Tobacco Wars
Michael Usher is on the frontline of the booming illegal tobacco trade – an underground economy now worth an estimated $6 billion, fuelled by tonnes of illicit cigarettes and leaf tobacco entering Australia's ports every day.
"The size and scale of this criminal crisis is staggering. Illegal tobacco has become an uncontainable, multi-billion-dollar crime enterprise," he said.
"The imports of cheap smokes and loose-leaf tobacco have now hit record levels this year. Worse than last year. Law enforcement agencies are deeply frustrated.
"We've spent months with them on raids and on our borders. But the government is taking a very slow and bureaucratic approach to a problem it largely created, with poor policy creating a black market. We handed this to the criminals. Something must disrupt this ruthless trade and fast."
7NEWS Spotlight is embedded with police as they target powerful crime syndicates, revealing the scale of a crisis the nation's top law enforcement bosses say they are beyond arresting their way out of.
The numbers are staggering. Billions of illegal cigarettes, hundreds of tonnes of smuggled tobacco, an estimated $18 billion in lost government revenue – not because Australians have stopped smoking, but because the market has shifted underground into criminal hands.
As violence intensifies on suburban streets, 7NEWS Spotlight examines how well-intentioned government policies around the smoking tax and vaping have helped create the perfect conditions for organised crime to thrive, and why authorities say urgent change is needed.
From border seizures to raids on tobacconists now dotting our streets, this is a confronting look at how Australia has lost control of its nicotine market and how we might look to examples overseas to stop it becoming worse.
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