Pacific no longer just a transit route as drug syndicates grow local markets

Transnational crime expert Louis Sousa-Santos says with the growth of regional criminal syndicates, there is a stronger and larger local market for illegal drugs.  

Mr Sousa-Santos, an As­sociate Professor at the Pacific Regional Security Hub, University of Canter­bury, said the Pacific was no longer a transit point but destination for criminal activities.  

He said transnational organised syndicates, not just from the Americas, but also from China and Southeast Asia, required facilitators, usually a small number of elites, in-country to assist the movement of the drugs and their activities.  

“We’re not just seeing this in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. We are seeing this in Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, and interestingly, in its early stages, we are also seeing this in the Solomon Islands, even in the French territories,” he said.  

“It’s a similar tactic, which is being contextualized to different areas of the region.” 

On Friday, January 16, 2026, a French Navy vessel intercepted a suspicious ship and seized 96 bales containing 4.87 tons of cocaine in the maritime area of French Polynesia.  The seized cargo, from Central America, was bound for Australia.  

In the early hours of the same day, the Fiji Police Force seized more than 100 bags of cocaine from Vatia wharf in Tavua, believed to have been transported in a narco submersible, a criminal innovation that is recently introduced in the Pacific to traffic drugs for cartels from the Americas and Southeast Asia.  

“This is where strengthening the regional architecture is important, joint training, to have legislation, which is interoperable and similar, to ensure that the message put out to these groups is that the Pacific is no longer open for business,” Mr Sousa-Santos said.  

“One of the things that need to be very clear to Australia and New Zealand law enforcement partners is that the Pacific can no longer be used as a buffer zone to protect Australia and New Zealand from drug traffickers and narco-syndicates.  

“Up until now, the Pacific has been the buffer zone. It has been the area where operations have been held.”  

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes noted that between 2024 and 2025, Pacific Islands, specifically Fiji and PNG, they’ve shifted from becoming transit points to becoming destinations for organised crimes.