Word: fijis
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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...
...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...
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