A note on the shutter door of a Melbourne bayside business selling American snacks and tobacco was the first warning.
It read: “This is The Commission. You need to contact us.”
The transnational crime network that has terrorised Melbourne and regional Victoria from the safety of Iraq over the last few years was not making empty threats.
Days later, under the cover of darkness, a masked man carrying two jerry cans was filmed approaching the business in Mentone.
The containers were emptied under the door and a fire lit — the eruption of flames so violent it caught the shady figure off guard and set his leg alight.
The incident, carried out by the cartel also known as the 313 gang, has been replicated dozens of times during a reign of terror at the hands of kingpin Kaz Hamad.
But the tactics have just escalated.
Hamad, the organised crime boss behind Victoria’s tobacco and bar wars, was jailed for life in Iraq last month. His family says they plan to appeal, according to an exclusive report from crime news journalist Ryan Naumenko of Outlaw Media.
While the wheels of justice turn in the Middle East, The Commission has hardly sputtered.
If anything, the extortions have become more violent, more brazen, more terrifying.
The Age newspaper this week reported the syndicate behind firebombings across the state is in the midst of a “major new escalation of violence” that includes abducting individuals off the street in broad daylight.
The most notable example of that tactic was carried out in Morwell, a town in the Latrobe Valley region, 150km east of Melbourne, last month.
There, a local shop owner reportedly refused an extortion attempt before a relative was abducted off the street in the middle of a quiet Saturday, forced into a black sedan and assaulted with a knife.
A Victoria Police spokesperson told news.com.au the incident unfolded in broad daylight on August 1.
“Latrobe Crime Investigation Unit detectives have been told a man was walking near the intersection of Sydney Street and Princes Drive when he was approached by unknown offenders and placed into a black sedan about 12.40pm,” a spokesperson said.
“The man was taken to an unknown location and assaulted before the offenders fled. He was assisted by passers-by before presenting to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“The investigation is ongoing but at this time detectives believe this was a targeted incident.”
Naumenko, the Melbourne underworld reporter who has connections to those pulling the strings in Iraq, told news.com.au “there’s a bit going on”.
“I spoke to the boys overseas last night and very f***ing interesting,” he said.
“I was shocked by that kidnapping in Morwell too. That’s basically why I reached out to them, I was like, I need to know a bit more.
“It’s a bit f***ing insane right now for it to be going way out into the country like that.”
Victoria Police last month made what they claimed was a major breakthrough in the wars that have ravaged Melbourne with the arrest of a key player, alleged firebombing director Jesse Hadchiti, 20.
But Naumenko shared a message after Hadchiti’s arrest from those overseas.
“Nothing stops and nothing changes,” The Commission told him.
“The beast has awoken. Tax continues to be paid and the boys will continue to burn.”
This week, Naumenko again reached out to those in the Middle East. The response was definitive — they cannot be touched.
“Have the arrests made any real impact,” he asked the current leader, a person he does not wish to name.
“Hahahaha does it look like it,” was the reply. “No effect brother. (Zero).”
Naumenko told news.com.au on Friday that the Morwell incident is a genuine escalation.
“After hearing of a kidnapping performed on behalf of The Commission in Morwell recently, it made me wonder if any of these recent arrests have slowed anything down,” he said.
“I asked the current leader based overseas last night — who I won’t name — if VicPol’s investigation and recent arrests of high ranking members had any impact on the organisation, he told me bluntly “what do you think” followed by ‘No effect brother, 0’.
“I believe these arrests are simply a show of assumed control by Victoria Police.
“All these arrests are doing is sending those calling the shots overseas ‘underground’, that is until the heat dies down, and the carnage begins, again.
“The Commission, as far as I’ve seen, is incredibly well organised. They have multiple indispensable ‘lieutenants’ available and at the ready to take over senior positions as others are pinched.
‘There is no ending this ‘war’ (that I can see) at least not until the federal government lower the tobacco excise tax. The industry is far too lucrative to let go.”
Rohan Pike, a former Australian Federal Police officer and now investigative consultant, said it is almost impossible for authorities to get a grip on the city’s ongoing organised crime crisis.
“Victoria Police has made so many arrests that it’s almost impossible to count them now, but perhaps between 300 and 500 arrests,” Mr Pike said.
“And despite all that we haven’t seen regular crime on the streets as we have like this ever. It’s the worst it’s ever been.”
The Age reports that a 23-year-old associate of Hamad has taken control of operations since Hamad, whose real name is Kadhim Malik Hamad Rabah al-Hajami, was jailed by the Karkh Criminal Court in Baghdad over importing drugs into Iraq and Australia.
The newspaper claims he is responsible for a significant change of pace for The Commission and has ordered several kidnappings and shootings, some of which allegedly took place with children present.
The so-called “Kaz tax” has been blamed for more than 200 tobacconists being burned to ground in Victoria in the past few years.
Bars, clubs and even high-end restaurants were targeted next, many of which received a haunting threat via text message that read: “If you got this message were (sic) after you, your family, your business, homes and souls. We will take it by force if you don’t comply the police can’t help you. We will take it by force if you don’t comply the police can’t help you its inevitable we won’t stop till we get what we want.”
April was the most brutal month for venue owners with the attacks a near-nightly occurrence. Both the Men’s Gallery and Kittens Strip Club were hit on April 14 and 16, respectively.
On April 15, the night after the Men’s Gallery was targeted, the Albion Hotel in South Melbourne saw three separate fires lit around 3am.
A night later, about 4am, the thriving Emerson nightclub in South Yarra was set alight.
SoHo, on Southbank, was bombed by two teens, including one seen running from the venue as flames poured out. He was carrying a machete.
Bar Bambi, in ACDC Lane, a venue hugely popular with sportspeople and local celebrities — and which Drake hired out last year when he visited Melbourne — was targeted.
It would be set alight a week later.
On April 23, France-Soir — a sophisticated French bistro on Toorak Road in South Yarra — was the target of a suspected arson attempt foiled by passers-by who noticed a pair of individuals loitering with a jerry can.
A distillery, 80 Proof in Keysborough, erupted in flames about 10.30pm on April 24.
And on April 26, footage emerged of the moment arsonists jumped from a vehicle and set Bar Up alight. The popular Chapel Street venue was engulfed in flames around 5am and completely destroyed.
Teens, recruited in what police describe as an Airtasker-style approach, are carrying out the firebombings for a few hundred dollars.
Detective Inspector Chris Murray, the man in charge of Victoria’s arson and explosive squad, said they are disposable and their co-operation keeps organisers at arm’s length from the violence — and from police.
“They go and get paid to do a task that’s offered by someone. Get paid a few hundred dollars.,” he said.
“Often they don’t even know who they’re working for. That’s the business model that we see. So they’re being used.
“What we suspect is that these jobs are being tasked out to anyone, and probably the one common denominator is that there is someone sitting above who is pulling the strings.
“They’re the ones we’re interested in. These young kids are being used as cannon fodder for a few hundred dollars.”
Insp Banks said in June that The Commission won’t stop at tobacco or alcohol. They’ll get into “every single thing you can think of — and then they think of something else.”
He said signs appeared on stores in the city with the message: “Contact the Commission on WhatsApp asap!” with a phone number listed.
“They are looking at tobacco shops as a method of making money,” Insp Banks said.
“They’re looking at licensed premises, whether they be run completely above board or otherwise, as a place that they can victimise to seek money from.
“And my concern is that’s just going to keep evolving … It’s concerning that it can be any type of business that sits on a high street.”
In the Middle East, the group is continuing to evolve without Kaz at the controls.
“There a man in Saudi Arabia doing a lot of ordering of this shit, too,” Naumenko told news.com.au. “He’s linked with Kaz.”
— with Heath Parkes-Hupton
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