Melbourne recorded a sixth consecutive night of vehicle firebombings on Friday, with firefighters responding to a car burning inside a Taylors Lakes garage shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday and protective services officers arresting a man after a separate factory fire in Oakleigh South early Friday morning, Victoria Police said.
What happened overnight
Emergency crews found the Taylors Lakes vehicle alight in a double garage on Nepean Court, about 30 kilometres north-west of the central business district. No injuries were reported. In Oakleigh South, crews contained a Valley Street factory fire that caused minor property damage; police arrested a 53-year-old man at Clayton Railway Station a short time later, the ABC reported.
The overnight incidents extend a spate that has hit suburbs including Springvale, Oakleigh East, Reservoir, Maidstone, Keilor and Balwyn North. Police said they are examining whether more than a dozen car firebombings over five days are linked, and Acting Commander Troy Papworth told reporters Thursday that investigators believe organised crime groups are using arson as intimidation.
Enforcement backdrop
Deakin University criminologist James Martin told the ABC the surge may be connected to Victoria’s crackdown on illicit tobacco sales. The state last month gave inspectors and police power to shut businesses caught selling illegal tobacco; authorities say 61 stores tied to organised crime have been closed for breaches, with seizures including two million cigarettes, more than 40,000 vapes and about 120 kilograms of loose tobacco.
Among the targets this week, two cars at the Balwyn North home of Russian Australian philanthropist Inessa Shishkina and businessman Alexei Shishkin were destroyed in an early Wednesday attack, the ABC reported. Shishkina said in a statement the firebombing had shaken her sense of security; police have not said whether that incident is connected to the broader pattern.
What police are doing next
Victoria Police have not released a single motive for every fire but are treating the series as a priority violent-extortion and arson investigation spanning multiple local policing areas. Papworth urged anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage from affected suburbs to upload it through the police portal.
With illicit tobacco enforcement still expanding, retailers and residents in Melbourne’s outer suburbs face a volatile few days as detectives work to determine whether Friday’s arrests mark a break in the campaign or the start of another retaliatory cycle.
Victoria’s government has framed the tobacco blitz as a public-health and revenue-protection measure, arguing that illegal nicotine sales fund wider criminal networks. Convenience-store groups counter that legitimate retailers still compete against black-market prices, but police leaders say the arson wave shows why closure powers were needed. For now, the immediate focus remains forensic: matching vehicles, phone data and CCTV from each fire scene to build a single timeline prosecutors could take to court if charges escalate beyond property damage.