A 50-year-old man from Papua New Guinea has been sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment after a PNG court found him guilty of orchestrating a plot to smuggle nearly five kilograms of methamphetamine into Australia through the Torres Strait.
The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) arrested the man in Port Moresby on 1 December 2023, following an extensive investigation that led to the detention of five others involved in the syndicate. The Daru District Court in PNG’s Western Province handed down his sentence on 12 October 2024 after he was convicted on charges of possession and trafficking under the PNG Controlled Substances Act 2021.
The investigation was triggered by intelligence suggesting a criminal network in PNG was targeting Australia as a destination for drug imports. The Australian Federal Police (AFP), working alongside the RPNGC, identified a man and woman allegedly attempting to move methamphetamine by boat from PNG to Bamaga, a remote community in Cape York’s Northern Peninsula Area.
Coordinated intelligence sharing between the AFP’s Thursday Island Office and the RPNGC Transnational Crime Unit led to a series of arrests. On 22 November 2023, two men and a woman were detained in Mabaduan, PNG, followed by two more men in Daru on 28 November 2023. The suspected leader of the syndicate was arrested in Port Moresby in early December.
The AFP estimates the meth could have been divided into over 50,000 street-level deals. PNG courts have sentenced the five other syndicate members for their involvement, with four men receiving 16-year terms and a 47-year-old woman given an eight-year sentence.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Pacific Nigel Ryan praised the joint effort in tackling cross-border drug trafficking, emphasising the importance of intelligence sharing. “Organised crime groups wrongly assume certain routes or quantities can go undetected,” he said. “Our partnership with PNG police is essential to stopping these dangerous drugs from infiltrating and harming both Pacific and Australian communities.”
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