The car pulls up alongside a teenager walking a suburban street in Meadow Heights, and an organised crime figure leans out the window.
“Hey, bro, wanna make some money?”
This is how a firebombing starts – a youth barely into their teens, recruited directly off the street by a stranger offering cash and the lure of something dangerous.
Set fire to a car. Burn down a shop or a restaurant. Stage a carjacking or a home invasion.
The money on offer can be as low as $200.
A man flees as flames erupt at the Melton store. Victoria Police This is just one of the ways shadowy gangland figures have found an army of disposable foot soldiers to drive the unprecedented spate of arson attacks plaguing Melbourne.
Over the past decade, arson attacks across the state soared nearly 75 per cent to 3600 incidents a year in 2026 from a record low in 2021.
In the past fortnight, police and fire services have been grappling with a spate of more than 23 firebombings on cars, shops and homes.
Five police and legal sources familiar with the recruitment system, but unable to speak publicly, have described crime figures using social media, random approaches on the street, and even the funeral of a teenager killed in knife violence as recruiting grounds.
A 13-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries after firebombing a car in Taylors Hill on October 5. Nine News Police have warned that some of these children have had no prior contact with the justice system before being convinced to commit arsons, abductions, carjackings and home invasions.
Two legal sources echo those fears, revealing more than half the young people fronting court under Victoria’s new “adult time for violent crime” laws have had no previous contact with police. Alarmingly, arson has become an entry point into even more serious crimes for some vulnerable recruits, they say.
The widespread use of “cleanskin” teenagers is a revolutionary development for organised crime.
Many of the accused who are being deliberately “groomed” come from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly African teens.
Children as young as 13 have been arrested – and nearly killed – in a seemingly random spread of fires across the city.
Many of these fires are now not connected to the state’s “tobacco war” but are the result of personal and business vendettas that are being escalated or enforced with “cheap” contract arson attacks.
Crime as a service In this month’s string of arson attacks, the targets were a motley collection – more than 14 cars, three private homes, a cafe and barbecue restaurant, a mechanic, a fruit shop, a tobacco store and a factory.
The only thing they appear to have in common is the way police suspect the vast majority of these attacks have been commissioned.
Victoria Police declined to comment for this story.
Police and underworld sources, who can
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