Ice: From Gang to Bust

The warehouse - in a sprawling industrial estate on the edge of Suva, Fiji's capital - had been leased by a trader from Hong Kong. The crystal methamphetamine, or ice, being "cooked" inside was destined, says Fiji Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes, for "the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Europe." The cops who swooped on the building June 9 - finding 5 kg of the glassy drug and enough chemicals to make a metric ton of it - came from Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. Of the suspects arrested that day, one was Fijian-born, two were Chinese Fijians and four held Hong Kong passports; by week's end, raids in Hong Kong and Malaysia had nabbed six more Chinese and a Malaysian. What's thought to be one of the world's biggest drug labs was, from start to finish, a multinational affair.

So, these days, is organized crime - and small Pacific nations are increasingly vulnerable to its embrace. Lying between Asia and the rich markets of North America, Australia and New Zealand, the islands are perfectly placed for trans-Pacific smuggling. They're eager to attract tourists and investors, and their undersized police forces and outdated drug laws are easy to exploit. The Philippines, Guam, Palau and the Marianas have long been pit stops for drug and people traffickers, and police have warned for years that South Pacific states are also at risk. Transnational crime syndicates "are highly sophisticated and mobile," says Superintendent Larry Reid, acting national crime manager for the New Zealand police. "Their ability to move around the Pacific is almost unlimited." Keeping border-hopping criminals out of the region is a daunting task, Reid adds: "No single country can deal with the problem on its own." Which is why the fight against transnational crime, too, must be a transnational affair.

Solo smugglers like yachtsmen and hippie wanderers have crisscrossed the South Pacific for decades. But organized crime didn't cast much of a shadow over the region until 2000, when police in Suva seized 350 kg of heroin bound for Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Since then, the law-enforcement radar has blipped increasingly often over Fiji. In 2002, 74 kg of methamphetamine was found on a ship in Singapore headed for Fiji and Australia; the same year Hawaiian police busted a syndicate that smuggled cocaine and ice to the U.S. mainland, Tonga, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand; and last year almost 2.5 kg of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in amphetamines, was found in scuba tanks shipped to Brisbane from Fiji.

Easy to make and hugely profitable (a "point," or 0.1 gram, sells for about $A50 in Australia but costs only about $A1 to make), ice is as toxic to societies as it is to users. Addicts are prone to reckless criminality and extreme violence as well as paranoia and convulsions. Countries like Australia and New Zealand (where high-purity crystal meth is fast displacing less potent forms of the drug) are robust enough to absorb some of the damage. Island societies are not. Ice abuse has caused social and economic mayhem in Guam, Palau and Hawaii, says Shaun Evans, law enforcement adviser to the Pacific Islands Forum. Just as worrying, he says, it's brought other crime in its wake: "In the past, organized criminals stuck to one commodity, like heroin or lsd. Now we have polycriminals. Anything that will make money, they will do it." Evans, a former New Zealand Customs agent, says that may include gun running, people smuggling and fraud. The syndicate behind Fiji's 2000 heroin seizure was involved in illegal immigration and credit card fraud; it's believed the gang who set up the ice lab had similar interests - and bribed some local police and government officials.

Australia and New Zealand now spend tens of millions of dollars a year to help small island states tackle corruption, tighten border controls and train law enforcement officers. Police and customs agents from both countries played key roles in investigating the Fiji ice lab. Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison says the case "shows how important it is to have an Australian law enforcement presence in the region," both to protect the country and to stabilize its neighbors. The nine-nation mission to restore order to Solomon Islands, he says, is a model of what close cooperation can achieve. Australia and New Zealand are also helping small states update antiquated laws. Police had to wait 14 months to smash the ice gang because Fijian law does not ban methamphetamine's ingredients, only the finished product. A new drug bill - increasing the top sentence for trafficking from eight years to life - was not ready to put to Parliament until the day of the raid.

The South Pacific isn't out of danger, says police chief Hughes, but "I think we have sent a strong message that Fiji is not as vulnerable as people thought." Suva businessman Tauz Khan, whose security-equipment and taxi companies are in the same industrial estate as the drug warehouse, hopes he's right. The fight against drugs must succeed, he says: "We don't want these guys to come back here and spoil our paradise."