STRICTLY 4 THE ISLANDS - THE COCONUT CARTEL AND OUR DRUG PROBLEM

Weekly Pacific Politics with Otis Whinney 

THE COCONUT CARTEL AND OUR DRUG PROBLEM

If you told me that, just a few months ago, a senior member of a Pasifika-led organised crime group dubbed the ‘Coconut Cartel’ was assassinated in Vietnam by a pair of Sāmoans hired by his criminal rivals, I daresay I would have laughed in your face. But this did in fact happen, in what has become one of the strangest developments in our ongoing drug crisis in the moana we all inhabit. This event connects Sydney, Apia, Ho Chi Minh City, and the Pacific region as a whole through a tangled web of organised (and incredibly disorganised) criminal networks, so let’s answer the question: what even is the Coconut Cartel, and what does all this mean?

The Coconut Cartel is a Sydney-based organisation that split from the much older Alameddine family, a criminal group that operates out of the Western Sydney suburb of Merrylands, of which they are also sometimes referred to. The Alameddine family has been involved in illicit drugs and ongoing gang wars for years, but in early 2026, a member by the name of Lorenzo Lemalu broke away and began building a rival organisation made up mostly of Pasifika members. The name ‘Coconut Cartel’ was chosen as a spin on the use of that word as a slur against Pasifika people, and since January, the group has been at war with its former Merrylands allies. Figures such as Henry Kupa and Anthony Pele, along with Lemalu, grew their profile in the underworld at a rapid pace as the increased competition between the Coconut Cartel and the Alameddine family coincided with a growing international cartel presence in the Pacific region, with nations such as Fiji and Sāmoa seeing record numbers of attempted drug-smuggling operations.

The Coconut Cartel’s notoriety has come less from their success and more from the visibility of their violence and actions. It doesn’t seem to be the most discreet organisation; the most senior figure that remains in the public eye, Anthony Pele, seems to spend a large amount of his time flexing his freedom on Instagram, while other leaders like Henry Kupa have found themselves arrested after the alleged seizure of around 400kg of methamphetamine. A series of shootings and firebombings targeting homes and businesses allegedly connected to alleged former Alameddine associate Iziah Utai were filmed, complete with commentary allegedly from the teenage perpetrators. Matt Utai, a former NRL player and Iziah’s father, was gunned down and killed as a result of this series of attacks. The assassination of Lemalu remains the most highest-profile moment in the history of the Coconut Cartel, with the news breaking beyond Australia into Asia, where the event took place.

Lemalu was in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, alongside his associate, Sauni Sam. On May 21st, the two were shot outside of a restaurant, killing Lemalu and injuring Sam. The two perpetrators, Joseph Vaa and Steve Tofa, were found by Vietnamese authorities within 72 hours and broadcast on Vietnamese television admitting their guilt. The police and government agencies in Vietnam, Sāmoa, Australia, and Fiji have all responded, and investigations into how this happened are ongoing. The pair allegedly travelled to Vietnam through Fiji using fake passports, and the men involved all seem to have various links to Sāmoa and New Zealand, but it seems likely the pair will be facing Vietnamese justice. Combined with the arrest of Henry Kupa and others with alleged connections to transnational crime, it seems like the Coconut Cartel has been put on the back foot for the time being.

Despite Scott Cook, Assistant Commissioner of the NSW Police, being quoted as saying that the intelligence collected during these operations puts them “slightly ahead of the game,” this saga is just one piece of a larger puzzle. This kind of crime is not only rising in Sydney, and this debacle shows how it connects to the entire Pacific region. Faualo Harry Schuster, Sāmoa’s former Police Minister, spoke to RNZ’s Pacific Waves, where he argued the pair were “manipulated into doing something that they're not familiar with and naive enough to think that they could pull it off.” In the first five months of 2026, Sāmoa has seen 20 drug raids carried out and 55 people charged, with methamphetamine, firearms, and more found in the process. Australian organised crime has also become increasingly tied to Fiji over the years. Sydney’s Sam Amine is still wanted for investigation by Fiji police due to his alleged ties with drugs seized by the Fijian police intended for distribution to Australia and New Zealand, allegedly supplied by the Mexican Sinaloa cartel. 

This crisis is hitting Fiji particularly hard, and their joint military-police response has now led to a second death under suspicious circumstances (and certainly not the last), following the alleged murder of suspected drug-lord Jose Vakarisi on April 18. Fiji police acknowledge that in the early hours of April 23, 12 officers conducted a raid on the home of Sakiasi Ose Radravu. Radravu’s family members allege that he was beaten severely by police, and that the injuries he sustained during the raid ultimately led to his death. He died around a week after the raid, with his family claiming Radravu was unable even to sit or lie down without intense pain. According to RNZ Pacific, his official death certificate lists the cause as sepsis and complications from pneumonia, but Radravu’s aunt, Elizabeth Kabuyawa, claims police are attempting to obscure the effects of the injuries he sustained during the raid. Fiji Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu has stated that the investigation will be complicated because the allegations were brought to the public eye only after his death, but Fiji police are taking internal action concerning the matter.

Cocaine use is at an all-time high in Aotearoa, despite us Kiwis paying far higher prices than most of the rest of the world, and alongside Australia, we remain the primary targets for this growing cartel presence in the Pacific region. We also remain incredibly influential in the region, and essential to the networks of aid, trade, and immigration that exist, all of which will be  affected by this escalating crisis. As we head into an election year, and as Australia continues to fight their domestic criminal networks, the responses from these two states will likely dictate how the rest of the Pacific will have to respond. If we see this current coalition back in power come November (or some variation of a right-wing government), and especially if we see Winston Peters back in the seat of Foreign Minister that he loves so dearly, it would not be a long shot to say that the US will continue to play a key role. And even if we see a left-wing coalition of some kind, the US and its Pacific ties cannot be so easily severed. Whenever Winston is overseas posing with Marco Rubio or the Trumpster himself, Pacific security is never far from the conversation. The USA has a vested interest in stability in the Pacific thanks to their many territories that pepper the region, but that interest is also coloured by the competition with China for regional influence. That FBI office in Wellington was opened in part to allow the US to better coordinate with their Pacific allies against this crisis, or at least that's what Winston Peters said. FBI Director Kash Patel let the mask slip a little when he outright stated that the office was opened in part to counter Chinese influence in the region, forcing Winston to hastily assure the press that Kash was simply in a silly mood that day and couldn’t possibly be serious. It is important to note that Trump's political following has been partially built on fearmongering around drugs, and his return to the White House shows how successful this can be. If the US wishes to extend this approach to the Pacific, using security concerns to halt countries such as Solomon Islands from making further deals with China, and if we have a government like the one we do now, there may be little stopping them from treating the moana the way they have treated Latin America since their own drug empires were founded.

This is not to discount the agency of the nations within the Pacific. We and our ancestors have had more than our fair share of political crises and external actors throwing raisins in our collective potato salad for centuries. But this drug problem opens all the wrong doors for all the wrong people, both inside and outside the Pacific, and it is already taking its toll on countries still reeling from fuel crises and countless domestic pressures. The Coconut Cartel may be quiet for now, but I get the sense that this is still just the beginning.