Drug trafficking in the Pacific Islands: The impact of transnational crime – The Interpreter

Dedicated to Ned Cook, Salvation Army, killed in Nukualofa, Tonga, 20 May 2020.

This analysis is informed by a desk-based literature review and interviews with government officials, regional and national law enforcement agencies, civil society, regional organisations, academia, and the private sector. Interviews were conducted in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa, Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand during the period November 2018 to December 2019. Due to the highly sensitive subject matter and the implications for individuals and communities, some interview participants have not been identified.

Main image: Flags from the Pacific Islands countries fly onthe final day of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Nauru-Pacific Summit, 5 September 2018. On this day, PIFmembers signed a security agreement promoting cooperation on issues such as transnational crime, illegal fishing and cybercrime. The agreement, called the Boe Declaration, also recognised the need for joint action on non-traditional threats, primarily climate change(Mike Leyral/AFP via Getty Images)

References

[1] This analysis uses the term transnational crime as distinct from transnational organised crime following Bruinsmas clarification that transnational crime is not synonymous with organised crime, even when organised crime groups are very active crossing borders with their crimes. States, governments, armies or business corporations, and many entrepreneurial individuals also have a long tradition in committing and facilitating transnational crimes. See Gerben Bruinsma, Histories of Transnational Crime (New York: Springer, 2015), Chapter 1: Criminology and Transnational Crime, 1.

[4] Joe McNulty, Western and Central Pacific Ocean Fisheries and the Opportunities for Transnational Organised Crime: Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance (MCS) Operation Kurukuru, Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2013), 145152.

[11] Simon Mackenzie, Transnational Criminology: Trafficking and Global Criminal Markets, (Bristol University Press, 2021), 21.

[12] Sandeep Chawla and Thomas Pietschmann, Chapter Nine: Drug Trafficking as a Transnational Crime, in Handbook of Transnational Crime & Justice, (ed) Philip Reichel, (Sage Publications Inc, 2005), 160.

[16] Interview with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime official, Wellington, 12 August 2019.

[18] Ibid, 9. For wastewater analysis on the rise in consumption of methamphetamine and cocaine in Australia, see Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program: Report 9, 10 March 2020, https://www.acic.gov.au/publications/national-wastewater-drug-monitoring-program-reports/national-wastewater-drug-monitoring-program-report-09-2020; for similar findings on methamphetamine usage in New Zealand, see New Zealand Police, National Wastewater Testing Programme Quarter 2, 2019, https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/national-wastewater-testing-programme-quarter-2-2019; and New Zealand, Ministry of Health, Annual Update of Key Results 2019/20: New Zealand Health Survey, 14 November 2019, https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/annual-update-key-results-2019-20-new-zealand-health-survey.

[19] Interview with Fijian law enforcement officer, Nadi, March 2020.

[20] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 3.

[24] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 2017-2018.

[26] Interview with Pacific Islands security sector official, Suva, Fiji, 11 September 2019.

[28] Sue Windybank, The Illegal Pacific Part 1: Organised Crime, Policy, Winter 2008, Vol. 24, No.1, 3238.

[36] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 6.

[37] Interview with Tongan law enforcement official, Nukualofa, 26 February 2019.

[38] Statistics on offences for the period 20162019 provided by the Attorney Generals Office, Tonga, 25 February 2019.

[39] Interview with Tongan Attorney Generals Office official, Nukualofa, Tonga, 25 February 2019.

[43] Takashi Riku, Ryuichi Shibasaki, and Hironori Kato, Pacific Islands: Small and Dispersed Sea-locked Islands, in Ryuichi Shibasaki, Hironori Kato, and Cesar Ducruet (eds), Global Logistics Network Modelling and Policy: Quantification and Analysis for International Freight, (Elsevier: 2020), 276.

[48] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 16.

[50] Interview with regional security sector official, 2019.

[51] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 16.

[53] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 16.

[55] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018.

[59] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 17.

[62] American Samoa, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

[66] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 17.

[67] Interviews, Apia, Samoa, 22 August 2019; Nukualofa, Tonga, 27 February 2019.

[69] Interview with Tongan deportee, Nukualofa, Tonga, 27 February 2019.

[70] Leanne Weber and Rebecca Powell, Ripples across the Pacific: Cycles of Risk and ExclusionFollowing Criminal Deportation to Samoa, in Shahram Khosravi (ed), After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives, (Global Ethics Series, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

[71] For example, from the United States alone, street gangs such as the Tongan Crip Gang (TCG), the Sons of Samoa (SOS), Tongan Style Gangsters (TSG), Salt Lake Posse (Tongans and Samoans), Park Village Crip (PVC), Samoan Pride Gangsters (SPG), the Baby Regulators, and Park Village Compton Crips have all had members deported back to the Pacific.

[72] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 17; Interview with Tongan police officer, Nukualofa, Tonga, 27 February 2019.

[73] Tim Fadgen, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealands Deportation Policy and Practice in Regional Context, Australian Outlook, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 20 April 2021, https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/australia-and-aotearoa-new-zealands-deportation-policy-and-practice-in-regional-context/; Henrietta McNeill, Oceanias Crimmigration Creep: Are Deportation and Reintegration Norms being Diffused?, Journal of Criminology, Vol. 54, No. 3, 305322.

[75] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 17.

[76] Interview with Pacific Islands official, Suva, 2019.

[77] Interview with Tongan civil society member, Nukualofa, Tonga, 27 February 2019.

[80] Danielle Watson and Sinclair Dinnen, History, Adaptation and Adoption Problematised, in Sara N Amin, Danielle Watson, and Christian Girard (eds), Mapping Security in the Pacific: A Focus on Context, Gender and Organisational Culture, (Routledge: New York, 2020).

[88] Interview with senior Tongan health official, Ministry of Health, Nukualofa, Tonga, 27 February 2019.

[89] Interviews with law enforcement officials in Suva and Nadi, Fiji, Port Moresby Papua New Guinea, and Nukualofa, Tonga.

[90] Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-first Century, (University of California Press: 2004).

[91] Interview with Tongan church leader, Nukualofa, Tonga, 28 February 2019.

[94] Interview with Ned Cook, Salvation Army, Nukualofa, Tonga, 28 February 2019.

[96] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018, 7.

[97] Email communication with Ned Cook, Salvation Army, 28 April 2019.

[98] Interview with health advocate, Suva, Fiji, 2019.

[99] Barbara Dreaver, Tonga's Children Targeted by Meth Dealers.

[100] Email communication with Ned Cook, Salvation Army, 28 April 2019. In 2018, 92 per cent of clients were male and eight per cent female. The youngest client was 13 years and the oldest 63.

[101] Interview with health advocate, Apia, Samoa, 20 August 2019.

[103] Interview with health advocate, Suva, 10 September 2019.

[104] Interview with Ned Cook, Salvation Army, Nukualofa, Tonga, 28 February 2019.

[106] Danielle Watson, Jose Sousa-Santos, and Loene M Howes, Transnational and Organised Crime in Pacific Island Countries and Territories: Police Capacity to Respond to the Emerging Security Threat, in Pamela Thomas and Meg Keen (eds), Perspectives on Pacific Security: Future Currents, Development Bulletin 82, Australian National University, February 2021, 151155.

[108] The Honiara Declaration (1992) on Law Enforcement Cooperation; the Aitutaki Declaration (1997) on Regional Security Cooperation; and the Nasonini Declaration (2002) on Regional Security.

[114] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018.

[115] Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police, Pacific Methamphetamine Action Plan, 2018.

[116] Interview with Tongan official, Nukualofa, Tonga, 29 February 2019.

[117] Fijian Drug Taskforce Gets US Help, 19 July 2019, Radio New Zealand, https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/394745/fijian-drug-taskforce-gets-us-help; and US Embassy in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu, US Sponsoring Methamphetamine Drug Enforcement Training, 10 September 2018, https://fj.usembassy.gov/slide/u-s-sponsoring-methamphetamine-drug-enforcement-training/.

[119] A Kumar, Chinas Alternate IndoPacific Policy, (Delhi: Prashant Publishing House, 2018).

[121] Interviews with officials, Suva and Apia.

[122] Mackenzie, Transnational Criminology, 21.

[123] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018.

[126] Interview with Papua New Guinean customs officer, Port Moresby, 23 September 2019.

[127] Interviews with law enforcement officers, Port Moresby, Apia, and Nukualofa.

[128] Interview with Tongan official, Nukualofa, Tonga, 29 February 2019

[129] Pacific Transnational Crime Network, Transnational Crime Assessment 20172018.

[130] Interview with Brigadier General Lord Fielakepa, Chief of Defence Staff, His Majestys Armed Forces, Nukualofa, Tonga, 28 February 2019

See the original post here:

Drug trafficking in the Pacific Islands: The impact of transnational crime - The Interpreter