It was like a Hollywood mystery. The 13-metre 'ghost' yacht, JaReVe, lay beached on a tiny island in the South Pacific. Inside, Tongan police found a badly decomposed body. Further investigation revealed more than 200 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the hull of the boat bound for Australia.
But the beached vessel was no mystery to police. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had alerted Australian authorities that the JaReVe had departed Ecuador en route to Australia with two crew members. What happened exactly to the ill-fated JaReVe, or the second crew member, is a mystery.
There's nothing really unusual about the massive drug shipment either. The cocaine on the boat had a street value of $116 million in Australia. It's easy for a lone yacht to avoid detection in the large expanses of the Pacific Ocean and the criminal rewards are massive.
The JaReVe wasn't so successful. Law enforcement tracked the yacht from Ecuador to the Cook Islands. At this point, the JaReVe dropped off the police radar and sparked a massive search to find the yacht before it arrived somewhere in Australia. Inevitably, it ended its fateful journey on Luatatifo in the northern Vava'u province of Tonga.
The Australian connection to South American drugs isn't something that looms large in Australian consciousness. The world of Mexican drug lords and firefights between warring drug syndicates seems remote. Like the JaReVe, it sounds more like a movie than Australian reality.
Yet changing circumstances are making Australia a prized destination for South American drugs. A single kilogram of cocaine can be bought for $2,000 in Colombia. That same kilogram of cocaine can sell for $250,000 in Australia. That economy of scale is a significant motivator to drug syndicates.
Drugs, of course, aren't the only problem in the Americas. Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commander David Sharpe says crime trends are cyclical. Counterterrorism was an important focus in the post-September 11 world and has a new focus in response to conflict zones such as Syria and Afghanistan.
Cybercrime is another pressing issue in North America and shares an equal focus with organized crime. The region is also the source and transit point of transnational crime such as money laundering, high-tech and tech-enabled crime and online child sexual exploitation. But drugs in the Americas are always big business for criminals.
International network
The AFP's International Network is a critical element in combatting this transnational crime from the Americas. AFP liaison officers are located in Washington and Los Angeles in the United States and in Bogota, Columbia. A further counterterrorism liaison officer is located in Washington. The AFP also has the Police Advisor United Nations in New York.
The liaison officers provide a vital operational link with international law enforcement agencies — not only in the Americas, but in 36 positions around the world and with INTERPOL and Europol. The primary role is to develop and maintain relationships with the host countries.
Importantly, the network gives the AFP the ability to obstruct organized crime offshore and at its source. Developing real ties with host countries enables and simplifies intelligence-sharing in a way not possible by contacting people unknown on the other side of the world. Host countries also then have a direct point of contact for their own enquiries from the AFP.
"The DEA and the FBI have a strong presence in South America," says Sharpe. "The AFP leverage off the strength of these partnerships in the region to disrupt organized crime syndicates at the source. The key is to be able to develop and maintain those relationships at the highest levels of those agencies."
Partnerships are more than just having a point of contact. The network engages at the highest levels with host governments. AFP members take part in discussion on strategy and the response to organized crime. The AFP's Bogota post has a Transnational Crime Team that includes 10 Colombian police officers.
These are all opportunities enabled by the International Network. In terms of a whole-of-government response, the liaison network in the Americas is closely aligned with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, Attorney Generals Department and Immigration. This enables further opportunities for relationship-building between Australia and the host nations.
Bogota Post, Colombia
The relationship between the AFP's Bogota Post and South American law enforcement is strong. The AFP was recently welcomed into the American Police Community (AMERIPOL) as one of 21 observer agencies. AMERIPOL is essentially modelled on police organizations such as Europol and INTERPOL.
Senior Liaison Officer David Berston, in Bogota, says the seven-year-old AMERIPOL is laying the foundations for a bigger and better future.
"In the past, the law enforcement response has been quite fragmented within this region and working in isolation. Now, through this forum, they are starting to work together," says Berston.
Fighting the drug cartels certainly has its challenges. It's a continually morphing environment where, Berston explains, you squeeze the balloon in one place and it pops out sideways somewhere else. "The quantities here are ridiculous," he says. "Just about daily they're seizing hundreds of kilograms of drugs in various parts of this region."
Successful efforts by Colombian law enforcement have contributed to the displacement of coca cultivation and cocaine production to Peru and Bolivia. According to estimates by U.S. Joint Interagency Taskforce South, up to 23 per cent of South American cocaine production is now emanating from Peru. A portion of the cocaine produced in Peru is being shipped to Australia, but the end destination for the bulk of Peruvian cocaine is unclear.
Ecuador, the departure point of the JaReVe, is becoming increasingly important for law enforcement because of the displacement effect of counter-narcotic operations in Colombia. Driven by the profit margins, availability and the often poor socioeconomic conditions in much of still-developing Colombia and South America in general, the rewards are high and the risks are, at least for the time being, relatively low.
"It's very simple, a lot of these people are very poor and with Colombia being the historical area for cocaine production, there's a significant criminal element in the community that takes advantage of the situation that these people are in with drugs and crime being an easy avenue to make money," Berston says.
The successes of law enforcement, both foreign and domestic, combined with focused government policy has effectively limited the Colombian-based syndicates' ability to operate at the levels they previously enjoyed. This, however, has not eradicated or decreased the drug problem within the region, it has just moved it elsewhere — the 'balloon effect.'
In this case, other countries in the region, such as Peru, are becoming significant producers of cocaine. Ecuador has become a significant trans-shipment point. However, those countries don't have the same government policies, funding and support for law enforcement so the problem intensifies.
Meanwhile, the never-ending attempts to export drugs from South America continue. "We get intelligence reports weekly," says Berston. "Australia is being targeted by criminal groups using whatever methods are available — from small craft, sea containers, couriers through the airstream and in some cases using corrupt insiders to facilitate the transport of drug to our country."
Fast boats are used to take drugs offshore to upload to other small craft or container ships and avoid taking drugs through ports. The emergence of semisubmersibles and submarines are just one further criminal innovation to ship drugs in sea lanes.
"It's not just always cocaine," Berston says. "Methamphetamine, heroine and synthetic drugs are all produced and transported from this region and those enterprises are growing. It's ill conceived to focus on and target specific commodities like cocaine. The syndicates are just about making money and whatever commodity suits will be used towards that goal."
This is the importance of AMERIPOL. Berston says the opportunity for collaboration between the 30 member countries and 21 observer countries and organizations, including U.S. and European agencies, can't be overstated. He's hugely optimistic about the innovations within AMERIPOL that are just around the corner.
"The Spanish are currently developing an information-sharing database that member nations will link to, similar to the INTERPOL database. "It's going to be invaluable when it gets up and everyone starts using it," Berston says.
Another innovation is collaborative training. "A lot of this is about co-operation and collaboration. The joint training is where they're really going to get a good purchase on what they need to do to start fighting these bigger cartels. This forum is enabling them to start working together."
A unified law enforcement response in the South and Central Americas spells bad news for criminal syndicates. A collaborative offensive on cartels would circumvent the balloon bubble effect created by the success of law enforcement and government policy in a country such as Colombia. It may just burst the balloon altogether.
This article is printed courtesy of AFP Platypus magazine.