Australia's illicit tobacco war has a new front — and it's more dangerous than ever.

When tobacco kingpin Kaz Hamad was captured in Iraq earlier this year, many hoped it would signal the beginning of the end for the country's booming black market cigarette trade. Instead, his disappearance has thrown the market into chaos, and the firebombings, shootings and targeted attacks are back.

Adam Shand sits down with Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Chris Vedelago of The Age, who has been at the forefront of covering this story since the violence first erupted in March 2023. Together they trace how a government excise policy — designed to discourage smoking — inadvertently handed organised crime a multi-billion dollar opportunity,and how one man, operating from a prison cell, built a cartel that came to control 40% of the illicit drug trade in Australia.