Why is cocaine washing up on the beaches of Fiji? – podcast

A multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines is having a major impact on islands in the Pacific. Kate Lyons travelled to Fiji to investigate. Plus: John Harris on Facebook’s cryptocurrency

Last year, 120 bricks of cocaine, each worth thousands of dollars, washed up on the beaches of remote islands in Fiji. With traffickers increasingly using the islands as a staging post in the supply of drugs from central America to Australia and New Zealand, Fijian police have found themselves on the frontline of an illicit multibillion-dollar industry.

The Guardian’s Kate Lyons tells Anushka Asthana about the impact it has had on Fiji, which appears ill-equipped to handle the new reality of drug addiction on the islands or the trade’s wider societal effects.

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from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RJ177R