Detective Chief Superintendent Grant Taylor said it was “so important” to “stamp out these syndicates before they endanger local communities further”.
“The sale of illicit tobacco across NSW is fuelling the rise in sophisticated crime networks both in our metropolitan centres and in regional towns,” Taylor said.
He said police were investigating several criminal syndicates operating along NSW’s northern coast and were working to establish links between separate organised crime groups that appeared to be co-operating to control the lucrative illicit tobacco market, which is being driven by imports from South-East Asia and the Middle East via sea and air.
“Organised crime is itself becoming more organised in how they do business,” Taylor said. “It’s very much how they do business, and businesses are all about establishing relationships, building on those relationships, finding the best way to carry out your tasks and most certainly that is the case with these individuals and with a lot of organised crime networks operating in NSW.
“They’re very much intertwined with other networks carrying out all sorts of illegality.”
ABF Illicit Tobacco and Vape Enforcement Commander Greg Dowse praised policing efforts under Strike Force Franklin, saying it was “striking at the heart of the major criminal syndicates behind the illicit tobacco market”.
“The ABF remains relentless in our pursuit of those networks pre border, at the border and domestically, and will continue to disrupt these crime groups and their networks across the supply chain,” he said.
The majority of illicit tobacco crossing the border is being imported through ports in NSW and Victoria, Dowse said, adding that the ABF was recording record seizures of illicit tobacco.
“One of the significant challenges we have is just the volume of air cargo and sea cargo consignments coming into Australia,” Dowse said.
Carolyn Murray, executive director of NSW Health’s Centre for Regulation and Enforcement, said harsher penalties on illicit tobacco and vape retailers, including fines of up to $1.5 million, would put retailers “on notice”.
NSW Health will increase its number of officers tackling illicit tobacco to 48 across NSW as it works to target more retailers with the increased penalties.
“If you’re selling, or having possession of, illicit tobacco it’s a $1.54 million [maximum] fine or seven years in prison,” she said.
“I don’t think any retailer would like that to come down hard on them, but that is what we have at our hands to use.”
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