The statement said the fire had been deemed suspicious and police would investigate. The company and police were contacted for comment.
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Other companies targeted include major industry players Hickory and Hamilton Marino, and emerging firms Portal Contractors and, until it collapsed, Base Piling. None have responded to requests for comment.
Four of the companies firebombed had inadvertently or involuntarily encountered Comanchero members as the feared bikie gang had become increasingly active in the construction industry in Victoria and Queensland, sources said.
Another of the firms targeted by firebombings, LTE Construction, has its own links to the Comancheros, including the club’s national president, Bemir Saracevic. There is no suggestion that the firm or its owner Nic Maric, who has denied all wrongdoing and on Tuesday did not respond to a request for comment, is linked to the firebombings of other companies.
In contrast to other companies being targeted, LTE is being assessed as a victim of the arson attack but is also, separately to the firebombings, being examined over the firm’s relationship with underworld networks influencing parts of Victoria’s construction sector.
David Deicke (left) with Nic Maric (right).
Maric is one of several business figures who made payments to underworld identities Mick Gatto and John Khoury that are now being probed by federal police.
Maric has a range of underworld connections, having employed Comanchero figures in his business. A photo obtained by this masthead shows him with David Deicke, an alleged drug importer with his own connections to the Commancheros.
Maric is a Victorian government Big Build sub-contractor and is among the underworld-linked construction company owners named on a list prepared by the agency overseeing the Big Build.
The list has been provided to Big Build contractors by the Victorian Infrastructure Development Authority as part of efforts to identify underworld-linked firms on state government projects.
Maric’s firm, LTE, has also lost two of its machines to arson attacks that remain unsolved, with police yet to arrest anyone over the firebombings.
One theory being examined by detectives is whether young criminals have been hired online to commit the arsons in a pattern that mirrors the wave of attacks on tobacco stores across Victoria.
Those involved in targeting construction companies are filming their activities on phones, suggesting they are what one senior officer described as the “airtaskers of the underworld”: street thugs paid to carry out firebombings or engage in other intimidation tactics.
Fire crews and police spent Tuesday morning at the scorched offices of El Dorado in Derrimut, but the attack will almost certainly be assigned to the Operation Hawk taskforce, the nascent police investigative team given the task of probing crime and corruption in the building industry.
A piling rig targeted in a firebombing at a state government-backed housing project last week.Credit: Justin McManus
Last week, this masthead revealed how a campaign of firebombings and intimidation had erupted in Victoria’s construction sector as underworld players seek to control pockets of an industry supposedly being cleaned up by state and federal government reforms.
The campaign has intensified over recent weeks. El Dorado equipment on a Victorian government-backed social housing site in Geelong was torched earlier this month, and the family homes of major construction company directors were separately targeted in attacks involving arson or violent confrontation.
The ongoing attacks raise serious questions for the state government and Victoria Police, which last year failed to assign detectives or adequate resources to investigate crime linked to the construction union and broader industry, and after the Building Bad investigation was published by this masthead and 60 Minutes.
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In a statement released on Tuesday, Victoria Police said that in March it had deployed “a further four detectives” to Operation Hawk after fresh media revelations, but also stressed it would “increase numbers as required”. Police privately say that Operation Hawk remains under-resourced, as does the federal police taskforce probing the industry, but that investigations are also being hampered by the construction sector’s code of silence and the reluctance of fearful victims to assist authorities.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday morning, Premier Jacinta Allan said she had not been briefed on the Derrimut attack and repeated her previous comments that any allegations of criminal behaviour on worksites should be referred to police.
“But again, in terms of the work we are taking more broadly, we are pulling out the rotten culture that has been reported on across the industry working with the federal government-appointed administrator,” she said.
When asked whether law enforcement needed additional resources to deal with the spate of workplace firebombings, Allan said those questions were best directed to police.
Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the lack of arrests showed Operation Hawk had not been adequately resourced.
“We’ve already seen [the government] lose control when it comes to tobacco here in Victoria, and now they’re losing control with building sites,” he said.
“We hope that Operation Hawk can act fast on this and get the results we need because people deserve to be safe at work. The government needs to reconsider how they resource it.”
The firebombing attacks on Victorian construction sites began about 18 months ago but have intensified since the union was plunged into administration in August after the Building Bad reports.
This masthead has confirmed at least 11 arson attacks on construction firms since September 2023, although the true number is likely to be higher because some may not have been reported to police.
In each of the three nighttime attacks targeting construction company directors, family members, including children, were at home, according to official sources, speaking anonymously due to fear of repercussions.
A fire at a Docklands construction site last year.
Allan said that it was deeply traumatic for any family to go through such an experience, and that her thoughts were with those affected.
“They are victims of crime which is why anyone with any evidence of what has happened in any of these incidences should absolutely refer them to Victoria Police as [they] have all the tools and the powers and the resources to investigate criminal behaviour and bring these alleged offenders to account,” she said.
There was another arson attack earlier this month at a site in Footscray managed by major building company Hickory.
In November, nationwide demolition giant Delta had two of its earthmoving rigs – worth up to $2 million each – torched on a major Docklands worksite.
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