The owner of a northern Victorian tobacco store is “refusing to cooperate” with investigators, after a threatening sign was stuck to the shop door, police say.
The message left on the door of the EZ Mart on Campbell Street, Swan Hill, last Saturday stated, “You have 24 hours to contact the Commission”, and included a phone number to contact through the encrypted social messaging app WhatsApp.
“The shopkeeper is refusing to cooperate with the police,” Detective Inspector David Rowe said.
“The information has been referred to Melbourne to our anti-organised crime unit.
“Given that the owner is refusing to cooperate, that information received for intelligence is sitting in our database.”
The sign is similar to another note that was left on the front window of a Longwarry supermarket in October, a few days before it was firebombed in what shop workers told media was a case of mistaken identity.
The sign appeared on the EZ Mart shop on Campbell Street in Swan Hill on Saturday morning. (ABC News)
Shop owners worried
Shopkeepers in Swan Hill said they had not noticed any suspicious activity but were now worried.
The ABC has been unable to contact the tobacco shop’s owner.
The Victorian Joint Organised Crime Taskforce, comprising members of the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police, and Australian Border Force has been investigating the state’s organised crime links to illegal tobacco sales.
In October, Member for Ovens Valley, Tim McCurdy, introduced a Bill to Victorian Parliament to amend the Tobacco Act to create a licensing scheme and measures to combat firebombing.