By Lisa Visentin
A man seen buying petrol and a jerry can half an hour before a nearby hair salon was deliberately set alight could be key to cracking an extortion racket in western Sydney.
The man, aged in his 50s, was caught on CCTV buying the items at a service station in Granville, just 35 minutes before a Harris Park hairdressing salon was targeted in an arson attack at 4am on August 4 last year.
The blaze tore through the salon on Marion Street as four people slept upstairs, before it spread to a neighbouring newsagency, causing a total of $1 million in damage. No one was injured.
"It was an incredibly reckless, dangerous act for anybody to even consider deliberately lighting a fire where there are people asleep upstairs with limited access to exits," Property Crime Squad Commander Murray Chapman said on Wednesday.
Police have released CCTV footage of a man they say can help in their inquiries into an arson attack and a shooting at businesses at Harris Park.Credit: NSW Police
Detective Superintendent Chapman said police believed the alleged arson attack was linked to an extortion racket that targeted Billu's Indian Eatery - also located in Harris Park - three weeks later.
About 40 diners and staff were inside the restaurant when a gunman, dressed in a blue tracksuit, fired a shot through the front window of the Wigram Street restaurant just before 9pm on August 25.
Remarkably, the bullet missed everyone inside and hit a shelf.
Detective Superintendent Chapman said the existence of an extortion racket targeting businesses in Sydney's west was "absolutely a line of inquiry" being explored by police.
"We have received information that a number of businesses had been stood over and extorted by a group of people in the Harris Park area during the year, but that victims were reluctant to come forward," he said.
As police on Wednesday released CCTV footage of the man wanted in connection with the alleged arson attack, Detective Superintendent Chapman would not comment on whether the extortion racket involved bikies or gangs, adding only that police were interested in a "group of people".
"There's certainly more than one person, we believe, that was active around August last year and involved in this activity," he said.
Police would not elaborate on what the alleged extortion involved, nor how many businesses were affected, but said it was possible some businesses were too frightened to come forward.
"That's why we're appealing for anybody that may have information about these extortions that were occurring last year, or may even be occurring now, to have the confidence to come forward," he said.
"All information supplied will be treated anonymously, and can be given confidentially."
With AAP