A legal grey area has emerged over who will investigate a suspected drug-smuggling vessel found carrying almost five tonnes of cocaine bound for Australia.
Crewed by 11 Honduran and Ecuadorian nationals, the ship was intercepted by French armed forces in international waters near French Polynesia two weeks ago.
Authorities haven’t put a dollar figure on the seized cocaine, but experts say it has a street value of as much as $1.5 billion in Australia.
French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson confirmed to the ABC that authorities dumped the haul at sea.
“When you throw all the merchandise, you know, in the ocean, it’s a big loss for these drug dealers,” he said, but overcrowded prisons prevented the French territory from prosecuting the crew.
The vessel – the MV Raider – and crew were allowed to sail away unopposed.
Whether the crew will be investigated and what jurisdiction would be responsible remains unclear. Brotherson said those on board would “probably” see a courtroom eventually.
“We have a few crews already from ships that were transporting drugs that are now crowding our prisons, so it’s not our vocation to accommodate all these drug smugglers,” he said. “We leave it to the country of origin or the country of destination.”
Whose responsibility is it?
The MV Raider is reported to be docked at Avatiu Port in the Cook Islands, after entering Rarotonga waters under a distress call for engine repairs.
Cook Islands Customs said border agencies conducted a search after it arrived on 24 January and “nothing was found”.
The captain and crew were also questioned.
Brotherson said French Polynesia’s interception of the ship took place outside its exclusive economic zone, meaning it was an international matter.
“It’s not a question of responsibility,” he said. “It’s a question of prosecution and who wants to prosecute those people.
“There is an ongoing international co-operation between the police forces and customs agencies throughout the Pacific, and all information about the ship has been passed to police forces around the Pacific.”
Australian Federal Police declined to comment on whether they were tracking the vessel or planning to make arrests.
The MV Raider is not the only suspected drug vessel released by French authorities in the last fortnight.
On Wednesday, the French Navy said it had seized another 4.25 tonnes of cocaine from a second ship near French Polynesia.
The French High Commission in the island territory said the vessel from Central America was believed bound for South America, but much like the first ship bound for Australia, its cargo was destroyed at sea, and the vessel and its crew was freed.
Officials told AFP the prosecutor’s office did not bring charges to avoid burdening the local court with a case of drug trafficking not destined for French Polynesia itself.
Meanwhile, in Fiji, 11 people were charged after the capture of cocaine worth $780 million in the country’s west last month.
Volume of drugs unprecedented
Steve Symon, the chair of New Zealand’s Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime, said the amount of drugs coming through the Pacific en-route to Australia and New Zealand was unprecedented.
“Drugs used to come through Asia, but now there’s a new gateway through the Americas, down through the Pacific to New Zealand and Australia,” he said.
“In New Zealand, for example, the amount of methamphetamine our customs officers stopped in the entirety of 2014 is the same amount they’ve currently stopped every week in the last year.”
