Dr. Xanthe Weston

You know, it's almost like we've reverted back to like the 1920s, isn't it?

You know, and you've got like the gangsters taking over the cities.

I think we're kind of seeing a bit more of that now.

We're seeing serious, organised criminals.

But what they're doing is actually engaging, recruiting young people, particularly online, and they are recruiting them, paying them a few hundred dollars.

to undertake these fire bombings, attempted kidnappings, aggravated break and enters, all targeting these hospitality venues.

And I do think it's a continuation of what we saw with the tobacco wars, as they've been dubbed.

And it is a war.

There is a war on the streets.

When we saw fire bombings of tobacconists over and over again, the same businesses being targeted.

Now, the purpose there was to get those, you know, to take control of the illicit tobacco trade.

It's so lucrative.

And the more expensive things get, the more lucrative it gets for the underground trade.

Right.

So I think we've seen an expansion of that.

Alcohol is super expensive.

It has a huge markup revenue wise for organized criminals.

So, of course, they're in that market.

But we have seen a shift in the way they're actually undertaking this war.

And it's these kids, literally kids who are taking on these jobs, doing these firebombings and doing a bad job of it because they don't know what they're doing.