A Tongan drug bust this month has put a spotlight on transnational criminal links in the Pacific, just as the island nation is about to host regional leaders for annual talks. Transnational crime is expected to be high on the agenda.
Two police raids at multiple locations across Tongatapu saw the seizure of 6.1 kilograms of methamphetamine, along with cash and money counting machines, and 17 arrests – including one man deported from Australia with reported links to the Commancheros motorcycle gang.
Deportations for criminal activity have been a contentious issue regionally, blamed for the spread of criminality learnt in deporting states. The Australian-based Comancheros have form for having members deported to New Zealand from Australia that become involved in transnational crime.
Tonga has seen 1,010 people returned after criminal overseas since 1998, the majority since 2010. Most arrive from the United States, but New Zealand and Australia are also key deporting states. Most have spent little of their life in Tonga, but retain citizenship.
It is a common refrain in Tonga that deported people are taught to be criminals overseas, in the countries they grew up and where the “social issues actually originate”.
It complicates regional relations, where Australia, New Zealand and the United States are not only deporting states, but also seek to be the principal security and development partners in the Pacific.
In this latest case, the accused man, 43-year-old Eneasi Taumoefolau, was reported to have not lived in Tonga since his family moved to Australia when he was seven or eight. He was deported from Australia in October 2022, just after the borders reopened from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even though an influx of deportations had been expected at that time, limited reintegration support was available. Dare to Dream – a local NGO which specifically supports deported people – had to hire vehicles to greet new arrivals at the airport. This offered a critical first engagement to help people on the right track. But slow information flows and difficulties finding rental cars meant the group could only pick up six of the 21 arrivals between the border re-opening and February 2023. Government funding for a vehicle in July 2024 will help alleviate this pressure, but it is only one part of the reintegration challenge.
There is significant local blame laid on the deporting state for a lack of support provided to countries such as Tonga. It complicates regional relations, where Australia, New Zealand and the United States are not only deporting states, but also seek to be the principal security and development partners in the Pacific. However, funding for reintegration organisations for deported people is frequently refused by diplomats, leaving them financially unsustainable.
Experience in Samoa offers a valuable lesson. The quasi-governmental Samoa Returnees Charitable Trust has received government funding for its operations since 2020, and members (deported people) have a very low recorded reoffending rate. The cost on law enforcement is therefore significantly reduced because of the early investment in social support.
Instead, a lack of support and other factors facilitate the risk of reoffending.
In Tonga, deported people often turn to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. There are limited mental health services in Tonga, where drug-related disorders comprise 40% of psychiatric ward admissions and Salvation Army rehabilitation efforts are struggling. Unfortunately, without other employment opportunities, some deported people become involved with domestic drug supply, going “back to what they know”. Small-scale drug-pushing has been the vast majority of reoffending by returned deported people.
Other reoffending included a manslaughter in 2015, and other issues of assault, burglary, and fraud – all instances of domestic crime. While there has long been talk in law enforcement circles about the risk of deported people becoming involved in transnational criminal activity, this is the first named arrest of a deported person for undertaking transnational criminal activity on their return to the Pacific. Eventual escalation to transnational crime was probable, but alternative support networks and employment opportunities would have reduced this risk of reoffending.
In the latest case, of the 17 arrests, only one person had been deported. Targeting newly-arrived deported people are what civil society groups describe as “vultures” – “because they’re sitting out there looking, if we are slow, they will break the person and recruit the person to their criminal ring, and then they start doing all kinds of stuff… so it’s like a competition between us and the criminals”. It is alleged that the importation of drugs in this case was arranged by a person already incarcerated in Tonga’s prison system.
Also unsurprising was that both a local customs and a prisons officer were among those arrested. Tonga has a history of state-embedded actors facilitating transnational criminal activity, most notably in February when a Tongan senior bank official was found with almost 10 kilograms of methamphetamine at his office at the Reserve Bank, and another 5 kilograms at home. These are Tongans (not deported, but who hold certain levels of status) already engaged in criminal activity and bribery.
Tonga definitely has a drug problem, and the solution should be multifaceted. Deported peoples’ reintegration needs to be supported in a sustainable manner, to reduce the risk of reoffending, and local corruption that facilitates illicit drug movements needs to be combated.
Both require more than just policing, but a whole-of-government and civil society response; not just for the benefit of Tongan society, but also for people who are deported.
