FIJI has become the frontline of the Pacific’s drug war intercepting 4.5 tonnes of methamphetamine worth $3.6 billion on the street in just three years as regional security leaders warn that criminal networks are now embedded deep inside Pacific communities.
The staggering figures, disclosed at the Pacific Peace and Security Dialogue in Suva this week by Fiji’s Permanent Secretary for Policing Berenado Daveta, include a single 4.1-tonne methamphetamine bust and a 2.6-tonne cocaine seizure in January alone — all on top of 26.5 tonnes of cannabis worth $197million seized in the same period.
“Fiji is treating this as almost a national security threat,” Mr Daveta said, adding that a joint military-police operation had uprooted 74,000 marijuana plants in Fiji’s northern interior in just three months.
The drug crisis has triggered a parallel health emergency. Fiji declared a national HIV outbreak in January 2025, with cases surging 27 per cent to more than 2000 in a single year — a fivefold jump from 415 cases in 2023, driven in large part by needle-sharing among drug users. Palau’s Justice Minister Jennifer Olegeriil said the Pacific was no longer merely a transit route for drugs moving between Asia and the lucrative Australian and New Zealand markets.
“We are no longer just a transiting hub — we are now a market destination,” she said.
“Criminal networks are already working together across borders. Our collaboration must be just as good, even better than theirs,” Ms Olegeriil said.
