An international drug-smuggling syndicate, using the South Pacific waters including Fiji to allegedly import cocaine and methamphetamine may have been further dismantled after the arrest of Sydney man, Giuseppe Claudio Mangolini.
The 45-year-old man from Burwood in the inner west was arrested as he arrived at Sydney Airport on Saturday, upon returning home from travels in Fiji and Europe.
Mangolini has been charged over his alleged role in an international drug smuggling syndicate and appeared in Sydney Central Local Court today.
He is alleged to have been a key member of a criminal transhipping syndicate responsible for importing border-controlled drugs across the Pacific and into Australia and New Zealand.
Mangolini is the second Australian man to be arrested at the airport in connection with the alleged criminal network this year, after 33-year-old Vince Loreto was arrested in October for allegedly importing 39kg of cocaine from Fiji.
The Sydney Morning Herald says that Fiji has become a popular layover for traffickers attempting to import illicit substances from the US and Latin America to New Zealand and Australia, where drugs command some of the highest street prices in the world.
The men were targeted following a multi-jurisdictional investigation into the supply of illicit substances, making up two of at least 11 people arrested in New Zealand and Fiji in connection with the operation.
In February, police arrested nine people believed to have been importing methamphetamine from the US into New Zealand, after the discovery of 11kg of methamphetamine inside cooking appliances worth more than AUS$5 million.
Four men were arrested across the Tasman: a 50-year-old New Zealand national, a 33-year-old Chinese national, a 60-year-old Canadian national and a 19-year-old US national.
The 60-year-old Canadian national has a possible link to the 31-year-old Canadian national, Joshua Aziz Rahman who was arrested in Caubati for allegedly being found in possession of $31 million worth of cocaine.
When earlier questioned by Fijivillage, Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho said that some people connected to Rahman are persons of interest for Fiji Police.
New Zealand and Fijian police had busted the group allegedly involved in smuggling methamphetamine from the US into New Zealand in February.
In Fiji, police also arrested at least five people allegedly linked to the group.
Those arrested in New Zealand and Fiji are the alleged "organised crime figures" Mangolini is connected to.
The AFP says the number of boats used by alleged criminal groups transporting drugs through Fiji had grown considerably since 2011, with Fijian authorities applying increased resources to address the problem.
In February 2017 the AFP seized more than 1.4 tonnes of cocaine on a 13.3-meter yacht that was intercepted about 370 kilometers off the NSW South Coast. Authorities allege the yacht was loaded with the drugs by a "mother ship" that it met in the South Pacific Ocean weeks earlier.
It remains the largest seizure of cocaine in Australian history.
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