The rise in drug trafficking through Fiji is just one part of a booming trans-Pacific trade that experts and law enforcement say has become one of the world’s most profitable. Photo: James O’Brien / OCCRP
The operator of a Pacific-wide network of pharmacy companies, Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, was sentenced to four years prison in New Zealand in August for illegally importing millions of dollars' worth of pseudoephedrine, a precursor chemical of methamphetamine.
But a joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Fiji Times, the New Zealand Herald, and Radio New Zealand has found that behind the conviction of Umarji was a far murkier story.
The Fijian national, had long been a target of police in his home country but had for years escaped justice.
That was thanks to what Fijian and international law enforcement say was an unwillingness by the previous authoritarian government of Frank Bainimarama to seriously tackle meth and cocaine trafficking.
Fiji's new government, which was elected last December, is now investigating donations that Umarji and his family made to the previous ruling party, as well as "potential connections" to top law enforcement officials.
RNZ Pacific Editor, Koroi Hawkins spoke with the lead Pacific Editor for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Aubrey Belford, and began by asking how they got wind of the story.
