‘No cigarettes Monday to Friday’: How criminals are evading tobacco inspectors

Black-market tobacco shops are scrambling to come to grips with a new crackdown by state licensing authorities, which can now shut down operators for up to 90 days, with the crime syndicates forced in some areas to sell illicit cigarettes only outside business hours when inspectors are rostered off. Victoria’s illicit tobacco market – long regarded as the largest, most lucrative and most violent in the country – is now experiencing its first significant shocks after the state government implemented long-delayed “shut-down” powers that came into effect on September 9.

Tobacco Licensing Victoria has issued closure orders to 48 stores in the past fortnight following raids in the CBD, inner suburbs and in the city’s west. Nearly a quarter of those targeted have been in and around Chapel Street, which has become notorious for the number of shops slinging illicit tobacco. It has also been a major focal point for the firebombings that have plagued the market during the more than three-year-old “tobacco war”.