NZ Police chief acknowledges impact of criminal deportees on the Pacific

RNZ News

a day ago

Police Commissioner Richard Chambers, right, at the Fiji Police Force headquarters in Suva. 2 May 2025
Photo:
Fiji Police Force
New Zealand's police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country's criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.
Richard Chambers' comments on
Pacific Waves
come as the region's police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.
The meeting, which is closed to media, began on Wednesday.
Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.
Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads, from right, Secretary General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri.
Photo:
RNZ / Peter de Graaf
Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.
Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.
However, the country's own
transnational crime advisory group
also identified the country's deportation policies as a "significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific".
In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.
The report from the
Lowy Institute
also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.
Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome.
Photo:
RNZ / Peter de Graaf
When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand's criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.
"The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads," Chambers said.
"I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America. So that's where our focus has been, and that's what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support."
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia's deportation policy.
In New Zealand, the country's returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.
These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia's immigration laws.
New Zealand's authorities have tracked how these deportees - who number in the hundreds - have contributed significantly to the country's increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.
Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia's 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.
"I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they're offending, they're re-offending.
"I suspect it's no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about."
This week's conference was scheduled to finish on Friday. Speakers due to appear included Interpol secretary-general Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Baron Waqa.