New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.

Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.

The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.

Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.

Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.

Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.

Deportation policies
However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.

In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.

The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.

When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.

“The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.

“I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.

“So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”

Pacific nation difficulties
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.

In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.

These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.

New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.

Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.

“I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.

“I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”

This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders.

According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were working on stories linked to the environment.

Twenty four were murdered in Latin America and Asia — including the Pacific, which makes these two regions the most dangerous ones for environmental reporters.

From restrictions on access to information and gag suits to physical attacks, the work of environmental journalists and their safety are increasingly threatened.

RSF has denounced the obstacles to the right to information about ecological and climate issues and calls on all countries to recognise the vital nature of the work of environmental journalists, and to guarantee their safety.

Nearly half of the journalists killed in India in the past 10 years — 13 of 28 — were working on environmental stories that often also involved corruption and organised crime, especially the so-called “sand mafia,” which illegally excavates millions of tons of this precious resource for the construction industry.

Amazon deforestation
Journalists covering the challenges of deforestation in the Amazon are also constantly subjected to threats and harassment that prevent them from working freely.

The scale of the problem was highlighted in 2022 by the murder of Dom Phillips, a British reporter specialised in environmental issues.

“Regarding the environmental and climate challenges we face, the freedom to cover these issues is essential,” said RSF’s editorial director Anne Bocandé.

“RSF’s staff battles tirelessly to prevent economic and political interests from obstructing the right to information. Your generosity makes this fight possible.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s government has taken the local leader of an influential South Korean doomsday sect into immigration custody after he and several other members of the Grace Road Church were declared “prohibited migrants” based on charges filed in 2018.

Fiji had announced last Thursday that it was taking steps to deport Daniel Kim and the other sect members who had been detained.

The passports of the sect members had been annulled by the Korean government in 2021, and Interpol “red notices” were issued against them.

Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua revealed that all of this had been ignored by the previous repressive Fiji government led by former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama, according to Fijivillage News and other local media.

Tikoduadua said two sect members had already been deported while the deportations of another two were temporarily halted by a court order.

One more member was still at large.

OCCRP investigated Grace Road and its close ties to the Bainimarama regime last year. Kim and others had managed to evade a 2018 INTERPOL red notice until the new government acted. https://t.co/i4d0XtVLYS

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) September 7, 2023

A joint investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP) and KICJ-Newstapa last year exposed how the secretive Grace Road became an economic powerhouse in Fiji during the 16-year rule of Bainimarama, who lost power in elections last December.

Reporters discovered that the church was able to thrive in Fiji despite Kim and other key members being wanted on international warrants.

The investigation also uncovered how the church expanded its empire, which included a farm, restaurants, petrol stations, and supermarkets, all while receiving millions in state-backed loans.

Grace Road’s spiritual leader, Kim’s mother Ok-joo Shin, was arrested at Seoul’s international airport in 2018 and imprisoned for offences, including assault, child abuse, and imprisoning church members.

Around the same time, South Korean police attempted to bring Kim and other church members back on similar charges in Fiji but were forced to return empty-handed after a court blocked their removal.

Republished with permission from the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP).

The press statement was clear enough — that the Interpol Red Notice described these individuals as “Fugitive wanted for Prosecution”. pic.twitter.com/EjqJcyVVwv

— Pio Tikoduadua (@piotikoduaduafj) September 8, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former prime ministers, an opposition leader, and an ex-central bank governor have added their voices to a growing chorus of concerns about the Fiji government’s “close association” with a Korean doomsday Christian cult that has reportedly benefited from millions of dollars from a state-backed institution.

Award-winning investigative journalism organisations, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Korean Centre for Investigative Journalists (KCIJ), published a major exposé this week, that zeros in on the rapid expansion of the controversial Grace Road Church business empire through Prime Minister Voreqe  Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government’s help.

The two groups have revealed that Grace Road, whose leader Ok-joo Shin is in a Korean prison for “assault, child abuse, and imprisoning church members” and whose top executives remain under international police warrants, has received at least FJ$8.5 million (NZ$6.1m) in loans from the Fiji Development Bank (FDB) since 2015.

The FDB is a government-backed institution established to develop the country’s economy by providing finance to local small and medium agricultural enterprises. But Grace Road, which established as a foreign investor in 2014, started getting FDB loans just a year after it began operations.

According to the OCCRP-KCIJ, that money has helped the sect propel itself into a major entity in the Fijian economy, spreading its footprint throughout the main island of Viti Levu, with plans to develop further.

“The sect now operates the country’s largest chain of restaurants, controls roughly 400 hectares of farmland, owns eight supermarkets and mini marts, and runs five Mobil petrol stations. Its businesses also provide services such as dentistry, events catering, heavy construction, and Korean beauty treatments,” the two investigative groups report.

‘Red carpet treatment’
The investigations also uncovered Fijian police’s failure to investigate and charge the top leaders of the sect who were arrested four years ago on allegations of human rights abuses of its followers, but were released soon after when “a local court temporarily blocked their deportation”.

“The South Korean police said that the Fijian police had released the Grace Road members after a high-level meeting that included Fiji’s late immigration chief, the prime minister’s personal private secretary, the solicitor-general, and the country’s top prosecutor,” according to OCCRP-KJIC.

OCCRP’s Pacific editor, Aubrey Belford, told RNZ Pacific the core issue with Grace Road in Fiji was the perception it had been given the red carpet treatment by the government.

“They showed up in the country less than 10 years ago and in that time they have managed to build what is now one of the biggest business empires in the country,” Belford said.

“We counted 54 business establishments currently running in the country — 55 If you count the huge farm they have in Navua. They’re really everywhere.”

He said the OCCRP was able to uncover “that no one knew” that FDB provided Grace Road millions of dollars in loans to finance its business aspirations.

Belford said the police investigation into the alleged abuses of its members in Fiji had been ongoing for several years but had “gone nowhere” despite Fijian police officers travelling to Seoul to collect victim statements from key witnesses.

Former church member Yoon-jae Lee with two Fiji police officers. Image: Yoon-jae Lee

Government dismisses claims
“There is no conspiracy or cover-up here,” Fiji’s Director of Public Prosecution Christopher Pryde told OCCRP-KCIJ.

OCCRP-KCIJ said the South Korean Embassy in Suva declined to be interviewed, citing “the sensitive issues of the matter on Grace Road Church and ongoing Korean-Fijian law enforcement cooperation”.

Fijian authorities have remained quiet about the claims made in the report, but Attorney-General and Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Kahiyum deflected media questions on Tuesday, telling reporters the investigations were “done by some organisation who we have never heard about”.

RNZ Pacific has contacted Grace Road for comment.

But with an election looming, Fijian political leaders are calling for Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum to “come clean” about their dealings with the Korean group.

Former prime ministers Sitiveni Rabuka and Mahendra Chaudhry, who lead the People’s Alliance and the Labour Party respectively; the leader of the major opposition SODELPA, Viliame Gavoka; as well as former Reserve Bank of Fiji Governor Savenaca Narube are all calling for an official inquiry.

Rabuka has labelled the close links between the government and Grace Road a “disgrace”.

“It is a disgrace that this foreign sect whose founder is serving jail time in Korea for abusing its adherents has been given the red carpet treatment by the FijiFirst government,” Rabuka said.

“What equity did they bring as part of the deals to justify the $8.5m lending?” he asked, adding: “It seems that this government will willingly leave Fijians behind for the sake of assisting their own rich foreign friends.”

Rabuka said his People’s Alliance would launch an investigation into the operations of Grace Road Church if the alliance formed a government after the 2022 election.

Chaudhry said he hoped the findings uncovered by OCCRP would “bring out the truth”.

“Many here have questioned whether the Fiji police investigations into the complaints against the group have been hamstrung by political interference,” Chaudhry said.

“It is believed that a number of powerful people may have personally benefited from the activities of the Grace Road group in return for favours extended to it.”

Chaudhry said the Fiji police investigation was “just a joke”.

“We have raised this issue many times before but without results, because the group appears to have the backing of the government top brass who have not hesitated to defend them even in Parliament,” the Labour leader added.

‘Gravely concerned’
SODELPA’s Gavoka said he was “gravely concerned with revelations” of the investigations.

“There have been unspoken concerns among our people with respect to the fast-growing expansion of the Grace Road business in Fiji, while many are aware of past reports alleging gross abuse of human rights and workers’ rights,” he said.

“SODELPA demands the FijiFirst Government and local authorities act and come clean; and put all these to an end.”

Gavoka is calling on Bainimarama’s government to “declare its interest on Grace Road”.

“We cannot allow such incidences on allegations of criminal conduct on gross violations of human and workers’ rights on our land.”

Former Reserve Bank of Fiji governor and leader of the Unity Fiji party Narube said they had “watched with great concern” the friendly relations between the Bainimarama government and the sect.

“We have seen the rapid expansion of Grace Road into sectors that are reserved for the Fiji citizens and companies,” Narube said.

“We have been informed of the rapid processing of their business applications compared to others. We have seen many foreign workers in jobs that would be easily filled by locals. We are concerned about the allegations of physical and mental abuses within the sect.”

With a general election looming, Narube said a Unity Fiji government would apply the laws fairly and uniformly.

“A Unity Fiji government would therefore investigate the ties between the government and Grace Road to clear all the allegations and perceptions.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz