The World's biggest users of cocaine are in Australia, New Zealand
[CANBERRA) Australia and New Zealand are the world's biggest users of cocaine, as global consumption of the illicit drug reaches record highs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its latest report.
While more people use cocaine in the Americas than anywhere else, per-capita consumption is most prevalent in Australia and New Zealand, according to the World Drug Report 2025. Waste-water analysis suggests most people there are using cocaine only occasionally, the report said.
Some 3 per cent of those aged 15 to 64 in Australia and New Zealand used cocaine in 2023, the report said. That's almost double the proportion in the Americas, and nearly triple the percentage in Europe – the next-biggest consumers of the drug, the report said.
The report painted a bleak picture of the worldwide battle against illegal drugs and the criminals behind them, and said a new era of global instability has intensified the challenge. Production volumes, seizures and use of cocaine all hit records in 2023, making it the world's fastest-growing illegal drug market, the UN said. In total, an estimated 316 million people used illicit drugs in the period.
'Organised drug trafficking groups continue to adapt, exploit global crises and target vulnerable populations,' Ghada Waly, executive director of the UNODC, said in a statement. 'We must invest in prevention and address the root causes of the drug trade at every point of the illicit supply chain.'
Cocaine traffickers are breaking into new regions of Asia and Africa, the report said. But the relative wealth of Australia, and the price that users in the country are willing to pay for drugs, has long made it an attractive market for criminals. The country's vast seaboard also makes it hard for border authorities to intercept illegal shipments.
Australian Federal Police pulled off a record cocaine seizure in December when they uncovered an attempt to import 2.34 tons of the drug into the country by sea. The cocaine had a street value of US$496 million with the potential to equate to 11.7 million street deals, authorities said. Thirteen people were charged.
The UN report said cannabis remains the world's most widely used drug with 244 million users, representing 4.6 per cent of the global population aged between 15 and 64. In Australia and New Zealand, prevalence of cannabis use was recorded at more than 12 per cent, the report said.
The use of ecstasy – also known as molly or MDMA – in Australia and New Zealand remained by far the highest worldwide, the report said.BLOOMBERG
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AsiaOne
an hour ago
- AsiaOne
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria, Asia News
DAMASCUS - "Don't wait for her," the WhatsApp caller told the family of Abeer Suleiman on May 21, hours after she vanished from the streets of the Syrian town of Safita. "She's not coming back." Suleiman's kidnapper and another man who identified himself as an intermediary said in subsequent calls and messages that the 29-year-old woman would be killed or trafficked into slavery unless her relatives paid them a ransom of US$15,000 (S$19,000). "I am not in Syria," Suleiman herself told her family in a call on May 29 from the same phone number used by her captor, which had an Iraqi country code. "All the accents around me are strange." Reuters reviewed the call, which the family recorded, along with about a dozen calls and messages sent by the abductor and intermediary, who had a Syrian phone number. Suleiman is among at least 33 women and girls from Syria's Alawite sect - aged between 16 and 39 - who have been abducted or gone missing this year in the turmoil following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to the families of all them. The overthrow of the widely feared president in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs, with armed factions affiliated to the current government turning on Alawite civilians in their coastal heartlands in March, killing hundreds of people. Since March, social media has seen a steady stream of messages and video clips posted by families of missing Alawite women appealing for information about them, with new cases cropping up almost daily, according to a Reuters review which found no online accounts of women from other sects vanishing. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria told Reuters it is investigating the disappearances and alleged abductions of Alawite women following a spike in reports this year. The commission, set up in 2011 to probe rights violations after the civil war broke out, will report to the UN Human Rights Council once the investigations are concluded, a spokesperson said. Suleiman's family borrowed from friends and neighbours to scrape together her US$15,000 ransom, which they transferred to three money-transfer accounts in the Turkish city of Izmir on May 27 and 28 in 30 transfers ranging from US$300 to US$700, a close relative told Reuters, sharing the transaction receipts. Once all money was delivered as instructed, the abductor and intermediary ceased all contact, with their phones turned off, the relative said. Suleiman's family still have no idea what's become of her. Detailed interviews with the families of 16 of the missing women and girls found that seven of them are believed to have been kidnapped, with their relatives receiving demands for ransoms ranging from US$1,500 to US$100,000. Three of the abductees - including Suleiman - sent their families text or voice messages saying they'd been taken out of the country. There has been no word on the fate of the other nine. Eight of the 16 missing Alawites are under the age of 18, their families said. Reuters reviewed about 20 text messages, calls and videos from the abductees and their alleged captors, as well as receipts of some ransom transfers, though it was unable to verify all parts of the families' accounts or determine who might have targeted the women or their motives. All 33 women disappeared in the governorates of Tartous, Latakia and Hama, which have large Alawite populations. Nearly half have since returned home, though all of the women and their families declined to comment about the circumstances, with most citing security fears. Most of the families interviewed by Reuters said they felt police didn't take their cases seriously when they reported their loved ones missing or abducted, and that authorities failed to investigate thoroughly. The Syrian government didn't respond to a request for comment for this article. Ahmed Mohammed Khair, a media officer for the governor of Tartous, dismissed any suggestion that Alawites were being targeted and said most cases of missing women were down to family disputes or personal reasons rather than abductions, without presenting evidence to support this. "Women are either forced into marrying someone they won't want to marry so they run away or sometimes they want to draw attention by disappearing," he added and warned that "unverified allegations" could create panic and discord and destabilise security. A media officer for Latakia governorate echoed Khair's comments, saying that in many cases, women elope with their lovers and families fabricate abduction stories to avoid the social stigma. The media officer of Hama governorate declined to comment. A member of a fact-finding committee set up by new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to investigate the mass killings of Alawites in coastal areas in March, declined to comment on the cases of missing women. Al-Sharaa denounced the sectarian bloodshed as a threat to his mission to unite the ravaged nation and has promised to punish those responsible, including those affiliated to the government if necessary. Grabbed on her way to school Syrian rights advocate Yamen Hussein, who has been tracking the disappearances of women this year, said most had taken place in the wake of the March violence. As far as he knew, only Alawites had been targeted and the perpetrators' identities and motives remain unknown, he said. He described a widespread feeling of fear among Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and account for about a tenth of Syria's predominantly Sunni population. Some women and girls in Tartous, Latakia and Hama are staying away from school or college because they fear being targeted, Hussein said. "For sure, we have a real issue here where Alawite women are being targeted with abductions," he added. "Targeting women of the defeated party is a humiliation tactic that was used in the past by the Assad regime." Thousands of Alawites have been forced from their homes in Damascus, while many have been dismissed from their jobs and faced harassment at checkpoints from Sunni fighters affiliated to the government. The interviews with families of missing women showed that most of them vanished in broad daylight, while running errands or travelling on public transport. Zeinab Ghadir is among the youngest. The 17-year-old was abducted on her way to school in the Latakia town of al-Hanadi on February 27, according to a family member who said her suspected kidnapper contacted them by text message to warn them not to post images of the girl online. "I don't want to see a single picture or, I swear to God, I will send you her blood," the man said in a text message sent from the girl's phone on the same day she disappeared. The teenage girl made a brief phone call home, saying she didn't know where she had been taken and that she had stomach pain, before the line cut out, her relative said. The family has no idea what has happened to her. Khozama Nayef was snatched on March 18 in rural Hama by a group of five men who drugged her to knock her out for a few hours while they spirited her away, a close relative told Reuters, citing the mother-of-five's own testimony when she was returned. The 35-year-old spent 15 days in captivity while her abductors negotiated with the family who eventually paid US$1,500 dollars to secure her release, according to the family member who said when she returned home she had a mental breakdown. Days after Nayef was taken, 29-year-old Doaa Abbas was seized on her doorstep by a group of attackers who dragged her into a car waiting outside and sped off, according to a family member who witnessed the abduction in the Hama town of Salhab. The relative, who didn't see how many men took Abbas or whether they were armed, said he tried to follow on his motorbike but lost sight of the car. Three Alawites reported missing by their families on social media this year, who are not included in the 33 cases identified by Reuters, have since resurfaced and publicly denied they were abducted. One of them, a 16-year-old girl from Latakia, released a video online saying she ran away of her own accord to marry a Sunni man. Her family contradicted her story though, telling Reuters that she had been abducted and forced to marry the man, and that security authorities had ordered her to say she had gone willingly to protect her kidnappers. Reuters was unable to verify either account. A Syrian government spokesperson and Latakian authorities didn't respond to queries about it. The two other Alawites who resurfaced, a 23-year-old woman and a girl of 12, told Arabic TV channels that they had travelled of their own volition to the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, respectively, though the former said she ended up being beaten up by a man in an apartment before escaping. Dark memories of Islamic State Syria's Alawites dominated the country's political and military elite for decades under the Assad dynasty. Bashar al-Assad's sudden exit in December saw the ascendancy of a new government led by HTS, a Sunni group that emerged from an organisation once affiliated to al Qaeda. The new government is striving to integrate dozens of former rebel factions, including some foreign fighters, into its security forces to fill a vacuum left after the collapse of Assad's defence apparatus. Several of the families of missing women said they and many others in their community dreaded a nightmare scenario where Alawites suffered similar fates to those inflicted on the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic State about a decade ago. IS, a jihadist Sunni group, forced thousands of Yazidi women into sexual slavery during a reign of terror that saw its commanders claim a caliphate encompassing large parts of Iraq and Syria, according to the UN. A host of dire scenarios are torturing the minds of the family of Nagham Shadi, an Alawite woman who vanished this month, her father told Reuters. The 23-year-old left their house in the village of al Bayadiyah in Hama on June 2 to buy milk and never came back, Shadi Aisha said, describing an agonising wait for any word about the fate of his daughter. Aisha said his family had been forced from their previous home in a nearby village on March 7 during the anti-Alawite violence. "What do we do? We leave it to God." [[nid:717511]]
Straits Times
6 hours ago
- Straits Times
Mystery $42 billion Chinese medical fortune collapses in days
Hong Kong – When Mr Au Yat-Gai was worth US$33 billion (S$42 billion) on paper, he was not in his Hong Kong office. One week later, when his net worth plunged to US$10.1 billion, he wasn't around either. Shares of Regencell Bioscience Holdings, the Nasdaq-listed company he founded, have plunged to US$20.19 as at June 27 from a high of US$78 on June 17. Officers at the headquarters of Regencell Bioscience Holdings said both times that Mr Au only takes short visits there, before turning away reporters. The Cayman Islands-incorporated traditional Chinese medicine company, occupies the whole ninth floor of a tower in Hong Kong's bustling Causeway Bay, including a reception area with a large table-tennis table. Little is still known about the tiny, money-losing company whose shares exploded 82,000 per cent higher and suddenly made Mr Au, its chief executive officer with an 86 per cent stake, richer on paper than some of the city's tycoons like Li Ka-shing. The fleeting nature of its rip-roaring rally has captivated and mystified observers from the United States to Hong Hong. Morning Brew, a popular business account on X, flagged it's stock move and wondered: 'Is there something I'm missing?' Regulators in the US, which closely monitor wild swings in stock prices, might soon be asking the same question, according to experts. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), the watchdog for broker-dealers, has repeatedly warned that small, cheap stocks are more susceptible to fraud. These companies can be targets for pump-and-dump schemes in which fraudsters inflate the stock price and quickly sell their shares. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), meanwhile, has been increasingly wary about companies listed on US exchanges that are based overseas – and Regencell checks both boxes. The regulator on June 4 called on the public to weigh in on whether the agency needed to amend the definition of what's called a foreign private issuer, potentially limiting the number of companies that qualify for special status that lets them avoid filing quarterly financial reports or disclosing when executives buy or sell company shares. 'This is an example of very unusual movements in share prices,' said Richard Harris, founder and chief executive of Port Shelter Investment Management in Hong Kong. 'These movements could certainly trigger interest by investigators.' The SEC and Finra declined to comment on whether they were monitoring Regencell's moves. Regencell didn't respond to emails and phone calls for comment on its stock performance and its founder's fortune. Founded in 2014, Regencell's main line of business is marketing and licensing traditional treatments for ADHD and autism spectrum disorder developed by the founder's father, Au Sik-Kee. It has exclusive rights over his traditional medicinal formulas, trademarked under the name Brain Theory. The firm posted net losses of US$4.4 million and US$6.1 million, respectively, for the fiscal years ended June 2024 and 2023, according to filings. Its chief medical officer position has been vacant since the last doctor to hold the job resigned in 2022. The younger Au attended the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and worked at Deutsche Bank in the late 1990s. He suffered from learning disorders and speech problems, had poor grades and an uncontrollable temper, according to a video post on the company's Instagram account. Regencell's mission is to 'improve and save lives using a natural and holistic TCM formula to treat ADHD and ASD,' according to the same video. The company's official Instagram account has more than half a million followers. BeOne Medicines, the largest healthcare firm listed in Hong Kong, has just over 2,500. Regencell built out a following with the help of social-media campaigns on the platform that offered free tickets for Taylor Swift concerts in the US and Asia. The company's second-largest shareholder is Digital Mobile Venture, a firm ultimately owned by Taiwan's Samuel Chen and his wife Fiona Chang. Mr Chen was an investor whose early investments in Zoom Video Communications made him a fortune when the company's stock soared almost 1,500 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Chen, Ms Chang and their children own a 55 per cent stake in Taipei-based Polaris Group, a biotechnology company developing anti-cancer drugs. He's also the biggest shareholder of Sonix Technology, a provider of integrated circuits listed in Taipei. On June 18, two men and a woman arrived at Regencell's Hong Kong office seeking information about treatment for ADHD and dementia. They said they read about the stock's surge before arriving. The visitors were also turned away. An employee said its staff were not doctors, and directed them to the company's website. 'Early stage pharma companies can jump from a dollar to four dollars in 90 seconds if there's some news about one of their drugs under development doing well in a clinical trial,' Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said. In this case, 'what's interesting is there's no news.' BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
15 hours ago
- Straits Times
Frenchman who robbed Kim Kardashian dies of cancer aged 69
Didier Dubreucq was sentenced to seven years in jail, including five suspended, over the robbery in Paris of reality TV star Kim Kardashian. PHOTOS: AFP PARIS - A French robber convicted with seven others of stealing jewellery worth US$10 million (S$13 million) from reality television star Kim Kardashian in Paris in 2016 died on June 26, a source close to the case said. Didier Dubreucq, 69, was diagnosed with lung cancer during pre-trial detention and had been undergoing chemotherapy. He was among 10 suspects to be tried earlier this year for stealing jewels from the American influencer, including a huge diamond ring from her now ex-husband, rapper Kayne West. Dubreucq, who police nicknamed 'Blue Eyes' due to his piercing gaze, was accused of being the second person who stormed into Kardashian's hotel room on the night of Oct 2-3, 2016, but he denied the charges. A Paris court in May sentenced him to seven years in jail, including five suspended, over the robbery. He was absent for the ruling as he was undergoing chemotherapy, and did not return to jail as he had already served his two years in pre-trial detention. In April, he had however turned up in court after a chemotherapy session to say he had 'nothing to do' with the theft. He said he did not like to be labelled an 'armed robber' despite having served a 23-year sentence for past armed robberies. 'I'm a good guy,' he said, rejecting suggestions that he was a 'thug'. Since becoming a father at the age of 50, Dubreucq said, he had put an end to the 'big mistakes' of the past. None of the eight people convicted in May returned to jail, including 69-year-old ringleader Aomar Ait Khedache, because of the time they had spent behind bars awaiting trial. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
