‘No Longer A Remote Threat’: Law Enforcers Unite To Tackle Trans-Pacific Drug Smuggling

Patrick
Decloitre RNZ Pacific French Pacific desk
correspondent

Law enforcement decision-makers met in
Nouméa last week in an attempt to better coordinate the
fight against trans-Pacific drug smuggling, under the theme
“Pacific United Against Drug Trafficking at
Sea”.

“Narco traffic is no longer just a remote threat
for the Pacific. It is a reality that directly affects our
maritime spaces, our territories and our population,” French
High Commissioner in New Caledonia Jacques Billant told the
gathering on 5 and 6 November.

The audience included
about 150 high officials from fifteen neighbouring
countries, including Australia and New Zealand.

He
said the two-day meeting did not aim to sign any regional
treaty, but to initiate a more efficient cooperation between
countries and territories in the region in terms of fighting
against the transhipment of narcotics.

Trans-Pacific
highway’

The traffic volume has significantly risen
over the past few years, on what is now dubbed a
“Trans-Pacific highway”, mainly from Central and South
America (where the substances are produced) to the Western
Pacific, mostly destination markets such as Australia and
New Zealand.

Seventeen tonnes of drugs, mostly
cocaine, were seized in the Pacific region during the first
half of 2026.

“It’s four times as much as 2025,”
Billant told the Pacific law enforcers, mainly police, army,
customs, maritime forces and legal officers.

Some of
these recent catches involved New Caledonia, as well as
French Polynesia.

The New Zealand delegation included
representatives from police, customs and the PACPOL
Secretariat hosted in Wellington.

Intelligence
sharing

“We have exchanged and compared our methods,
our challenges,” Billant said.

The participants also
exchanged intelligence on how drug traffickers were
operating and constantly adapting to an ever-evolving
regional criminal environment.

Once relying on
transport via sailboats and commercial cargo ships, the
delivery method for drugs is now shifting to the “drop-off”
technique in coastal areas, where floating shipments,
sometimes unmanned and equipped with GPS transmitters, are
later recovered by smaller vessels.

In one of the
latest finds, in late October 2026, one of these GPS-fitted
floating packages was found by a fisherman in Wallis and
Futuna.

In French Polynesia, a total of eight tonnes
of cocaine was seized in January and February
2026.

Off New Caledonia’s coastlines, in June 2025,
2.5 tonnes of cocaine were seized onboard a Peru-flagged
vessel.

“What we have facing us is organised, mobile
and patient. It would be a mistake to believe that just one
country can address the issue on its own. If we don’t do
anything we are at risk of being affected more quickly than
we think,” Billant told local media.

“Drug industry is
an economy. So a market is a market, this is business. These
organisations have a phenomenal financial power,”
Nouméa-based public prosecutor Camille Miansoni
said.

French Ambassador for the Pacific Véronique
Roger-Lacan said: “Our objective is not to create yet
another platform.”

“We want to insert ourselves in the
existing regional architecture, as reiterated at the latest
Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ meeting in August in Palau,”
Roger-Lacan said.

She added a recently created
“Pacific Academy” could contribute to the regional effort by
training more Pacific security forces.

Another
significant challenge was to navigate between the region’s
different legal
systems.

© Scoop Media