Force set to strike hot spots

A NEW Border Force will deploy flying squads to combat guns, drugs and people trafficking in lawless “hot spots” off the tip of Queensland.

The strike force will start operations tomorrow, targeting organised crime syndicates exploiting Australia’s open border in the Torres Strait.

Transnational crime syndicates, some linked to outlaw bikies, have operated smuggling pipelines from PNG, whose coastline is just 4km from Australia’s most northern island.

Officials are also allegedly being bribed to turn a blind eye to the illicit backdoor trade in a top- level corruption scandal.

Secret briefings detail concerns about millions of missing taxpayer- funded aid dollars in southern parts of PNG.

The new border protection agency is the result of a merger between almost 14,000 Customs and Immigration staff and was given $ 500 million in last month’s Federal Budget.

It has identified the rising threat of smuggling precursors of ice, or methyl amphetamine, out of PNG as a priority.

Most Customs and Immigration staff operate from Canberra but there is a push to move thousands to headquarters in Cairns, Thursday Island, Darwin and Port Hedland.

Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said the agency flagged a tough approach “from visa overstayers and unscrupulous migration agents to narcotic traffickers and people smugglers”.

ABF commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg, an ex- Queensland Police detective and Crime Commission officer, heads the new operational arm, including armed rapid response squads.

“This is a hot spot, a real trouble spot,” said Daru Island’s Anton Narua, chairman of the PNG treaty villages association.

“We’re seeing shipments of arms, all sorts of illegal immigrants, lots of drugs being smuggled through here and bribes going to officials.”

Far North MP Warren Entsch said “it makes sense”.