Image: Douglas P. Perkins, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Melbourne Firebombing Probe Spreads Across Seven Suburbs
Melbourne, June 7, 2026 – The hunt for the people behind Melbourne’s run of firebombings and intimidation attacks has pushed deeper into the suburbs, with police searching homes from the city’s north to the south-east and charging two men after a Friday morning sweep.
Victoria Police said warrants were executed from 6am on Friday at residential addresses in Wollert, Epping, Mernda, Craigieburn and Lalor. Firearm Prohibition Order searches were also carried out in Mulgrave and Dandenong.
The haul was blunt and ugly: illicit tobacco, cash, steroids, a tomahawk, phones and other electronic gear. Police say a 25-year-old Mernda man was charged with failing to provide a passcode, possessing a prescription drug and possessing a controlled weapon. A 28-year-old Craigieburn man was charged with failing to provide a passcode. Both were bailed to face court later this year.
The raids sit inside Operation Eclipse, the specialist investigation set up on April 27 to target serious and organised crime syndicates suspected of driving attacks on Melbourne hospitality venues and people tied to them. Police have now identified 35 linked incidents, including arson attacks, kidnappings, drive-by shootings and aggravated burglaries.
More than 65 people have been arrested and charged with about 370 offences, but the shape of the investigation tells its own story. The people being picked up are often not alleged to be the decision-makers. Police say the priority is the organisers, the people commissioning jobs, finding young runners and sending them toward pubs, clubs and homes with fire, weapons and threats.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush told ABC Melbourne last week the force had made dozens of arrests, but the job was to climb past the hired hands and reach the people directing the violence. He described a city where business owners and witnesses have been pushed around by fear, and where some victims are still being coaxed into giving evidence because intimidation has done what intimidation is meant to do: shut people up.
That is why Friday’s searches matter. They were not a single dramatic arrest, and they did not close the book on Melbourne’s venue war. But they show police are still moving through the network, collecting phones, cash trails and loose ends. In organised crime, those scraps can matter more than the front-door theatrics.
The pressure now sits on investigators to turn the street-level arrests into cases that reach higher. Hospitality workers and venue owners have lived with the smoke and smashed glass. Police say the city will keep seeing overt and covert patrols in entertainment precincts while detectives work through the evidence.
Anyone with information has been urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.