A transnational crime expert is warning of alarming methamphetamine trends emerging across the Pacific.
Associate Professor Jose Sousa-Santos from Canterbury University’s Pacific Regional Security Hub said a recent 4.8kg meth bust in Fiji showed how non-traditional criminal syndicates were now able to operate in the region.
Several people were arrested in the bust, including two police officers from the Counter Narcotics Bureau and the head of Fiji Revenue and Customs Services Intelligence Unit, charged with the illegal importation of drugs which came from Nigeria.
“What’s actually ominous is that these new facilitators and the dealers and importers in Fiji are looking to bring drugs, methamphetamines to ther region from non-traditional drug traffickers and syndicates,” Sousa-Santos said.
He said while Nigerian syndicates had been active through the region for quite a while “not so much in the movement of methamphetamines as they’re not one of the big players”.
The big players were considered to originate from Mexico and Southeast Asia through Chinese criminal syndicates, with an increasing volume coming from Canadian outlaw motorcycle gangs.
A ministerial group looking at transnational crime has told the Government NZ is the only five-eyes country that doesn’t have an anti-corruption strategy. (Source: 1News)
Another notable difference is that while in the past Fiji was used by syndicates as a hub or movement centre for drugs transiting through the Pacific towards Australia and New Zealand, the domestic market there was now large enough that local players were reaching out to some of the traffickers themselves instead of the other way round.
“That shows a completely different aspect to an evolution to the drug landscape in the region because I’m sure that we’re not just seeing this in Fiji but we’ll be seeing this in Tonga and Samoa and also in Papua New Guinea,” Sousa-Santos said.
Corruption
A new report from the NZ Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime shows accelerating corruption in New Zealand and across the Pacific, driven by organised crime.
Ministry Advisory Group chairperson Steve Symon said corruption and insider threats were increasing, and New Zealand was not currently equipped to deal with it.
“Organised crime has infiltrated our country to such an extent that we do have a genuine problem with corruption at our borders now and that’s starting to leak into other areas. Lawyers, accountants, immigration advisers, we’re just starting to see those vulnerabilities take hold across our country,” he said.
He said the transshipment of drugs through the Pacific and into New Zealand, along with the region’s domestic drug problems, was highly problematic.
“In some ways the things we’re starting to see in the Pacific are the canary in the mine for New Zealand… we’re seeing government officials being corrupted and being used to facilitate the drug transactions that are happening,” he said.
Sousa-Santos said the seizure last year of close to five tonnes of meth being stored in Fiji was product that had been expected to be drip fed to the New Zealand and Australian markets.
Since the seizure, smaller but much more regular amounts were coming in through air traffic and sea — and this was backed up by the number of seizures at ports of entry.
“We’re seeing a large amount of seizures in those specific areas and this I believe is the reaction of traditional criminal syndicates and the importers in Australia and New Zealand to having lost that large cache of methamphetamines in Fiji.”
Red flags
Another red flag mentioned in the report was the expected dump of hundreds of deportees, many of them serious criminals, from the US back to the Pacific as a result of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Symon said New Zealand was the only country in the Five Eyes group, which includes the UK, US, Australia and Canada, which does not have a national anti-corruption strategy.
The ministerial group report recommended New Zealand set up a centralised reporting and investigative body as “the threat is real, present and growing. New Zealand must not underestimate the scale or significance of this challenge. Addressing it requires urgent, coordinated and strategic action”.
It was also recommended that New Zealand support the development of similar measures to manage corruption in the Pacific, along with making specialist support available.
Sousa-Santos said the coordinated strategy for New Zealand “is a fantastic recommendation especially to break down the silo mentality that a lot of the New Zealand agencies have where police won’t share with other agencies”.
However, he urged caution with the recommendation for the Pacific which he said “tend to be a little bit simplistic”.
Sousa-Santos said what worked in New Zealand was not going to necessarily work in the wider region.
“I think bringing in some Pacific expertise find out what is actually happening, what would work, what are the challenges that are being faced in the region, and then be able to give recommendations,” he said.
In Fiji, Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu, a respected police veteran, has sworn to crack down on corruption in his force, and making those officers seconded to the Counter Narcotics Bureau re-apply for positions there.
Sousa-Santos said the arrest of police officers in Fiji was the tip of the iceberg and “what’s left over from the culture of corruption and the facilitation from the top down over the past ten years of what’s happened with police and with customs”.
Symon also warned of organised crime taking hold in the region.
“Ecuador used to be one of the safest countries in South America and now it’s basically a narco-state where organised crime runs the country and they’re trying dramatic steps to try and change that… it is not far removed from a future where that happens in the Pacific and we are therefore vulnerable to that extent.”
