than attempts to shut them down.

The people setting the fires are unlikely to have studied chemistry at school, or geography for that matter. The targets are in high-density areas, which increases the chance of the fires spreading to other buildings or the crooks hitting the wrong place.

In January last year, Katie Tangey was trapped in a Truganina townhouse that Kaz Hamad’s soldiers set on fire.

It was to be payback over a tobacco ripoff by a couple of local hoods who lived about 100 metres away. They hit the wrong address and Tangey died in the fire.

Most of the tobacco shops were hit at night, when closed, but nightclubs and restaurants can remain active after lights-out. Staff can be cleaning and setting up or having end-of-shift drinks, and it is not unusual for clubs and bars to trade after hours.

“The risk here is much higher with lock-ins – 10 to 20 people out the back – when one of these places are hit,” Kelly says.

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