New Zealand is significantly boosting its Pacific Detection Dog Programme to counter the rising tide of methamphetamines flooding the region — much of it enroute to our shores.
The canine detectors worked in a perilous environment, as proven by the unsolved murder of New Zealand trained Eto in Fiji.
The programme, which sent dogs and trained handlers in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands, was funded by the New Zealand government and implemented by New Zealand Police.
From 2018, New Zealand invested $3.8 million but that would be increased to $6.7 million for the next five years.
Ports popular with yachts were getting more detector dogs — Tonga’s Vava’u woull get another two and Savusavu in Fiji will get four teams.
National Coordinator Police Dogs Inspector Todd Southall said two Explosive Detector Dogs were also proposed for Fiji and they would support capability within both Samoa and Tonga.
In a statement to 1News Southall said the five-year funding would focus on insider threats and corruption which were huge risks to the programme.
Safety measures and a number of initiatives have been put in place for the Police K9’s in the Pacific as were coming under threat by drug dealers.
The unsolved killing of detector dog Eto
New Zealand Police-trained dog Eto, who helped find narcotics valued at millions of dollars, was poisoned in Fiji five years ago and no one was arrested for her killing.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said it was an absolute tragedy when a colleague or dog was lost.
“But we also know that when you join the police — whether that’s here in New Zealand or the Pacific — you know those are the realities of the situations we often find ourselves dealing with.”
Associate Professor Jose Sousa-Santos from Canterbury University’s Pacific Regional Security Hub said even measures such as looking at who provided water to the dogs was important.
“These dogs become a real thorn in the foot of drug smugglers and criminal entities in the region so they will be targeted,” he said.
New Zealand’s detector dogs were very much in demand at the borders in Samoa. There was talk of meth being manufactured there but 1News understood local syndicates were getting the drug from overseas.
One person, heavily involved in the Samoa’s meth scene, said she knew it was coming in from the US, American Samoa, Australia and Fiji.
Villages and community groups rally to try and push back the wave of illegal drugs hitting the Pacific Island nation. (Source: 1News)
Jose Sousa-Santos said it was troubling that indigenous criminal syndicates — tied to national criminal organisations and facilitating movement of drugs to the region — were also driving the local market.
“We’ve seen this develop into an indigenous regional criminal syndicate where these entities have connected, where these entities are now supporting each others’ operations where, for example, Fijian criminal syndicates can reach out to counterparts in Samoa,” he said.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said New Zealand would work very closely with Pacific nations to support them in their fight against the impact of transnational organised crime.
“The relationship that I have with Pacific nations and Pacific Commissioners is critically important not only for those Pacific nations in terms of their own safety and security, but also here in New Zealand — given that the Pacific is a pathway to our own country”.
