Maritime drug smuggling into Australia

The key drugs trafficked into Australia by sea are methamphetamine (and its precursors), most commonly known as ice, as well as cocaine, and heroin. Groups which participate in this practice include Australian outlaw biker gangs, Mexican drug cartels, Asian drug syndicates, and those operating in smaller crime rings. Key groups involved in anti-drug smuggling measures in Australia include the Australian Government, Australian Border Force, Australian Federal Police, State Police Forces, and the Royal Australian Navy.

Australia is seen as an attractive target for criminal organisations involved in maritime drug trafficking due to the high price of drugs in Australia, and high demand for drugs in Australia. A kilogram of methamphetamine in Australia is priced at roughly 80 times the price of its cost in China.[2] A kilogram of cocaine in Sydney would yield roughly $250,000 Australian Dollars, whereas it would cost $16,000 in Brownsville, Texas.[3] Based on information gained from key seizures, some key methods of drug smugglers into Australia include doing so through fishing boats, yachts and large container ships. The final method is one of key concern, as a container ship creates the potential to smuggle large quantities of drugs, with container inspecting capabilities remaining limited.[4]

As established previously, while the drugs being trafficked into Australia do not tend to originate in the South Pacific, much of the drugs do in fact pass through South Pacific states and territories, of which key origin points are South America and Asia.[19] For cocaine, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report that the most important departure countries for Australia-bound cocaine are the United States, Canada, Argentina and Brazil.[20]

The Pacific islands have been viewed as vulnerable to maritime drug trafficking activities for some time, given their location representing a stop-over for Pacific operations between Asia, the Americas and Australia, as well as helping to disguise routes.[21] In addition, the lack of law enforcement capabilities and the existence of corruption complicates matters.

While exact routes taken by maritime drug traffickers targeting Australia will be almost impossible to determine, the common denominator between much of these routes is that the drugs will pass through Pacific Island states and territories on Australia’s doorstep.

Criminal groups are increasingly exploiting vulnerable Pacific states and territories in order to move drugs to the Australian market.[22] Much of these states experience a lack of anti-trafficking capabilities and therefore a lack of ability to independently police their waters.[23] As of 2016, only Fiji, Tonga, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia are party to the United Nations drug control convention in the region.

Much of the drug-related laws in the region cannot keep pace with modern trends, for example criminalising synthetic drugs.[19] The transnational Pacific Drug and Alcohol Research Network has been inactive since 2011 due to financial constraints, and Pacific law enforcement agencies work in relative isolation, while being up against criminal groups with sophisticated transnational networks.[19]

It is likely that anyone who participates in large-scale maritime drug smuggling into Australia is, or is linked to, a criminal organisation, but the degree to which this might happen can vary.  Participants may be directly part of crime groups such as Asian drug gangs, Mexican cartels, or Australian outlaw biker groups, or smaller groups or even individuals operating in rings.

Some have argued that the post-9/11 preoccupation of terrorism has led to gaps in investigation and intelligence to combat the modern, ever-sophisticated transnational criminal networks.[24] Such networks include not only the previously mentioned partnerships between Mexican cartels and Australia-based criminal groups, but also for example partnerships between Mexican cartels and Chinese organised crime groups.[25] In order to improve their resilience, these cartels have also become organisations dealing with many kinds of drugs, as well as other activities such as people smuggling and extortion.[24]

A variety of push and pull factors can help to explain the presence of Mexican cartels in Australia,[26] with the lower demand for cocaine coupled with higher profitability seen in operating in Australia or Europe leading to these cartels to branch out away from only Mexico, with Australia having some of the world’s highest prices for drugs in the world, while still having a large demand from drug users.

Chinese crime groups are also active in contributing to maritime methamphetamine trafficking to Australia, and are also collaborating with Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs, with a significant percentage of methamphetamine seized at the border coming from China.

Australia has responded through law enforcement, naval forces, and policy in order to attempt to combat the issue of maritime drug smuggling into Australia, with many transnational cooperation initiatives and joint organisational busts.

The Australian Navy seeks to control maritime crime as a priority, both on its own and with transnational partnerships and groupings also.[27] This includes counter-narcotics operations. Some notable operations include the now decommissioned warship HMAS Darwin being part of Operation Slipper, which was the Australian Defence Force’s contribution to an international campaign against drug trafficking, piracy and terrorism in the Indian Ocean.[28] This served as a deterrent and monitoring capability, but has also yielded tangible results as seen in the 2014 seizure of the record heroin haul at sea (over 1 tonne) together with the Royal Navy.[28] HMAS Arunta is also deployed to the East Coast of Africa in order to disrupt the flow of drug money to terrorist organisations as part of a larger international effort against terrorism.[29] The United Nations estimates that over half of the Taliban's income stems from the narcotics trade.[29] The federal police have also of course been a key role in responses to maritime drug trafficking to Australia, with it playing a key role in many busts, including the cocaine busts in the South Pacific crackdown.[11]

Policy responses include attempting to lessen the ice (methamphetamine) issue in Australia through the National Ice Taskforce’s nation-wide strategy and the July 2016 commitment from the Australian government to spend nearly A$300 million in the next 4 years in educational, preventative, treatment, community engagement initiatives in order to combat methamphetamine.[7] The 2018 A$293 million allocation in the budget to improve airport security and cargo screening[30] is also a response and potential deterrent to would-be drug traffickers targeting Australia. However, it is important to mention that as of 2016, Australia does not have a clear strategy with which to engage with Association of Southeast Asian Nations's law enforcement agencies to tackle the shared transnational problem of narcotics smuggling,[31] which can be seen as an area of necessary improvement and increased importance going forward.

There is also the opportunity for Australian authorities to try to tackle maritime drug smuggling by employing resources typically used for other means, by essentially expanding the duties of certain initiatives or organisations. This may be a theme of increasing prevalence in the South Pacific due to aforementioned lack of capabilities. One such example of this is the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) based in Honiara, of which Australia is a member. The FFA surveillance centre monitors up to 30 million square kilometres of ocean,[32] encompassing the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of 15 island nations not including Australia and New Zealand. While this is done to monitor tuna fishing vessels in order to protect tuna fishing license income, its operations can expand to monitor drug smuggling and other similar issues such as people smuggling with a marginal cost increase.[32]

• Maritime security
• Crime in Australia