Dozen arrests after tobacco store extortions linked to organised crime

Australian Community Media

Twelve people were arrested on March 17 as part of an investigation into alleged extortions of tobacco stores linked to a Middle Eastern organised crime syndicate.

Transcript

00:00Police will allege that the 10 persons who were arrested in relation to extortion were

00:05doing so under a syndicate operation which is headed by a person who lives offshore,

00:10a person by the name of Kazim Hamid.

00:12This group has been operating for some time and causing significant harm to the community.

00:18Today detectives from the Lunar Taskforce who were accompanied by detectives from the

00:22Viper Taskforce as well as members from the North West Metro Regional Crime Squad executed

00:2814 search warrants across mainly the north-western parts of Melbourne, predominantly on residential

00:36properties, but also on a storage facility.

00:41Twelve persons were arrested as a result of those search warrants, ten of those people

00:46were persons of interest to the taskforce and were going to be arrested when found.

00:51Two others were just incidental, they are criminals and they were committing crime so

00:56they were arrested for those matters but not related to Lunar matters or illicit tobacco.

01:02Of the ten of those people, all will be charged with extortion related matters and eight of

01:08those will be bailed to appear at the Magistrates Court at Melbourne I think on Thursday and

01:12two people later today will be brought before the Magistrates Court and a remand application

01:18will be sought.

01:19There were significant items seized during the search warrants which included two high

01:25powered rifles, they are semi-automatic in nature, they appear to have commercial grade

01:32suppressors which for all intents and purposes make them relatively solid in operation, generally

01:37only used for illicit purposes and a handgun, a shotgun and of great concern some commercial

01:46grade explosives.

01:47There were also three vehicles seized, in one of the vehicles there were a number of

01:52handwritten notes which are very similar in nature and content to other notes that

01:57have been handed to victims of extortions at illicit tobacco shops.

02:03There were also knives and GPS trackers as well as a significant quantity of cash, vapes

02:10and illicit or loose leaf tobacco.

02:22For more information visit www.fema.gov

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