Page 13 - IB March 2018 Edition

Cover Story

work collaboratively with all those agen- evich Shipulin and Nataliya Gerasimova
cies, but also across borders in terms of who had lived on a nearby farm.
sharing that information and being alerted And then there’s Police have been tight-lipped about
to those activities, before it hits you or investigations.
comes through your borders,” Paeniu said. also organised But the remote piece of land on which
“Cooperation and collaboration of all they lived and where no farm took shape
customs and border security agencies and motorcycle gangs despite the presence of all the necessary
officials – biosecurity, immigration, the pipes, pumps and nursery cloth, their
legal people, police is critical mysterious disappearance and decapita-
“There’s a whole effort being looked now coming into tion pointed to a gang-style execution.
at to work out how they can better work There have been suggestions that a
together in their joint interests.” the Pacific – team sent to murder the couple could have
Much of the work to control the Out- arrived and left undetected by sea.
lawed Motorcycle Gangs and other play- we’ve seen signs In May 2011, Lieutenant-Colonel Roko
ers in the transnational crime business Tevita Uluilakeba Mara was picked up
lies at the feet of national and regional of that off Fiji’s southern island of Kadavu and
policing units set up especially to handle spirited off to Tonga where he remains in
these cases. exile today.
Most Pacific nations have a Transna- Two years earlier Australian conman
tional Crime Unit which comprises of- Peter Foster escaped Fijian authorities by
ficers from police, customs, immigration, – Seve Paeniu, Oceania ship to Vanuatu.
bio-security and other border control or Customs Organisation It is against this backdrop of weak
management authorities. border protection that Pacific law enforce-
From these national centres, informa- ment agencies must work with limited
tion is shared through the regional hub ment agencies, particularly Customs, resources against multi-billion dollar crime
in Apia, Samoa. receive enough support from regional syndicates.
Set up by the Australian Federal Police governments? Closer to home New Zealand police have
and the New Zealand Police Service, “Not necessarily,” Paeniu said, “so expressed concern about the Australian
the centre takes staff from bor- that’s part of my outreach activity in 2018. Comanchero, Lone Wolf, Finks, Mongols,
der control authorities across “Customs do not necessarily get the sup- Notorious and Descendants motorcycle
the region and reports to the port they need. My view is that it’s perhaps clubs.
Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police. to do with promoting the understanding These clubs have set up chapters in
“The unit allows countries and awareness of our key functions not New Zealand and want to muscle in on
to provide intelligence to only as a money-earning entity but also the drug trade.
cooperating agencies and to as a protector of the borders.” Customs agencies across the region
each other providing informa- With the burgeoning use of electronic have gone into preventative mode as the
tion alerts,” Paeniu said. media in the region, even small countries threat looms larger than ever before.
“The unit has elements of like Samoa have become targets for cy- “So we (the Oceania Customs Organisa-
police, customs, and immigration ber criminals who comb Facebook and tions) provide expertise to member coun-
– all the border security agencies other social media networks for innocent tries on how they can better protect their
accessing the same set of informa- victims. borders by risk profiling,” Paeniu said.
tion and feeding in information This forced the Central Bank of Samoa “Before a traveller comes in they do
which can be shared with other to issue a scammer alert to internet users advance profiling of that particular com-
countries. after organised criminals, used Facebook modity or person and identify what type of
“That information is to defraud Samoans. risk level that person or commodity poses
secure and confidential “Please be alert and vigilant of these so that it can be addressed even before the
and allows them to scammers on the social network like transaction takes place.”
take pro-active Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram
action against.” and the like,” the CBS alert said. IB: In terms of building intelligence
In its fight Compared to Outlawed Motorcycle capacity in the Customs commu-
against organ- Gangs and the Russian Mafia or Japanese nity in the Pacific, how important
ised crime, the Yakuza and Chinese triads, internet scam- will that be in view of these new
OCO works closely ming is relatively mild. crimes?
with the Samoa cen- The threat from the gangs is real – Paeniu: There’s a lot of work that has
tre. prostitution, extortion, drugs, arms and already gone into it and we work very
“We recognise that violence. closely with our partner organisations
Customs alone can’t In June 2016 the bodies of a Russian like the police.
address this and no couple were found off Natadola on Fiji’s
one country alone Coral Coast. But will it be enough to stop the
can stop transnational The international Police Organisation, gangs?
crime,” Paeniu said. INTERPOL, was called to assist in inves-
So do law enforce- tigations into the deaths of Yuri Anatoly- r netrika66@gmail.com

Islands Business, March 2018 13