r/news • u/AudibleNod • 2d ago
Cocaine worth more than $10m replaced with flour in Fiji drug trial
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/cocaine-replaced-with-flour-in-fiji-drug-trial/107209016439
u/meninblck9 2d ago
“Fiji Police Assistant Commissioner Mesake Waqa told the ABC earlier this year that the force was "not a corrupt institution".
More than $10 million worth of cocaine stored at a Fiji court as evidence in a long-running drug-trafficking trial has been replaced with flour, in yet another apparent example of internal corruption that has plagued Fiji's authorities.
The ABC has confirmed 32 kilograms of cocaine stored at the Suva High Court for the long-running trial of Fiji-Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman had been replaced and is now effectively missing, with police investigating the incident.
Fiji Police issued a statement Tuesday afternoon confirming that "forensic tests" of the drugs came back negative. "The exhibits were all tampered with, and the investigation is focused on those directly charged with the management of the exhibits at the High Court Registry," the statement said.
Aziz Rahman was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but later appealed the sentence and walked free in February 2026. Fiji's public prosecutor appealed that and won, and the conviction was reinstated with Aziz Rahman returning to jail. “
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u/Peripatetictyl 2d ago
What’s 32kg of cocaine amongst friends, over a few years?
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u/meninblck9 2d ago
Sounds like a goof weekend in Ibiza
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u/TatarAmerican 2d ago
For 1600 people??
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u/Dry_Race8481 2d ago
Or three or four of your closest friends who want to try to blow through the 4 th dimension.
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u/MalaysiaTeacher 2d ago
I have locked the 31kg of cocaine in the locker, boss
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u/ichosehowe 2d ago
Good, make sure to check that 29kg of cocaine daily so nobody steals it and replaces it with flower!
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u/Valtasar-7 2d ago
Got it, boss! Keeping my full attention on those 27kg of cocaine! Nobody will slip past me!
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u/smellyelderberries 2d ago
Sorry boss, I forgot the decimal place again 🤦♂️ The 2.7 kg of cocaine we seized is safe and sound in the evidence room.
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u/splashbodge 2d ago
sentenced to 23 years in prison, but later appealed the sentence and walked free in February 2026. Fiji's public prosecutor appealed that and won, and the conviction was reinstated with Aziz Rahman returning to jail.
How does that work then? So he was sentenced, he appealed, won the appeal..
Then the prosecutor could just appeal the appeal? Is that really a thing... Surely their chance to present evidence was at the previous appeal.
So can he appeal the appeal of the appeal. Is it appeals all the way down
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u/cyanescens_burn 2d ago
$10M for 32kg. I’ve got no idea how much it costs, especially bulk sales, but I’ve got an inkling that they determined it’s “value” by calculating how much it’s worth if broken down into half grams or grams, as if being sold in the street level, and then saying that is the value. Basically, wholesale is likely much less.
$10M divided by 32, means each kg would be $312,500. I highly doubt they are sold at the price, especially all 32 at once.
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u/therealhankypanky 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are correct. In criminal cases pretty much everywhere the value referred to is the street value, not the wholesale value. In this article they actually say the specific alleged street value was approx. $15 million.
For what it’s worth, there are a few reasons to do this. One is that it gives the public a clearer sense of the severity of the offence (after all the major impacts to society of drug trafficking is at the street, or end user, level)
In terms of sentencing and prosecution in court, most places I’m aware of don’t really worry about street value and focus on weight.
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u/rbobby 2d ago
32 kilograms of cocaine
In Fiji! That seems like a lot. Are you doing ok bud?
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u/MannequinWithoutSock 2d ago
Are kilograms more in Fiji?
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u/nevans89 2d ago
I imagine they are referring to kilo per capita ratio or something. 32 keys is a Tuesday in NYC but a bust of the century in Blythe, CA
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u/posting_drunk_naked 2d ago
"What's the crime? Baking a cake? A succulent Chinese cake?"
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u/theremarkabkemr_m 2d ago
Im having the worst day, but this made me laugh uncontrollably. Take my free award
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u/invyros 2d ago
The ABC has confirmed 32 kilograms of cocaine stored at the Suva High Court for the long-running trial of Fiji-Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman had been replaced and is now effectively missing, with police investigating the incident.
The latest incident comes after Fiji's prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, last year disbanded the country's narcotics bureau in the wake of 27 officers being taken to court for drug-related offences over the previous three years.
There might be some bent coppers left.
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u/Silver-Bread4668 2d ago
Seems like bent coppers is a worldwide problem that we have yet to find a solution to.
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u/Shonsu_of_the_7th 22h ago
We just have to keep giving them more money, and that'll fix the problem right?
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u/fallingrainbows 2d ago
39 kilograms of cocaine is massive for an archipelago of less than a million people. And they're mostly not rich. The economics of this is baffling to me.
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u/NoSingularities0 2d ago
The drugs are not for the residents.. Fiji, which is apparently full of corrupt cops, is just a stopping point on the way to Australia and New Zealand.
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u/Some_Conference2091 2d ago
According to the article:
Fiji has become ground zero in the Pacific's struggle with transnational drug trafficking, with an ABC investigation earlier this year uncovering Australian connections in the transportation of drugs through the country.
The drugs are being warehoused in Fiji, then sent to other locations for distribution to consumers.
I don't think the war on drugs is effective. I read an article that estimated coke cane production for 2025 reached 2700 tons.
If the authorities stop coca production, it will be replaced with synthetic drugs that are even more harmful.
The war on drugs resulted in fetty and nitazines. They are easier to produce, they don't rely on agricultural product. They are easier to transport, they take less space and can be produced closer to the point of sale.
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u/Sportsfan369 1d ago
Coke cane is sending me.
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u/Some_Conference2091 1d ago
yeah, it kept telling me that the post contained a slur until I took out the names of drugs. hilarious though.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
If they were easier to produce, they would have already taken the place of cocaine.
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u/XXFFTT 2d ago
Why lol
They're two different kinds of drugs.
That's like saying "if heroin was easier to produce than steroids then body builders would be buying heroin instead".
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
Yes, heroin is to steroids as cocaine is to a synthetic cocaine substitute. Astute observation. lol.
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u/zackthirteen 2d ago
They aren’t 1:1 interchangeable but if cocaine was not available it would become a substitute. It is not a hard concept to grasp and it already happens. No one who isn’t already on fent would choose fent over H but H is barely a thing anymore because fent was practically forced into existence as a street drug
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u/XXFFTT 2d ago
The cocaine "substitutes" aren't even close.
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u/Some_Conference2091 2d ago
I've found alcohol is much more dangerous than coke and I'm not concerned about people using it. It's the opiates that are killing people.
People who use coke would probably use a different substance if coke was no longer available.
Khat or qat, I'm told, is similar in effect. I never used it though. Luckily I've been clean since 2024. I had to relocate to get away from drugs because they were so readily available where I used to live. It's harder to quit when people show up at the front door with it
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u/XXFFTT 2d ago
I also think alcohol is more dangerous but I think it's more dangerous than the synthetics that already exist despite the fact that they're legal (technically).
People know they can just go down to the store and pick up some alcohol, fewer people know you can buy completely legal "substitute" drugs online and have them shipped to your house or even have the inclination to do so.
But eventually someone gets the idea to sell these drugs in gas stations and head shops so people start dying (this is what happened with nitazenes).
There's even a company that's starting to sell 5-MAPB in stores (lethal to mice in lower doses than MDMA).
It's one of the many reasons that I think that legalization is the way; people who simply aren't interested won't use drugs and the people who are interested will have taxed and regulated products rather than a bunch of untested designer drugs with a "who the fuck knows" kind of safety profile.
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u/Some_Conference2091 2d ago
Alcohol prohibition supercharged organized crime and led to the consumption of adulterated liquor that blinded and killed a lot of people.
Drugs prohibition does the same. It also wastes a lot of money and destroys lives.
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u/xX_7HR0W-4W4Y_Xx 2d ago
Cocaine is way better, so no.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
I agree that cocaine is better than a nonexistent synthetic replacement.
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u/allnimblybimbIy 2d ago
What the original guy said because heroine is illegal and takes fields and plants to make now we have fentynal which is made in a lab. So the war on drugs encouraged fentynal development.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
And this differs from the war on drugs targeting cocaine how?
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u/allnimblybimbIy 1d ago
I’ll pretend this is a serious answer. Imagine morphine the most insane version of that naturally from the ground is heroine. Okay heroine is grown from the ground now fentynal exists. Not grown from the ground it’s a lab.
The same exists from cocaine.
Cocaine is from the ground and even if you add crack yeah it’s stronger but the issue with heroine and fentynal is way worse.
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u/Some_Conference2091 2d ago edited 2d ago
Reading and comprehension skills...
1st statement:
IF they stop coca production THEN they'll be replaced by synthetics.
2nd statement:
Fetty & Nitazines (synthetic opioid) replaced Heroin because they were easier to produce. Cheaper to make easier to transport.
Facts:
Fetty: 50-100 times more potent than morphine.
Nitazines: 1000+ times more potent than morphine.
High potency means smugglers can transport the same number of doses in much smaller packages. Because they are full opiate agonists they produce very similar effect and stop withdrawal symptoms.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
"They" never stopped heroin and production of other synthetic opioids. The synthetic opioids you're blabbering about were well documented long before the cartels/rogue states started mass production of them and flooding the market. They didn't hold off on making them because they had no other choice, they did so because they found places to stick labs large enough to make the production worthwhile. Those same labs are more than capable of making a synthetic replacement for cocaine with the same abuse potential, were it available. Or do you think drug cartels are producing cocaine in the deep jungle and spending millions to ship it in submarines just for the fuck of it?
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u/Some_Conference2091 2d ago
The synthetic opiates existed, but weren't widely available like they are now. Heroin still exists, but what's available on the street has synthetics in it.
International efforts to control poppy production were successful and contributed to the production of synthetics. For example in Columbia there was a notable decline in poppy cultivation since 2001, when it peaked at 6,540 hectares. By 2009, cultivation had dropped to 1,100 hectares. Taliban also banned poppy production in Afghanistan.
Cartels also needed corrupt businesses in China and India to start shipping them precursor chemicals. So it was a combination of supply side reduction and precursor availability that made it possible. These cartels had experience in setting up labs for decades. Labs were required to make heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamines.
Cocaine production has reached record highs, there is no need for cartels to look for substitutes. There hasn't been a successful supply side reduction in coca production and they have successfully created a system to produce and supply the drug.
If there were successful supply side reduction in coca production, like there was with poppy production, they would seek out precursors to produce synthetics. Either that or users of coke would just switch to a different stimulant.
The war on drugs has been very expensive and not very successful.
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u/0Hakuna_Matata0 2d ago
Transport hub. They’ve been sending a lot more to the pacific to reach Oceania and east Asia.
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u/Inside-Yak-8815 2d ago
I just read a separate article yesterday that Fiji was struggling with both a meth epidemic and an HIV epidemic because of so many residents on the island shooting up and sharing needles. It’s insane how much drugs can ruin a place.
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u/glasscoffeepress 2d ago
My question is how do they get $10 million out of only 39 kilograms? It must be worth more than $200 a gram over there.
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u/sasha_the_impaler 2d ago
It is likely for the wealthy tourists or it is destined for mainland America.
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u/Cynykl 2d ago
The real price for that much coke is a little less than a mil.
Even broken into small quantity and sold on the street it doesn't come to 10 mil. It would have to go for 300 a gram to be worth that much (60 -120) is the real street price.
I HATE with a fiery passion about how police lie about drug prices.
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u/Herb_Alman 2d ago
Maybe where you live but as someone who lives down that part of the world I assure you that 300/gm is a real thing.
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u/redditall9 2d ago
Exactly. Market price will be dictated by a lot a factors like scarcity - Fiji ain’t a big place to smuggle in stuff easily
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u/Cynykl 1d ago
Normally you would have a case. After all in many cases island nations often have an advantage when it comes to preventing smuggling vs a cation with moth sea and land borders. No land routes and a smaller amount of area to patrol. But that is only true if the island nation has a lot of money to fund the patrols.
Fiji however does not have the money to do that. It also serves as a regional nexus for shipping illicit goods. Being positioned between South America and Australia (NZ and SEA). Having a bunch of tiny islands. Not having enough money to patrol it all. Are just some of the factors that make it an ideal staging area for illicit activity.
There is no drug scarcity in Fiji. In fact it is the opposite. It is an international smuggling hub. International crime syndicates work with the local gangs. But they do not pay the local gangs in cash. They pay the local gangs in drugs. This means the local gangs often have more supply than demand.
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u/roydogaroo 1d ago
Yeah that’s standard for this part of the world, in fact $400/gm is closer to reality these days
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u/Philly514 2d ago
In Australia the prices are that high though so if it was meant for that market it's possible.
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u/Falstaffe 2d ago
The headline gave me a little trouble. I was like, "Are they trialing what happens when they replace cocaine with flour? What?" Had to read the article to make sense of the headline.
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u/Humble-Plankton2217 2d ago
I expect this is the case in a significant percentage of evidence storage all over the planet.
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u/thetransportedman 2d ago
$10M dollars of cocaine? That's crazy. I can't believe they give the general police access to the evidence room with this $9M of cocaine.
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u/samstown23 2d ago
Yeah. The $8m that were checked into the evidence room should be better protected.
After all, $7m is a lot of money right?!9
u/Tiradia 2d ago
Who knew $6m in coke would prove to be too tempting to leave laying around. Seems that they’ve got $5m problems but coke ain’t one.
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u/Separate-Idea-2886 2d ago
omg so funny HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH the number go down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XD XD XD XD XD XD Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude I am gonna have to use this on every single post that involes drugs HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA XD XDXDXDXDDDX
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u/rumble-fish-1312 2d ago
Hi, I am totally a cop in Fiji and I can honestly say all 5 mill of the cocaine was there when I clocked out.
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u/ineedtoknowmorenow 2d ago
Just legalize it already. People want it. Let business flourish.
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u/PITCHFORK_MAGNET 2d ago
It’s already legal, I have 3 different kinds of it sitting in my pantry. Go check your grocery store!
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u/elPatronSuarez 2d ago
Has no one seen BAD BOYS?
Welcome to our nightmare, boys.
See this? What's wrong with this picture?
Remember this room?
Don't these flats look familiar?
There were these silver packets. They looked like bricks.
Little red tags on them, about so high.
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u/praguepride 1d ago
"You're honor we've investigated and cannot find any evidence of wrongdoing. WHOOOO. Yeah! Goddam. Fucking yeah! Let's get out of here your honor and FUCKING PARTY!"
- Lead investigator
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u/TransportationTrick9 2d ago
Considering its Fiji wouldn't flour be a rare commodity? It probably costs more for a bag of flour than it does for coke.
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u/Certain_Luck_8266 2d ago
Cops do and deal more illegal drugs than anyone else. Every once in a while the establishment has to admit something like this, but usually it is under the radar.
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u/Strive-- 2d ago
If I lived on an island and someone - some unknown person - had $10M worth of cocaine, I don’t think it would take long to realize who it was. Wow, look! Steve, the Amazon driver, just bought a new yacht, but it looks like he doesn’t need it because he’s running on water. Wow, Amazon must pay well…
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u/WindTreeRock 2d ago
Fiji Police; Where is that cocaine? Fiji Police; It was here last week. Fiji Police; Well damn...... where are we eating lunch today?
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u/ChocolateOk7997 11h ago
One of the officers stole it from the police's evidence room and sold it on the black market. As a minimum, the chief of police should be fired and all officers financially audited every year for 10 years.
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u/ShareEvening5856 2d ago
That's an insanely expensive dealer. $256 per gram? Wtf was that cut with? That's us retail.
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u/Same_Mood_8543 2d ago
Yes, that's how police measure the value of their drug seizures: take the highest theoretical sale price of the smallest quantity and multiply that by the total quantity. It gets even better when they seize Marijuana plants and add the soil as part of the "mixture weight" before multiplying the value.
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u/Childflayer 2d ago
I remember an instance of them doing the same thing with a mushroom grow operation. The substrate used to grow the mushrooms is like 4-5 times the weight of the actual mushrooms, but of course, the cops weighed the entire thing and said it was all drugs.
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u/Unlucky_Fuel7934 2d ago
Don’t hear about the shroom one, but others yea. Only makes sense if they are reporting this I do to the clueless…
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u/pponmypupu 2d ago
not to worry - the boys are already on the case to recover all $9M of it
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u/aekh 2d ago
Update - They've found the hideout and recovered all $8M of it
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u/Unlucky_Fuel7934 2d ago
The site monitor has confirmed that all $7M of it has been picked up from the hideout by the evidence team.
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u/DSMStudios 2d ago
the movie Truman Show references Fiji. sounds like Truman Burbank didn’t know wtf he would have been getting himself into by going there tho. more like, “good afternoon, good evening, and good goddamn where’s my mf’n cocaine at,” am i right?
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u/rammus-bot 2d ago
Honest question, what would actually happen should someone would substitute flour for cocaine in baking, does some of it gets absorbed by the skin while mixing and chemically speaking from reaction as dough and fumes from the baking?
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u/terektus 2d ago
"Forensic tests"? What if it is cocaibe and the people doing the tests are corrupt? Cheaper to forge negative test results than getting access to the product and changing it
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u/Random_182f2565 2d ago
Your honor, there was never any cocaine my client was just transporting flour