Word: fiji
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Mohammad Yasin Khan started to suspect there was a problem when the industrial park?on the edge of Suva, Fiji's capital?began to smell like a latrine. A warehouse had been set up there to manufacture plastic furniture. But Khan, who runs a hardware store on the same block, said the factory workers seemed paranoid, avoiding conversation and reinforcing the doors and windows with metal bars. And the smell from a nearby culvert was foul. "We thought maybe it was something from the shop," he says. "The smell of the drain, it was like urine...
...Khan's neighbor was more than just a dirty factory. Police say it was one of the world's biggest drug labs, run by a criminal enterprise with tentacles stretching from China to the South Pacific. The crystal methamphetamine, or ice, being cooked inside the warehouse 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 ton of it?came from Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. Of the six suspects charged with...
...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; in 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...
...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 might include gun running, people smuggling and fraud. The Australian Federal Police say the syndicate behind Fiji's 2000 heroin seizure was allegedly involved in illegal immigration and credit card fraud; it's believed the gang that set up the ice lab had similar interests?and investigators are probing the possible involvement of some local officials, says Fiji police spokesman Mesake Koroi...
...been rewriting its rules on torture? LATIN AMERICA COLOMBIA: Paramilitaries are taking over the cocaine trade EUROPE SOCCER: Football stars and fans gather in Portugal for Euro 2004 ASIA INDONESIA: Martial law ends in Aceh, but the killing goes on SOUTH PACIFIC CRIME: A drugs bust in Fiji reinforces fears that the region is at risk SCIENCE CANCER: New targeted therapies help patients to live with their disease SPORT OLYMPICS: Kiwi sailboarder Barbara Kendall gets ready for Athens THE ARTS MUSIC: China?s Spice Girls...