Commentary – As Tonga continues to battle the spread of illicit drugs, a warning from Fiji offers a serious reminder: international drug cartels command vast financial resources—enough to bribe key law‑enforcement officials with what experts describe as mere “pocket change.”
Amit Chand, the chief executive of MSG Logistics, warned that drug cartels operating million‑dollar narco‑submarines can easily afford to bribe law‑enforcement officers in Fiji.
He told a recent counter‑narcotics consultation in Suva that placing the wrong people in sensitive positions poses the greatest threat to the country’s anti‑drug efforts.
Fiji faced a major surge in drug‑related operations this year, beginning on 15 January 2026 when police seized 2.64 tonnes of cocaine during a large‑scale raid in Vatia.
The haul—valued at more than FJ$1.1 billion—was linked to a sophisticated trafficking route involving a semi‑submersible “narco‑sub” arriving from South America, leading to multiple arrests including four Ecuadorian nationals.
Around the same period, authorities intercepted another 2.6‑tonne cocaine shipment valued at approximately $780 million, also traced to a suspected narco‑submarine operation in the remote Vatia region. Six men—four Ecuadorians and two Fijians—were charged after police intercepted cocaine‑laden vehicles and raided a vessel at Vatia Wharf.
Their comments focused on Fiji’s policing risks, but the concerns mirror issues now confronting Tonga’s border‑security systems.
Cases echo regional concerns
The parallels became clearer after 58‑year‑old Mosese Katoa, a senior Customs officer, was recently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment—two years suspended—for importing prohibited firearms, failing to declare goods, and attempting to bribe a colleague with a $50 payment to avoid the scanning of a crate later found to contain rifles, shotguns, a pistol and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
In another major case, Tevita Kolokihakaufisi, an officer at the National Reserve Bank of Tonga, was jailed after 15 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in his office in 2024.
These incidents are among several high‑profile cases in which government officials, including police, Customs staff and prison officers, have been dismissed or imprisoned for their involvement in illicit drug activity.
United Nations and NZ Sound Alarm
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, corruption is a critical enabler of the drug trade, with traffickers routinely using bribes to law‑enforcement and customs officials to move illicit goods and evade accountability.
Such collusion—where officials accept payments or look the other way—creates fertile ground for organised crime to operate, a warning highly relevant to Tonga’s ongoing struggle against drug trafficking and local drug abuse.
A report released last year by New Zealand’s Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime warned that corruption linked to organised crime is accelerating across New Zealand and the Pacific.
Chairperson Steve Symon said insider threats are rising, with criminal networks infiltrating border agencies and spreading into sectors such as law, accounting and immigration.
He noted that drug‑transshipment routes through the Pacific pose a growing danger, describing emerging cases of corrupted officials in the region as “the canary in the mine” for New Zealand, illustrating how easily drug traffickers can exploit government insiders to facilitate their operations.
