Melbourne's north-west has become a hotbed for armed crime. He survived. Because that's what crime figures do in the north-west, most of the time. Almost as notable as the endurance of these figures has been the relative indifference of society to the violence, particularly when compared with Melbourne's gangland war. Carl Williams was a boy from Broady, whose fat fingers spread across the state, but we know little about the boys from Broady who are ordering murders and peddling drugs now. The new war involves men with names many Victorians could barely pronounce shooting each other in downtrodden suburbs they have almost certainly never visited. According to exclusive statistics from the armed crime squad, there has been a five-fold increase in non-fatal shootings in the north-west in four years and the region now sees almost two thirds of Victoria's non-fatal shootings. Yet, the new gangland war fails to capture the imagination. The Tibas, Haddaras, Chaouks, Kassabs, and Kheirs are north-west Melbourne's version of the Five Families, the major players in the New York mafia.

These were the families police identified in 2011 as causing most of the trouble in the band, which stretches roughly from Coburg North to Campbellfield, then in an arc around to Altona in the west. They were hardly as connected as the mob in Manhattan, but they had serious clout. There were few major drug or weapon importations in the state that police could not, in some way, trace back to these families. Their hold on the region no longer remains absolute. Some criminal networks were recently identified as having more than 1000 members, of various ages and ethnic backgrounds; unlike the five families, they were not simply the first generation of children born in Australia to parents hailing from northern Lebanon. But many of the major players now are either related to these families, or closely linked within the criminal milieu. The families have been involved in drug trafficking since at least the turn of the century, or, in the case of Macchour Chaouk, the patriarch of that family, since 1983. They grew to become serious forces, in part, because of failures by police to respond to the problem.

The crimes committed by the families were left to locally-based detectives to investigate, rather than specialist squads, until the Santiago Taskforce was formed in 2008. That same year, seven drug-linked executions were reported in 10 months. The strength of the families now – almost a decade after the launch of Santiago – are largely determined by how many of them have been killed or locked up. At one stage last year, there was only one of the six Chaouks, father and sons, that were alive and free. At the moment, the five Haddaras are similarly constrained, with only one of them free, two dead and two in prison. Of those in prison, one was jailed for having guns that so troubled a judge she described them as "the sort of weapons that were used down in Tasmania", a reference to the Port Arthur massacre. Similar to the Chaouks and Haddaras, the Kassabs and the Kheirs – who are related clans – remain a factor, although their involvement is more peripheral than before.

Which leaves one of the five families – the Tibas. When police showed their hand regarding the organised crime threat, back in 2011, the Tibas were at war with the Kassabs and Kheirs. Now, it appears the Tibas are at war with everybody. Prison bashing Since last September, the Tibas are suspected of involvement in at least six non-fatal shootings, a bashing and multiple home invasions. Some of the shootings are retribution for the severe prison bashing of Bassam Tiba, underworld sources say. Others relate to significant organised crime figures, and their businesses, such as tattoo parlours. The Tibas are the only clan in the five families that can boast three generations of serious offenders – from murderers to drug traffickers.

Abdul Tiba has eight sons, aged from their 50s to their 20s. At least six have faced significant criminal charges. A grandson, also called Abdul, was considered such a threat he was subject to a National Anti-Gang Squad investigation last year – the Australian Federal Police led team that represents an even greater escalation in the police response than the formation of Santiago. Also last year, Osman, 32, one of the middle brothers, was released from prison. In a video published online in December, he spoke about how he had overcome drug addiction, and detailed the cycle of using, getting hooked, needing money, and then committing crime. He is, of course, one of many ensnared in that cycle, particularly in the north-west, which consistently ranks among the worst in the state for employment, education and substance dependence. The irony – not lost on police, community members and other underworld figures – is that while Osman may be a victim of that cycle, his family have survived from perpetuating it.

No empathy It is hard not to be shocked by the footage of Oueida's shooting. Four men walking to a car, a silver four-wheel drive pulling alongside and obscuring them from view, and then Oueida writhing on the ground, before he hobbles for his life, back towards the Coburg Mosque, where he had just finished afternoon prayer. But it is also hard to feel any empathy, or concern – as Victorians do about other crimes against more innocent victims – that it could happen to them. That is why, police say, it is important to consider what the shooting represents, rather than the act itself. Oueida amassed a fortune before he was imprisoned in 2011, and had done so through dealing drugs, and doing it more rapaciously than anyone in recent history: hence the $6 million in a Swiss bank account, light plane, Ferrari and $2.8 million mansion he had when he was arrested. Not only did victims of drug addiction build that fortune, but there are the consequences of maintaining this empire. That, in turn, drives a burgeoning black market for firearms, and has made the north-west the centre of the gun trade in this state.

Brighton terrorist Yacqub Khayre allegedly was only a phone call to a north-west contact away from being able to obtain the shotgun he used to kill a man, take a woman hostage and shoot three police last month. But for every Khayre, a case most people have heard of with a clear link to the north-west, there are dozens more that barely make a ripple. Almost all the of shootings in the north-west, one underworld source said, relate to those at the bottom of the criminal food chain. They are the dealers – who, as Osman Tiba alluded to, were probably driven to the job because of their own addictions – who cannot afford to forgive a middling debt, even if it is only for a few hundred dollars. These shootings rarely involve significant figures, such as Oueida, or Nabil Maghnie, who was shot in the head last September but survived, or George Marrogi, who was charged with a shooting murder that same month. Detective Inspector Wayne Newman, from the North-West Metro region, says there has been an increase in higher ranking organised crime figures in the area insulating themselves from possible harm by using youth networks to do the grunt work. He said the so-called Fagin Laws, which were introduced last year and allow police to charge adults who coerce children to offend, would be useful in dismantling these networks. "More senior criminal figures are exploiting the vulnerabilities of younger or less sophisticated offenders," he said.

It is a misconception that the battles are over territory. No particular families run any particular suburbs; they are all dealing, all the time, to whoever buys. The shootings can be over particularly petty reasons, not just the drug trade: women, a perceived slight, or, increasingly, a prison feud. This can drive a surge in shootings, and then be forgotten again just as quickly, said Detective Inspector Stephen Clark of the armed crime squad. And – as is believed to have been the case when a large drug shipment made its way to the region in the past five years, and the Kassab/Kheir family made temporary peace with the Tibas – that can sometimes mean forming a truce to distribute the product, and ensure its security. Staying on top of the machinations of the underworld can be difficult, Detective Inspector Clark said, but the increased strength of police intelligence meant they were able to increasingly charge gunmen, regardless of whether their victims spoke. It frustrates police that low-level gangsters without a shred of integrity jut their chins out and shake their heads in a misplaced attempt at honour when asked who shot them, despite, in many instances, being maimed for life.

Years after he was blasted with a shotgun by a crime figure who continues to wield influence in the north-west, one victim is still dealing with his injuries. Police agree it would be futile to appeal to gun-slingers on the grounds that they could ruin a rival's life. But, they believe, the deterrent effect of jailing them, even if their victim remains tight-lipped, will have an impact. "The message is, if you get shot, even if you don't tell us who did it, we are still going to investigate it, and we're still highly likely to get a result," Detective Inspector Clark said. "I wish it was as simple as saying all our non-fatal shootings went back to five families, because if it did, we would target those five families and we'd kick it in the guts, but it's actually not that simple." The cost to Melbourne's north-west is huge. Aside from being the Wall Street of Victoria's firearms and drugs market, and the enormous consequences this trafficking has on the state, and the impact on the medical system of record numbers of people being maimed, there are the people who die completely innocently because the rules of these markets means shooting first has become an unwritten rule. While both Detective Inspectors want to reiterate this is rare, it is also their worst fear, and what they are working to stop.

These victims include Rachad Adra, who was killed and his four-year-old son injured, when a gunman with a high-powered weapon shot the wrong house in Thomastown in October 2015, and Khaled Abouhasna, who was killed in a shooting ambush six months earlier when he was mistaken for a ruthless standover man. Family ties The solution will not be found in just policing, Detective Inspector Newman said, in a common refrain from the modern police force. In this case, it carries particular weight: police are trying to break the hold, in some cases, of family ties that go back generations. To do so, they are increasingly trying to appeal to the maternal side of these families, and helping mothers and their children escape the criminal elements in their home, before another brood is infected. The stakes are too high for it not to work, Detective Inspector Clark said. "There's a lot of luck good and bad in a non-fatal shooting, You can be shot once and die, or you can be shot five times and live.

"There was a young kid that was shot, and he's paralysed from the chest down for the rest of his life. "We're concentrating on the actions of the shooter, because what happens to the victim is outside our control … the line between a non-fatal shooting and a murder is wafer thin." With Tammy Mills