Australia’s tobacco wars are coming to Britain

Flames lick up the front of a family-run shop in suburban Melbourne. The windows shatter with a pop as accelerant-fed fire takes hold. It isn’t a protection racket or a drugs feud. No, it’s a fight over the illicit tobacco trade.

In Australia, these fire-bombings have become grimly familiar. There are 15 shops documented as selling illicit tobacco within a kilometre of my home. Three have been torched in the past year. Almost everyone in urban Australia has been touched by this wave of gangland violence.

The illicit trade in nicotine products is now at epidemic levels. A report last year found that up to 97 per cent of vapers were likely buying their vapes from the black market. Some estimates place revenue from the illegal tobacco trade at more than $10 billion AUD a year. This is because Australia has some of the highest taxes and harshest restrictions on tobacco in the world. Vapes are only available through a handful of pharmacies, and even then, only following extensive consultation. It is the closest any Western nation has come to prohibiting nicotine products (at least until the UK brings its ‘generational smoking ban’ into effect).

As a former detective superintendent with the Australian Border Force, I created and led the Anti-Illicit Tobacco Strike Team in 2015. My officers and I watched punitive taxes open the floodgates to organised crime. We saw gangs seizing a trade worth billions. And shopkeepers ended up on the front line of the violence that followed. Over the past eight years as a law-enforcement consultant, I have analysed the global illicit tobacco market and the effects government policy has on criminal activity of this nature.

Britain should take note of Australia’s situation. The UK already has the world’s second-highest tobacco taxes. HMRC may say the illicit market share is seven per cent, but independent estimates run up to three times as much. The British government is about to hike tobacco duty yet again, and has committed to the world’s first generational tobacco ban from 2026. As I put forth to the UK Parliament’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill Public Bill Committee, if this continues, it is entirely plausible that tobacco shop fire-bombings could come to Britain’s shores, too.

By 2020, a pack of cigarettes in Australia cost the equivalent of £25 (which the UK is fast approaching). And still, people smoked. While the legal market shrank, the illegal one boomed, and illicit cigarettes now make up a 50 per cent share of cancer-inducing products sold to Australians. Even the Guardian reported on the bizarre reality that tobacco, not drugs, appeared to be fuelling the gang wars. Smugglers poured in counterfeit packs and untaxed imports, and the gangs fought for control.

One of the most dangerous myths about illicit tobacco is that it’s harmless, a victimless crime. But the truth is very different. Illegal tobacco bankrolls human trafficking, fuels organised crime and, in some cases, has been linked to terrorism. Treat it lightly, and you strengthen the networks behind some truly horrific crimes. What’s more, by handing the tobacco trade to criminals, we accelerate the decay of our high streets. Legitimate and much-loved corner shops lose business, while criminal enterprises, like illegal barbers and fronts for money laundering, move in.

Britain is not remotely equipped to cope with a surging black market. Trading Standards – the frontline against illicit tobacco – is chronically underfunded. With so few officers on the ground, local authorities will stand no chance once the trade really takes hold. Prohibition never works. It doesn’t kill demand. It hands supply to gangs.

New Zealand has already recognised the danger in prohibitionist measures. It abandoned its own generational smoking ban due to fears it would turbocharge the black market, and thanks to education and reduced risk products, smoking frequency has plummeted. As of 2024, the smoking rate for 14- to 15-year-olds in New Zealand is almost obsolete.

Australia thought its smoking bans were saving lives. Instead, they created a wave of fiery violence that I had the misfortune of witnessing up close. Britain must not make the same mistake.

Det. Supt. Rohan Pike is Former Head of the Australian Border Force Tobacco Strike Team.