This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie, and this week we have an old friend on the show.

She is the artist formerly known as Zanthi Mallet, but she's gotten married, so she's now known as

Dr Zanthi Weston, and she is a criminologist.

Of course, she teaches criminology at university.

Zanthi's joining us to talk about the hospitality wars that are gripping Melbourne.

We want to know why nightclubs and even brothels are being firebombed.

This is Australian true crime.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created,

the Warrandri Woi Warong people of the Koolan Nation.

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

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, what, a few hundred dollars,

to undertake these, you know, 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.

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