The world wide web has changed the way we do business. In days long forgotten Zoom was what you did when you were driving to a meeting, Marketplace was a destination you visited to purchase vegetables and a jam donut, while Spam was a preserved meat product often fried with pineapple.

While the web has changed the way we work and socialise, it has also altered the way organised crime goes about its business.

Detective Inspector Graham Banks, head of Taskforce Lunar.Credit: Eddie Jim

In the old days, if you wanted to take out a contract, you would meet the hitman at a discreet location, slip him the target’s address, photo and private details, along with an envelope containing a substantial cash deposit.

According to Detective Inspector Graham Banks, who has spent years investigating the state’s most dangerous crime gangs, crooks for hire are now often recruited online through secure apps.

In some cases crimes are put out to tender – a new version of wild west bounty hunters (Wanted, Dead or Dead). He says a person taking out a million-dollar murder contract can use a handle (alias) and it may pass through several chains of command. “The person who takes the contract may not know the name of the person who has ordered the hit,” Banks says.

The payoff can be done remotely. “They may post a picture of a park bench with a location with instructions that the money is buried in the flower bed three metres behind or in a car boot with the car left unlocked or in a storage box with a pass number,” he says.

This means, he says, crime novices with little or no police records may be persuaded to “have a crack”.

At the bottom end young men are stealing cars, driving into tobacco shops and setting them on fire for as little as $500.

Banks is a man with a sharp sense of humour, but there is nothing remotely funny about Victoria’s tobacco war. He has spent several years investigating bikie and Middle Eastern crime gangs. Since October, he has headed Taskforce Lunar, set up to investigate the illicit tobacco war.

Taskforce Lunar was supposed to be Luna, but someone slipped an “r” on the end.

Banks’ strategy is contrary to usual police policies. Traditionally police try to draw out a problem to stamp it out, whereas Banks wants to force illicit tobacco back into the shadows.

The trade may be the perfect........

© The Age