Revealed: How bikies are using Pacific islands to smuggle cocaine into Sydney

Australian bikie gangs are establishing chapters in Pacific countries and partnering with global criminal groups like the Sinaloa cartel and the Calabrian mafia in what the international watchdog says is an alarming escalation of cocaine imports to the lucrative Australian market.

Bikies are also setting up legitimate businesses in countries including Fiji and Tonga to facilitate a greater flow of drugs from the Americas, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has said.

A new report paints a troubling picture of the march of organised crime on the region. Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and the Cook Islands – none of which have traditionally seen large drug shipments – experienced an increase in consignments bound for Australia, the report from the global watchdog says.

Last month, the Colombian navy seized 225 tonnes of cocaine bound for Australia and discovered a new trans-Pacific trafficking route from South America to Australia.

“We have discovered routes such as Australia and Guyana to open up through the Atlantic to Africa and connect to Europe,” Vice Admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo Obregon said at the time.

Australia and New Zealand have the world’s highest prices for cocaine outside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which punish drug dealing with beheading. To saturate the market, high-profile Australian bikie gangs are “increasingly engaging with Pacific regional syndicates”, according to the UN.

The Comancheros established a chapter in Tonga, named the Kingdom Chapter, in January last year after gang member Eneasi Taumoefolau, 43, was deported from Australia.

“All the deportation has done is enable this group to enliven itself here,” Tongan Police Commissioner Shane McLennan told the ABC in August when Taumoefolau was among 17 people arrested in a major drug sting.

Some of Australia’s 38 bikie gangs have also established chapters in Fiji, the UN says, and are collaborating with the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, the Italian ’Ndrangheta and Asian organised crime syndicates “to smuggle substantial loads of methamphetamine and cocaine into Oceania”.

Australian organised crime figures have also established legitimate businesses in the Pacific to hide drug smuggling beneath a corporate structure, the UN says.

Going into business provides access to the local political and commercial elite. It also provides physical storage for drugs that are to be on-sent to Australia.

“Cocaine is shipped by bulk [to] islands where it can be stockpiled before making its onward journey by cruiser, small craft or fishing vessel,” said the report.

Would-be drug importers have increasingly used yachts to smuggle drugs between Fiji and its neighbours, as well as air cargo, air passenger couriers and concealments inside shipments as diverse as water bottles and beauty products.

“Vessel-to-vessel” transfers, in which drug syndicates pay crews to move their bounty from a large freighter to a smaller boat, have become common, the report says. One example is ex-Sydneysider Vaso Ulic’s alleged attempts to smuggle 2.5 tonnes of cocaine into Sydney during the pandemic.

The region’s isolation – once considered a hindrance – now provides groups with opportunities to operate in less-patrolled waters.

Papua New Guinea has also emerged as a hotspot for transnational drug dealing. Organised crime syndicates use so-called “black ops” flights – unregistered light planes – from remote airstrips around the country to move drugs into Australia.

Crime gangs also use the free movement of small vessels through the Torres Strait to import drugs, the report says.

The UN’s Benedikt Hofmann said more collaboration between regional law enforcement was crucial.

“Small island states, with their limited capacity, cannot face these challenges alone,” he said.

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