A home linked to Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim, a marked underworld figure and professional boxer, was targeted again in one of five suspicious fires across Melbourne overnight.

Emergency services were called to a blaze on Larch Street in Thomastown shortly before 3am on Monday.

“Firefighters arrived to find flames issuing from the first floor of a double-storey brick unit,” Fire Rescue Victoria said in a statement.

“Through their quick work, firefighters were able to contain the fire to the front two bedrooms on the first floor of the home.”

The home was unoccupied after Abdulrahim was targeted in two murder attempts at the house earlier this year.

In May, bullets were sprayed at the ex-Mongols bikie when he was possibly lured outside to be executed, having left to go help his parents, whose car had been set on fire in Brunswick. But Abdulrahim fought back, ramming his car into the gunman’s BMW and chasing them from the scene.

The botched hit came after the underworld figure allegedly joined forces with an interstate gang to gain control of a slice of Victoria’s billion-dollar illicit tobacco market.

In June, the Larch Street townhouse was peppered with bullets again in what police described as another “targeted incident”. But Abdulrahim was not home.

In February, this masthead reported police had warned Abdulrahim that there was a contract on his life and advised him against fighting at an upcoming boxing match. Two separate venues due to host the fight were later firebombed, causing extensive damage and prompting organisers to cancel the bout.

Most recently, a fight night featuring Abdulrahim’s nephew was cancelled after a firebombing at the Thomastown venue in late July renewed police safety fears.

Four businesses connected to Abdulrahim have also been torched over the past year, including a Moonee Ponds tobacco and vape store that was targeted three times.

The plethora of attacks on the underworld figure come after he survived being shot eight times while driving in a funeral procession outside Fawkner cemetery in June 2022. The gunmen responsible for the daylight assassination attempt allegedly fled overseas before they could be arrested.

Several suspicious fires flared across Melbourne early on Monday morning.

In Port Melbourne, Victoria Police said they were called to a fire after a car crashed into a hair salon on Bay Street just after 1.30am. The shop and car were destroyed, police said.

A person living above the salon was evacuated while two small children from a neighbouring residence were taken to hospital for observation for possible smoke inhalation.

Across the city, a suspicious fire engulfed a property in a disused retirement village on Gladesville Boulevard in Patterson Lakes about 1.20am.

In Melbourne’s west, a crime scene has been established after a suspicious fire at a tobacco store in Cairnlea about 6.05am.

Last night in Richmond, a 37-year-old was arrested for alleged arson after a fire started in an apartment block on Clark Street at about 9.15pm.

Police said a resident set fire to his own apartment and the blaze damaged four other units. (Courtesy The Age)