Australia and New Zealand are the main destination markets for this drug trafficking, Jacques Billant told reporters in Nouméa.
Drug trafficking is no longer a distant threat for the Pacific; it is a reality that directly concerns our maritime spaces, our territories, and also our populations.
He spoke at the end of a seminar bringing together representatives from twelve Pacific countries and territories to better coordinate interceptions at sea and judicial investigations into narcotics trafficking.
The seminar was organized at the initiative of Jacques Billant and Camille Miansoni, the attorney general at the Nouméa Court of Appeal.
In transit territories, consumer markets can develop, Camille Miansoni noted.
The networks are becoming professional and rely on logistics platforms, sometimes far from the interception sites. To trace those who organize and finance shipments, the attorney general urged “to cooperate on the operational level” and “on the judicial level.”
Pacific police already exchange intelligence in their investigations, said Grégory Cornillon, attached to the interior security section at the French Embassy in Australia. His service organized five trainings this year with the national police and gendarmerie, under the Pacific Academy, created in 2023 in Nouméa.
“We adapt to the region’s needs and use the resources we have in our territories,” he explained.
On September 2, leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, of which New Caledonia and French Polynesia are members, gave their in-principle agreement to the regional maritime security initiative Waqa Moana. This program provides regional cooperation on maritime security in the Pacific, notably to combat narcotrafficking.
With the Pacific Academy, made up of the national police and gendarmerie whose role is to provide training to the region’s internal security forces, particularly on narcotrafficking, France intends to contribute to regional efforts, according to Véronique Roger-Lacan, ambassador for the Pacific. “Our objective is not to create a parallel platform that is exclusively Francophone and led by France.” she said.
