Chinese Entrepreneur’s Arrest In Papua New Guinea Meth Smuggling Scheme Spotlights Transnational Organized Crime

Methamphetamine worth $15 million seized from a "black flight" originating in Papua New Guinea and intercepted in Queensland, Australia, on March 21, 2023. The Australian Federal Police arrested a prominent business woman in the case in Brisbane on Jan. 16, 2024. Australian Federal Police

The Chinese-born owner of an international economic empire based out of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was arrested in the Australian city of Brisbane last month for allegedly facilitating a “black flight” that smuggled 71.5 kilograms of methamphetamine—worth $15 million—from a remote hillside airstrip in PNG to Australia.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Feb. 19 that 41-year-old Mei Lin sees herself as “a suburban mum juggling care of her four children, while overseeing a major international business empire encompassing everything from import and export to a Brisbane pet motel.” However, according to media reports, police believe she plays a central role in a transnational crime syndicate involved in black flight drug smuggling.

A “black flight” is a light aircraft flight that logs false flight plans or no log at all, flies at a very low altitude or turns off its flight monitoring systems to avoid law enforcement or aviation monitoring systems.

Ms. Lin’s Jan. 16 arrest goes back to a methamphetamine smuggling flight on March 21, 2023. The plot was thwarted by Australian and PNG police when the smuggler’s plane stopped to refuel in the Australian heartland town of Monto, Queensland. The plane had originated in Bulolo, PNG.

Although the initial operation netted six arrests in Australia, including the plane’s two pilots, and eight arrests in PNG, it took law enforcement several months of coordinated operations to collect sufficient evidence against Ms. Lin.

A joint media release issued on Jan. 17 by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the New South Wales Police Force, the Queensland Police Service, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary described Ms. Lin as the “seventh person arrested” but didn’t issue a name. Faces were blurred in photos accompanying the release.

However, the arrest of Ms. Lin, who is also known as “Gigi,” was announced by local Pacific Islands media such as Inside PNG and In-Depth Solomons and covered by Australian media such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Further, a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a global network of investigative journalists,  cited Manu Pulei, lead PNG police investigator, as saying that Ms. Lin is now “the prime suspect” in the meth smuggling case.

Ms. Lin, who reportedly holds an Australian residency, was charged with one count of importing a commercial quantity of methamphetamine and one count of dealing with proceeds of crime, money, or property worth $10,000 or more. She appeared before the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Jan. 17 and was refused bail. Her next court appearance is scheduled for March 1.

“The AFP will allege the woman, who is the owner and director of a logistics company in PNG, actively facilitated the drug importation,” law enforcement said in a joint media release. “This includes allegedly storing the methamphetamine prior to the importation, buying bags for its transportation, and paying for the fuel and runway in Bulolo used for the black flight.”

Australian law enforcement had been monitoring the alleged crime syndicate for some time. A statement released last March 23, after the first arrests, said that the syndicate had significant international links and was attempting to create a supply chain for delivering illicit drugs to Australia using black flights.

Neither of the releases clearly states more details of Ms. Lin’s alleged involvement with the syndicate, however, and further details are awaited. The AFP would not divulge any investigation details on the case to The Epoch Times; in an email, an AFP spokesperson said, “As this matter remains before the courts, it would not be appropriate to comment.”

Attempts by The Epoch Times to reach out to Ms. Lin’s contacts did not yield results. Her lawyer did not respond to an email requesting comments, and her office in PNG requested a list of questions but did not respond by press time.

Photo released by Australian Federal Police of drug smuggling investigation "Operation Getard." According to local media sources, the photo includes Mei Lin, an influential Chinese businesswoman. Australian Federal Police photo

Transnational Crime Syndicates

Although the investigation is still ongoing and Ms. Lin denies the allegations against her, the case highlights the issue of transnational organized crime (TOC), involving a nexus of business people, politicians, and criminals in the Pacific Island nations. The illegal global drug supply chain constitutes 30 percent of the proceeds of overall TOC, according to a 2021 report from the East Asia Forum.

With increased connectivity in the past two decades, drug production and trafficking—especially that of methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine—is on the rise in the Pacific Island nations and poses one of the primary security threats to the region, according to a 2022 report by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.

The geographical placement of the island countries along a “maritime corridor utilized for legitimate trade between major economic markets” has converted the region into “a principal trans-shipment hub for drugs,” said report writer Jose Sousa-Santos.

The Pacific Island nations, though small territorially, enjoy a massive maritime boundary and are spread out over millions of square nautical miles. Their involvement in TOC comes easily because they are geographically placed between the Americas to the east, Australia and New Zealand toward the south/southwest, and Asia to the west/northwest.

The region is “valuable to Asian organized crime syndicates and Mexican and South American cartels as a transit route and occasional production site, targeting the lucrative markets in Australia and New Zealand where the street value of methamphetamine and cocaine is amongst the highest in the world,” the report notes.

The problem of transnational crime in the region is not recent. At its root are two factors—first, the origin of the methamphetamine in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle (Myanmar and Laos) and second, the major “embarkation points” of China and Hong Kong, detailed in a 2016 report titled “Transnational Organized Crime in the Pacific: A Threat Assessment“ by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Regarding Australia’s vulnerabilities to crime syndicates, the AFP told The Epoch Times in an email, “Australia’s general level of wealth, compounded by technological, economic and geopolitical factors, contributes to Australia being an attractive target for criminals.”

A business report from the Australian parliament also indicates that China is the origin of most of the methamphetamine detected (by weight) in Australia. In 2013-14, according to the report, the main embarkation points for amphetamine-type stimulants like meth, detected at the Australian border, were China and Hong Kong.

In 2016, roughly around the time these reports were released, Ms. Lin obtained PNG citizenship. However, the OCCRP investigative report said that she appears to have “falsified key parts” of her life story to obtain the citizenship. The report accused her of falsifying certificates of attendance at PNG’s two elite schools of higher education.

It’s not clear why Ms. Lin sought citizenship in PNG. Although resource-rich, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with 40 percent of the population living below the “extreme poverty line,” according to a UNICEF report.

PNG was the first Pacific country to join the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), signing a memorandum of understanding with China in 2018. There are 28,000 Han Chinese in the country, the largest Chinese diaspora among the 20 Pacific Island nations.

The relationship of ethnic Chinese and Papuans is one of unrest. The latest wave of BRI workers has heightened tensions, resulting in riots and looting that has targeted Chinese businesses.

As Ms. Lin’s case is still in the courts and the investigating agencies have yet to release their key findings, it is unclear if Ms. Lin has any connection with Chinese crime syndicates that are increasingly playing a role in smuggling methamphetamine to Australia from the islands.

Yujen Kuo is vice president of Taiwan’s Institute for National Policy Research and a professor at National Sun Yan-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies. He spoke with The Epoch Times about these global crime syndicates.

Syndicates involving Chinese citizens or people of Chinese origin have been seen in the Middle East, Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Pakistan, Mr. Kuo said. Notably, these are areas where China’s geo-economic influence has rapidly increased over the last decade, particularly through BRI.

The black flight that started from PNG was intercepted by a team led by the Australian Federal Police in rural Australia on March 21, 2023. Australian Federal Police photo

Web of Influence

Ms. Lin runs many companies. At the center of last year’s meth bust is KC2, a wholesale and retail firm in Lae, where the drug was allegedly stored. The firm is a “wholesale, grocery, cash and carry, and liquor shop,” according to its website, and aims to become a major distributor of local and imported foods and beverages, tobacco, and other consumer goods. Ms. Lin’s uncle, Lin Hezhong, one of those arrested last year for smuggling in the same case, was an employee of KC2.

Prominent in the PNG business community, Ms. Lin has many connections in Lae as well as in the country’s capital, Port Moresby. KC2, her first company in PNG, was set up in April 2013—even before she became a PNG citizen.

Lae, the second largest city in PNG and the capital of Morobe province, has a prominent Chinatown. From Port Moresby, Lae is accessible only by air.

The entrepreneur owns at least a dozen other companies in PNG and Australia, according to OCCRP and Inside PNG. Her other businesses have also been touched by controversies.

In 2021, Ms. Lin was involved in a controversy regarding the purchase of houses from PNG’s National Housing Corporation (NHC). The affordable houses, according to PNG law, were to be sold to those of limited means, but Ms. Lin, whose purchase displaced a widowed public servant, argued that they were sold to her because the NHC owed her money.

In another controversy, Ms. Lin, according to PNG media The National, was allegedly involved in the illegal purchase of a PNG Defense Force property in April 2015.

Ms. Lin also has links to companies that reportedly received funding from a humanitarian program that looks after refugees and asylum seekers. She was employed as a manager at one of those companies, Chatswood PNG, which is owned by former PNG deputy prime minister Moses Maladina. Mr. Maladina has recently faced scrutiny under allegations that funds for the program were misused.

The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Maladina through Kumul Consolidated Holdings, where he is chairman, and through PNG Power Ltd., where he is also chairman, but did not receive a response by press time.

Mr. Maladina has denied Chatswood’s association with Ms. Lin’s activities, and there are no suggestions in local media that he is involved in the meth case. However, after Ms. Lin’s arrest on Jan. 16, PNG’s deputy prime minister and immigration minister John Rosso hired audit and advisory consultancy firm KPMG to conduct a “forensic investigation” of the entire humanitarian program.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Immigration Ministry’s media and public affairs unit to ask why Mr. Rosso had launched the forensic investigation after Ms. Lin’s arrest but did not receive a reply by press time.

KPMG responded to The Epoch Times inquiry but said it “doesn’t comment on client work.”

A suspect is led away after a "black flight" was intercepted by law enforcement in Monto, Queensland, Australia, on March 21, 2023. The first five arrests were made in the case after the smuggling flight was intercepted. Australian Federal Police photo

Behind the Chinese Syndicates

Transnational crime syndicates, particularly those smuggling drugs, weave an extremely complex and intricate web of operations. Their web of operations in the host country becomes even more complex in poor nations with huge Chinese investments.

The Institute for National Policy Research’s Mr. Kuo told The Epoch Times that since 2013, when Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping came to power, China has become central to the development of poor nations like those in the Pacific. This has opened the door for Chinese seeking business opportunities in those nations—including transnational criminal activities.

“In [the] Global South [for example], the moral code hasn’t been fully implemented and reigned. China private companies and citizens have convenient and direct access to government, bureaucracy—so it makes corruption very convenient,” said Mr. Kuo, adding that Chinese citizens get special treatment in many such nations because China has invested so much there.

Without commenting on the specifics of Ms. Lin’s case, he said greater access to government institutions means a network of “personal contacts and personal relations” that enables corrupt parties to establish a web of operations.

Mr. Kuo does not believe it is China’s intention to promote criminal operations in these countries. However, “These BRI projects open rent-seeking behavior and Chinese citizens push to make profits where it’s not meant to be,” he said.

To observers in the Pacific Island nations and Australia, Ms. Lin’s case will likely become more clear after her March 1 appearance in court. Whatever the outcome, such cases raise concerns and distrust of Chinese intentions in the region.

A spokesperson from Malaita Issues, a media outlet in Malaita Province, in the neighboring Solomon Islands, told The Epoch Times by text, “This type of news would definitely create a certain level of distrust within the Solomon Islands towards the Chinese business individuals who have established themselves ... but may have practiced such activities without [catching] the attention of the police and public.”

The Solomon Islands, like PNG, has a history of riots focused on anti-Chinese sentiment. The nation also has a burgeoning Chinese community, together with Chinese investment and a pro-China policy that is even more robust than that of PNG. The media outlet called Ms. Lin’s situation “unfortunate” but also raised concerns about the “safety of our community and that of our province from illegal substances and drugs.”