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The alleged attacks took place in Cheltenham, Brighton, Mount Waverley and Camberwell yesterday, leaving several staff with injuries, police said.
Workers said they were too scared to return to work after being threatened.
A shift at a grocer in Brighton quickly turned into a nightmare for staff as three knife-wielding gang members ransacked the store.
A teenage cashier was cornered and held at knifepoint until she handed over the cash register.
Her duty supervisor refused to inflict several blows to the head, CCTV shows.
A few meters away in the liquor department, a male employee was cowardly punched before being kicked out.
Lincoln Weimer, operations manager at supermarket owner Reddrop Group, called the attack “disgusting” and said workers were scared to return.
“They’re at home very nervous, very worried about going back to work,” he said.
Police believe the same intruders also stormed IGAs in Cheltenham and Mount Waverley before their crime spree ended in Camberwell at around 6.30pm yesterday.
The four young men stopped in a stolen Mercedes carrying cartons of cigarettes, money and alcohol.
“[It was] terrifying because I never thought I would see these things in front of my eyes,” said one IGA official.
Detective Inspector Scott Dwyer said the Mercedes was stolen from a home in Doncaster East on June 7.
Dwyer said police believe the offenders are between the ages of 14 and 17 and are of various nationalities.
Although the Mercedes and the suspects remain at large, Dwyer said he is confident “multiple arrests will be made.”
”Our methodology for targeting youth crime was able to allow us to make these arrests,” Dwyer said.
“We know them, we know who they’re dating, that kind of intelligence allows us not only who we’re targeting, but that arrests will be made.”
Police have a special operation running every night in the eastern and south-eastern suburbs aimed at reducing youth crime.
In the last 12 months they have arrested 3,000 offenders, which is an average of eight youth gang members every day.
But time and time again, abusers are acquitted by the courts.
“They’re arresting people who are being released over and over and over again,” said MP James Newberry.
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