Fears of new start point for boat trip

OFFICIALS are investigating links to Sydney-based snakeheads of a transnational people smuggling syndicate as they try to work out if Papua New Guinea is a new staging point for illegal boat arrivals.

Australian Border Force agents are attempting to retrace the route off the tip of Queensland and along the Great Barrier Reef of the first illegal boat to hit our shores in almost four years.

Australian Navy, Customs and ABF are baffled as to how the bright orange and blue Vietnamese trawler, loaded with at least 17 economic refugees, evaded the nation’s “ring of steel”.

The Cairns Post understands ABF agents are going through the detainees’ mobile phones for GPS data apps to work out how they navigated 1300km undetected along the coastline to within 12km of Port Douglas.

Border Force officials and the Department of Home Affairs have refused to confirm if the search for other Vietnamese nationals in the area is ongoing, but it is understood that 17 people have now been detained.

Their sunken vessel, which was deliberately scuttled and abandoned, was confirmed by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton as the first peoplesmuggling venture in more than 1400 days.

Mr Dutton has warned there are another 14,000 people in Indonesia waiting to get on boats – but there are grave concerns the snakehead syndicates are now exploiting the open porous border out of PNG through the Torres Strait.