Pacific ripe for drug ring boom

By LOUISA CLEAVE

The huge drug lab set-up found in Fiji this week appears to justify warnings that organised crime groups could escalate their activities in the Pacific islands.

The raid at an industrial estate in Suva, involving police from New Zealand, Australia and Fiji, followed a major heroin seizure in 2000.

Then, New Zealand, Australian and American authorities helped Fiji police seize 357kg of heroin valued at about US$500 million.

Several Chinese were arrested in connection with the seizure and are serving prison sentences.

One of them, Tak Sang Hao, had links to New Zealand through business, and owned property here.

Police have not discounted New Zealand links to the latest ring.

Raw cocaine has often been found in Fiji, and last August three Chinese men and a Fijian security guard were murdered in what was thought to be an organised crime execution linked to drugs.

This week's raid uncovered what is thought to be one of the biggest clandestine drug laboratories in the world, and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Police found enough chemicals to produce more than 1000kg of crystal methamphetamine - a pure form of the drug similar to P - worth up to $874.43 million.

Fijian authorities said the lab could make 500kg of the drug a week.

It was busted after a 14-month investigation codenamed Operation Outrigger.

The lab also indicated a change in the illegal drug trade's use of the Pacific islands - from a shipment transit point to a production base.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report last August that the islands were increasingly susceptible to organised criminal activity - specifically the shipping of drugs from Asia, South America and North America.

The New Zealand Police acting national crime manager, Detective Superintendent Larry Reid, said the Suva bust would have been a warning to international crime gangs.

New Zealand, Australia and Pacific nations were working towards having "robust communications systems" that would keep them connected to crime in the region.

The UN report says the Pacific islands appeal to drug barons and syndicates because of their proximity to East Asia and South America.

Their isolated coastlines and the "checkerboard of jurisdictions" throughout the region also appealed.

"Viewed from a drug-business perspective, the geographic location of the Pacific islands lends itself to facilitation of traffic from major drug suppliers in East Asia and South America to serving demand in Australia/New Zealand and North America.

"The Pacific islands connect some of the world's largest drug producers with the largest drug markets in the world It is a strategic, if perilous, location with regard to the global illicit drug trade."

The UN report said drugs were moved through the Pacific by air and ship. "There are about 5000 vessels transiting the Pacific on any given day. Large shipments may be unloaded from a mother ship into a smaller vessel, and can subsequently go in hiding at the many small, uninhabited islets and atolls, waiting for the next step."

Illicit drug production was believed to be limited, but cannabis was being grown in commercial quantities in many Pacific countries.

Fiji had between 500 and 1000 cannabis producers, the report said, some of them farmers who had switched to growing the drug because of the country's worsening economy.

Production was mainly for domestic consumption.

The Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority's chief executive, Sila Kotobalavu, said international crime groups would have a significant effect on the economy of a developing country such as Fiji.

"If we allow elements such as this to get a foothold in this country, we will see all sorts of illegal activities that have the potential to have a significant impact on our revenue collection capabilities," he said after the raid on Wednesday.

"These groups corrupt local officials, bypass normal tax and customs revenue requirements and put a burden on our health programmes that the Government must fund."

The New Zealand Government has echoed the concerns raised in the UN report.

It and Australia have been working with Pacific nations to tighten security and border control systems.

In New Zealand, the last Budget allocated $14.8 million for security teams in the south and west Pacific, including a police post in Suva.


Drugs and Fiji

* Four years ago NZ, Australian and American authorities helped Fijian police seize 357kg of heroin worth about US$500 million.

* Fiji has up to 1000 cannabis growers, producing drugs mainly for local consumption