Former drug traffickers reveal their methods of importing methamphetamine and cocaine into the Pacific as authorities try to stem the tide of smuggling

Senituli* describes it as “easy” — until he was caught.

The former drug trafficker sits in a bare room in Tonga’s only prison, dressed in a traditional Tongan short-sleeved shirt. He is not the type of person with deep-rooted criminality you might expect.

First, he is now retired and the soft-spoken 67-year-old grandfather was still involved in human trafficking until he was caught in 2019.

Only when Senituli calmly and methodically describes how he routinely smuggled 10kg bags of crystal meth and cocaine from the United States to Tonga and then on to the New Zealand market is his true nature revealed.

For Senituli, drug trafficking was about finding ‘contacts’. In this case, it was about bribing airport staff so he could import drugs.

“We had them in Fiji and also here in Tonga.

“Everywhere I went — even to Europe — I had connections with people there. Even with pilots, flight attendants that I worked with, I gave them a share of course, a dealer share.”

The ABC provided a unique insight into the strategies used by criminal networks in the Pacific region. They spoke to a number of former drug traffickers and traffickers, such as Senituli, who told him about how they manipulated the often understaffed border controls and isolated ports and airports to smuggle drugs into the region.

It is part of what is now called the ‘Pacific drug highway’.

Drug cartels and criminal motorcycle gangs are now targeting countries such as Tonga and the neighbouring island states of Fiji and Samoa to import huge quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine, experts say.

They smuggle drugs into the Pacific Ocean, using these countries as transit points in their attempts to smuggle the products to the huge lucrative markets of Australia and New Zealand.

For another inmate, Sione*, who has been in prison for seven years for human trafficking, the reason Tongans are targeted is simple.

“We are poor,” he said.

“It was an easy way for people to make a lot of money.

“(The importation of drugs) is quite common.

He said he would bribe customs officials to let the drugs in.

“Everybody loves money, money gives everybody power, gives everybody what they want,” Sione said.

“That’s why it happened. This (bribing customs officials) is where it comes from.”

‘It doesn’t stand still’

Both Sione and Senituli were caught and jailed before the drug trade became more organized and lucrative.

Nowadays they think it is much better organized.

And in Tonga it has spread to criminal motorcycle gangs.

Police say they foiled an attempt to establish the Comancheros gang in Tonga last month with a drug bust that seized several kilograms of methamphetamine.

Two of the 17 people arrested in the raids are believed to have been members of a Comanchero gang. Police seized dozens of Comanchero jackets, T-shirts and patches.

Announcing the arrests, Tonga police said the criminal motorcycle gang had expanded its presence in the country and was involved in illegal activities.

A recent report from the Lowy Institute shows that organised crime groups from outside the Pacific are playing a central role in the region’s drug market and are driving growth in local drug production and consumption.

As some Pacific countries grapple with international drug trafficking, leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum last week voiced support for a new Australian-funded police initiative to strengthen law enforcement in the region.

Announcing the decision, Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said the region needed a “Pacific-led and -led” initiative to tackle the increasingly serious criminal challenges.

And the Pacific Islands want to tackle the drug trade before it reaches land.

Australian Navy Commander-in-Chief Mark Hammond told the ABC the drug trade in the region was a challenge that “does not stand still”.

“It’s very expensive, time-consuming and difficult to deal with once it’s on land,” he said.

“We can tackle these criminal activities at sea as effectively as possible, before the drugs reach land and affect our families and communities. That is in all of our interests.”

On Wednesday, Todd Robinson, the US assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, said there were “very serious criminal networks” operating in the region.

Mr Robinson travels to Tonga this week to discuss policing in the region, as Pacific nations call for more help to police their borders and vast ocean.

Fiji is discussing the creation of a dedicated drug enforcement agency to combat drug trafficking and criminal networks operating in the country.

‘A huge mountain’

In Samoa, the importation of drugs leads to addiction in certain communities. This problem is dealt with in a traditional way.

Fed up with the drugs infiltrating his community, Faleatiu Mayor Matagi Tufanua Pati has implemented a unique Pacific system in his village.

“In our village of Faleatiu there are more than 10 families who are guilty of this kind of things, drugs,” he said.

“The punishments our village has imposed on those caught with cannabis or growing it are 200 pigs and in the form of cash it is $2,000 tala ($1,100).”

The village has also started posting guards at the gates to physically prevent drugs from entering.

“We have installed a barrier at the entrance to the village’s internal road,” he said.

During evening prayers, men guard the village until midnight.

Sailivao Aukusitino Senio, addiction treatment team leader at The Salvation Army Samoa, said clients have told him that methamphetamine is now widely available in the country.

“We fear that young people will come into contact with drugs,” he said.

“But we also have to be careful, we need well-trained clinicians.”

Back in Tongan prison, drug trafficker Senituli says he is “full of regret” over his role in the drug trade.

In 2019, he was found with 2kg of methamphetamine in Tonga, en route to New Zealand. It was one of his smaller packages.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

“My family was shocked by what happened. They didn’t know what kind of work I did,” he said.

He says he hopes people learn from his mistakes, and that no one follows his path.

“I ended up in prison because of this, I see the suffering of the people,” he said.

“There are many people who use drugs, but they don’t know how bad it can be.

“But what I regret is that I could have done so much good work before all this.”

*To protect the families of those involved in these small communities, the ABC has used pseudonyms for the prisoners