Firebombings no deterrent as Perth tobacco shops keep selling illicit cigarettes
About a dozen shops across WA have been shot at or set on fire allegedly by recruits of tobacco syndicates. Most are back up and running – and still openly selling illegally imported cigarettes.
The tiny, grimy-looking shopfront would look largely innocuous to anyone pulling into the car park at the small shopping strip in Perth’s north.
Passersby would likely never think it had been targeted multiple times allegedly by a crime mob hell-bent on pressuring the owners with violence over the sale of cheap, illegally imported cigarettes.
Being set on fire, allegedly by organised crime employees over illegal tobacco products, hasn’t stopped “convenience stores” around Perth from carrying on their illicit trade.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt
But four times last year – twice with fire and twice with bullets – the store was attacked in incidents police believe were related to WA’s lucrative illegal tobacco industry.
A month after it was last peppered with bullets, this masthead visited the store to find it back up and running – and openly selling black market cigarettes.
Western Australia’s laws relating to the sale of illegal tobacco products pale in comparison to the rest of Australia, with fines minimal in the face of profits made from selling cigarettes at less than half the price of a legitimate pack.
And the store in Perth’s north is not alone.
This masthead visited almost a dozen shops that have been subjected to arson, ram raids or shootings in the last year, and discovered nearly all were back up and running and still offering black market products to walk-in customers.
Firebombs, shots fired at storefronts, stolen cars driven into buildings and just plain arson are the methods criminal gangs have allegedly used to get their message across, echoing similar “tobacco wars” attacks in Melbourne that at one point claimed the life of an innocent woman last year when the wrong house was targeted.
No one has been convicted since the first West Australian incident in Midland in October 2024, however so far six arrests have been made and those cases are progressing through the courts.
Following that initial incident, shops in Orelia, Cannington, Bunbury, York, Maddington, Baldivis, Huntingdale and Beechboro have also received the same treatment.