Word: fiji
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...