Washington has launched a coordinated policing program for the Pacific, naming Palau as the region's training and operations hub, with more than $44 million committed to countering drug cartels. The announcement follows September's Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Palau and an inaugural US-Pacific Islands Conference of Police Ministers in Los Angeles on October 21-22, where senior police officials from the Pacific islands, Australia, New Zealand, France and Southeast Asia gathered.
The scale of the problem is significant for anyone travelling in the region. Fiji declared its drug crisis a national emergency earlier this year, and the Pacific has been described as a new "narco highway" for methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine moving from labs in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Southeast Asia. From January to July, maritime authorities intercepted ten drug-ferrying ships across the Marshall Islands, Fiji, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. The Asia-Pacific illicit drug trade was valued at an estimated $30.3 to $61.4 billion as of 2019, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Palau gets the biggest slice: a $7 million regional maritime law enforcement training and coordination centre, serving as headquarters for the Aumoana Regional Law Enforcement Initiative and housing US and regional liaison officers. Two US Customs and Border Protection officers will spend 60 days there on an advise-and-assist pilot.
Other islands receive targeted support: $1.3 million to train investigators in Fiji, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau; $1.4 million in maritime surveillance gear for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Fiji's maritime services and the Pacific Transnational Crime Coordination Center in Samoa; a new boat ramp in Fiji; four camera-equipped patrol boats for Papua New Guinea's National Fisheries Authority; and advanced cargo screening at Queen Salote International Wharf in Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa.
The effort also plugs Pacific police into Interpol's 196-country network and draws on the World Customs Organization's 187 member administrations to train local officers in the channels traffickers exploit — general aviation, international mail and detector-dog operations. The US Coast Guard will expand Shiprider agreements, under which Pacific officers ride aboard US cutters with authority to enforce their own laws across their exclusive economic zones, waters far too vast for any single nation to patrol alone.
Why should holidaymakers care? Drug-related crime is one of the most visible security challenges facing Pacific destinations, and Fiji's own government has treated it as an emergency. A better-resourced, better-coordinated police presence should mean safer ports, airports and island communities — and fewer disruptions for visitors. Travellers should simply stay alert to local advisories, particularly around busy ports like Nuku'alofa, and avoid any involvement with illegal substances, where penalties across the Pacific are severe.
Pacific Island Times
