The white Mercedes E300 sedan is stolen, the number plates cloned. Inside are allegedly three teenagers from suburbs in Melbourne’s outer west, and a jerry can.

Police claim they have been recruited by someone they’ve never met to set alight hospitality businesses for no particular reason.

In less than 24-hours, the two 18-year-olds and one 17-year-old are alleged to have torched – or attempted to torch – a South Yarra bar, a Melbourne nightclub, and a North Melbourne liquor storage warehouse.

The damage bill from the alleged offending on 4 and 5 May is estimated at more than $1.1m.

Since April, there have been more than 50 arrests for almost 40 incidents, including arson, shootings, and kidnappings, targeting the hospitality sector.

Police say that there have been arrests for most incidents, including for every arson in the CBD, and yet they still can’t say why the attacks are happening.

What is clear is that the fires have added to a growing sense of lawlessness in Victoria, only six months from a state election where a focus on crime could provide the Coalition with a path to victory.

According to public statements, and to presentations given to the hospitality industry, police consider five scenarios most likely for the attacks: extortion; the supply of bootleg liquor; the trafficking of illicit drugs; angling for security or promotions contracts; and religious or ideological reasons for targeting businesses of vice, including brothels.

It is also suspected that not all the businesses are being attacked for the same reason.

Detectives are investigating whether an Iraqi-based syndicate linked to alleged underworld kingpin Kazem Hamad is responsible, but stress that other organised crime figures have not been ruled out.

Child actors

The majority of those charged are children, police say, a trend described by one officer as “despicable”.

Det Supt Jason Kelly says the use of such young foot soldiers was a global trend, with encrypted phone applications used to recruit attackers.

“It’s a worldwide issue in terms of how organised crime now are infiltrating children and others to do their dirty work,” Kelly told reporters earlier this month.

“Organised crime are out there recruiting kids, we’re out there recruiting our law enforcement and government partners to work on this holistically.”

Young offenders are viewed as expendable – they are cheaper to task, with police saying some were offered less than $1,000 for some attacks. They can be paid so little, in part, because they face lighter sentences than adult offences.

Two teens charged with some of the earlier attacks in the so-called “hospitality wars”, the 23 April firebombing at the Keysborough headquarters of liquor company 80 Proof and a fire at CBD venue Bar Bambi two days later, have already been released from custody, one without conviction.

The 15 and 16-year-old both had no prior convictions, pleaded guilty to the attacks and received youth supervision orders, which require them to comply with strict conditions in the community for a set period of time.

But the owners of 80 Proof, who say the fire destroyed a building worth more than $3m as well as $1m worth of stock, were troubled by the sentence.

“This was not a minor offence … as a direct result, eight people lost their jobs and the livelihoods of another 15 people (many with families) have been severely impacted,” the owners said in a joint statement.

“Even the judge reportedly acknowledged it was serious offending and that it was lucky nobody was physically hurt … the reality is a lot of people were hurt by their actions; emotionally, financially, professionally and psychologically.

“At the moment, it feels like victims, businesses and employees are the ones carrying the real punishment while the actual offenders face very little accountability. We DO NOT believe justice was served today, and we are deeply concerned by the message this sentencing sends.”

An owner of the business said they still do not know why they were targeted, just that it was being treated by police as part of the broader pattern of arson.

Some of those targeted have received messages via WhatsApp after the attacks, making demands for payments to avoid further damage.

Police describe the various messages, which include threats to take the businesses and the “souls” of owners, and demands for payments of up to $10,000 including to charities, as cryptic and possibly opportunistic, rather than directly linked to the violence.

In this way, Kelly says, the targeting of hospitality businesses differed to the long running saga involving illicit tobacco, where the threats were clear, and the extortion explicit.

However he says the work done to investigate the tobacco-related arson attacks had been valuable to police who were now tasked with quelling the hospitality blazes under Operation Eclipse.

Just as the Allan government was criticised for its response to illicit tobacco, the “hospitality wars” have drawn criticism that the state is out of control.

A brothel targeted in a drive-by shooting that is being investigated as part of the attacks has even taken to advertising its opposition to the government. Video billboards mounted on a truck flit between suggestive images of women in bondage wear and images of Allan with messages like “ditch the witch” and “petrol can Jacinta can”.

The government announced a $10m hospitality security fund on 15 May, and has also encouraged venues to share live CCTV feeds with police. Police say the majority of those charged in relation to the operation were arrested prior to actually igniting a fire, and have pointed to the role played by CCTV in these arrests.

Scared, not secretive

One nightclub owner, who was speaking to Guardian Australia on condition of anonymity because they were concerned for their safety after a business of theirs was targeted, says that the industry had been beset with issues even before the attacks. He also says the industry has been relatively quiet on the attacks because they are scared, “not because they’ve got something to hide”.

He says it’s notable that the majority of venues targeted were independent, rather than part of larger hotel or hospitality conglomerates.

“We’re just as confused as anyone else,” he says.

“A lot of these are places owned by hard working family people, who have built businesses from the ground up.

“Now a lot of places are looking not to open, operators are leaving, they’re not living at home … the hospitality industry had already been declining at rapid rate, now add this to Covid and insurance and the five years, people are starting to say ‘what’s the fucking point?’”.

They also say that it was difficult to understand why some venues had been repeatedly targeted with more violent offending, including one South Melbourne venue whose owners have been targeted by multiple home invasions, but says it was important to stress that did not mean that those businesses had done anything wrong.

Misconceptions that the sector was dodgy and somehow responsible for the onslaught had potentially even delayed the issue coming to light, they say.

“It’s strange, obviously there’s a media frenzy around now, but it took two weeks for that to happen after this started,” they say. “There was this idea that nightclub people are a different set of people, which is old hat.

“It’s almost as if we’ve thought in the industry we have to be defending our character, as opposed to having it looked at properly.”