Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Pio Tikoduadua has confirmed he signed the deportation order of two Chinese nationals on June 8 at the request of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
He said this was part of Fiji’s obligation towards transnational crime agreements with other jurisdictions, including USA.
Arrested and deported to Hawaii were Qingzhou Wang, 35, and Yiyi Chen, 31.
“We received the request from DEA and our local authorities — Fiji Police Force and Fiji Revenue and Customs Service – were able to locate the two,” he said.
“They are Chinese nationals and they got a visa on arrival in Fiji. They had arrived from the USA.”
Mr Tikoduadua said the arrest of the two showed criminals involved in major crimes could enter the country undetected.
“Thankfully we have credible law enforcement units to quickly go into action and arrest them like it happened in this case.
“I commend our officers for a job well done.”
Police spokesperson Ana Naisoro said due to the nature of the multinational operation and the involvement of several law enforcement agencies, they would not be making any comments.
