http://www.postcourier.com.pg/20080306/thhome.htm


The illicit and dangerous drug, marijuana, has been smuggled to destinations throughout Papua New Guinea and Australia, allegedly through established courier services.
The illegal operation came to light when police in Lae uncovered a big shipment of dried marijuana packed in a box that was consigned by a well known freight service this week.
Police found more than 19 kg of the drug packed in with fresh cabbages from the Highlands and brought to Lae to be flown to Daru in the Western Province.
Police said the street value for the drug consignment they confiscated was more than K30,000 in PNG but if this went into Australia, it would be worth more or that the owner would obtain a large number of guns.
“We suspect that this drug is headed for the Australian market, through Thursday Island. “The drugs could be sold for money or exchanged for guns,” senior police detective, Joe Bellam said yesterday.
Senior detective Bellam said the drug-for-guns trade was not new as police had suspected that this illegal activity hadbeen going on for a long time.
“People are packing the drugs in vegetables and moving them to places in PNG to be moved to Australia.
“We suspect that this has been going on for some time,” the senior policeman said, adding that the illegal trade had gone undetected for many years.
Police said the drugs were coming in from the Highlands to Lae because the city was accessible by ships and by air, making it easier for drug traffickers to use the established courier companies to move the dangerous cargo.
“I appeal to courier or freight companies in Lae to vet the cargo they are checking in careful.
“If they should find someone trying to move drugs or guns, they should alert police quickly,” he said.
Mr Bellam said some of the smugglers used dinghies to move the drugs and this was difficult to detect and to apprehend them. Police also said they were aware that a huge quantity of drugs was brought down from the rural areas into Lae and sold on the streets.

I call this stupid investigation and wantok system, we have heard of many number of drug bust all destined to local and international markets over and over again..can the NIO and CID use their intelligence and take down the brokers and the main players, follow the bread crumbs so as to speak, rather than just jump to the media everytime they find a bunch of drugs worth over 10kg, lon lon oh, get the big fish, the cops call it a network and yet they don't know jack what/whos network is it. I think some of the cops are involved, diverting attention from the main issue and symbolically send a message to their wantok who is the drug boss. They try to portray they are doing their job and do it to get a promotion.