A gunman is on the run after a drive-by shooting at a Melbourne shisha bar linked to Middle Eastern crime gangs vying for control of the city’s illegal tobacco trade.
CCTV footage shows men running for cover after three shots were fired from a silver Toyota HiLux at Café Squared on Borrack Square in Altona North at about 11.30pm on Tuesday night, where 14 people were gathered outside drinking coffee and smoking.
Victoria Police said a 49-year-old man, who was known to them, suffered two gunshot wounds to the arm and was taken to hospital where he remains on Wednesday with non-life threatening injuries.
The HiLux, which was found burned out at 2.50am, was stolen from a home in Newport on February 22 and had cloned numberplates at the time of the shooting, police said.
Detective Inspector Graham Banks said said the shooting was “outrageous and quite confronting”, “indiscriminate”, and appeared to be linked Melbourne’s ongoing tobacco wars, which have resulted in hundreds of firebombings and shootings in recent years.
“It may well have been just a random shooting at the crowd of people to send a message,” he said.
“Or it may well be a targeted attack on that person, or someone else, and that person has been injured as a consequence.
“At this stage we’re not ruling anything in or out in terms of a motive. What we do believe is that it is connected to the illicit tobacco trade.”
A business worker told the Herald Sun that the shisha bar was notorious among locals, forcing many to avoid the area.
The Gang Crime Squad is now investigating the shooting.
Up to 60% of all cigarettes sold in Australia are illegally imported, according to the Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner, and the market is worth up to $8.5 billion a year to the mainly Middle Eastern and Asian crime syndicates who control importations and sales.
The glut of cheap illegal cigarettes flooding the market has resulted in huge profits for the gangs involved, while government excise revenue is falling by tens of billions and smoking rates are increasing, reversing decades-long trends, and billions more are being spent on failing enforcement methods.
Crime boss Kaz Hamad controlled Melbourne’s illegal tobacco trade until being arrested in Iraq in January, but his incarceration has not affected the availability of black market cigarettes or resulted in a reduction in violence.
Header image: Left, right, CCTV of the shooting (supplied).
