Pacific nations were once principally stopover points for international drug cartels accessing more lucrative markets like Australia and New Zealand, but the tide is turning.
Over the past two decades there’s been a shift as trafficking routes across the Pacific have become drug highways for Latin American smugglers and Asian Crime Syndicates.
This has created new crime hotspots in once quiet communities as the proliferation of drug use and illicit money in Pacific domestic markets grows.
Recent reports from Fiji’s Ministry of Health show that HIV infections have jumped 10-fold since 2014, driven in part by increasing use of IV drugs.
It’s becoming incredibly damaging to communities, with the Fijian government declaring a formal HIV outbreak in July this year.
The cartels are working with locals to keep their pipelines open and we’re seeing small-scale drug production ramping up in places like Fiji, Tonga and Samoa as their domestic drug markets grow.
This is leading to the development of local organised crime gangs and increasing government corruption given the huge money to be made.
Drugs are not the only problem – cybercrime scam centres, human trafficking and online child sexual exploitation are also on the rise.
Whilst Australian projects to improve communications infrastructure including laying undersea cables are designed to support economic growth in the Pacific, they also create unintended consequences.
Improved communication capabilities create greater risks to a proliferation of online child sexual abuse material and exploitation.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have identified the illicit production of child sexual abuse imagery a growing danger in the region.
This has been accompanied by the spread of cybercrime scam centres, with a number of high-profile scams being reported across the Pacific in recent years.
These scams are enabled in part by more limited local awareness of the dangers of cybercrime among parents and children, and ready access to technology like smartphones along with improving digital connectivity.
Pacific nations are attractive places to set up, given they have more limited resources in law enforcement and capabilities to police cyber technology, making it harder to regulate and chase down this behaviour.
Attempts at cross-agency collaboration are occurring, but when you have organised crime groups with access to huge money coming up against Pacific Island governments and law enforcement services that are small and have restricted policing capabilities it’s a tough battle.
In the face of this, it’s no surprise that the United States FBI recently announced the establishment of a permanent base in New Zealand.
They’ve been tackling the Latin American cartels on their home soil for decades and already have strong co-operation with Australian and NZ law enforcement.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have long been a major presence in the region, but they are also restructuring operations by creating a dedicated Pacific Command within the organisation under the leadership of Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan.
They have also scaled up operations significantly in the past two years with a new training hub at Pinkenba in Brisbane and are delivering training programs with Pacific Islands police forces.
The AFP is gathering intelligence through close to 200 personnel on the ground in almost 40 countries, many in the Pacific and working with the Pacific Transnational Crime Network.
The network includes 29 Transnational Crime Units across 21 Pacific countries, with a hub in Samoa, and is accompanied by a Joint Drugs Taskforce with the New Zealand, Fijian and Tongan police services.
This is part of the wider Pacific Policing Initiative announced in mid-2024 worth $400 million in funding over five years to establish training centres and infrastructure across the Pacific.
It’s critical to help keep drugs out of the Australian market, where drug use is alarmingly high – we’re ranked 20th of 32 countries for cocaine consumption, 15th of 33 for MDMA and third of 20 countries for cannabis.
It’s this demand opening the door for Latin American drug cartels, Chinese Triads and outlaw bikie gangs and the costs are astronomical.
Along with the devastating human impacts, organised crime is estimated to have cost Australia $68.7 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
These strategic partnerships will only grow in importance in 2025 as the combined forces work to boost security, stop illegal drugs, and the associated crimes, from hitting our shores.
