Drug trade: Ice lab in the steamy Pacific

On a humid Fiji day in June last year, one of the biggest drug enterprises in the region came crashing down.

When police broke down the doors of a warehouse in Suva, they found enough chemicals bubbling away to make more than 1000kg of crystal methamphetamine. A Hong Kong man found at his home had millions of dollars in cash and jewellery. Inside the factory were scores of 200-litre drums of solvents and chemicals.

Police believe the factory had the capacity to churn out more than 500kg of the drug a week, made for sale in Australia and New Zealand.

While the world's focus was on the Fiji laboratory, the most significant arrest was in Malaysia. Kwok Hung Lam and seven senior members of his drug operation were charged after an 18-month international investigation based on information from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency.

The Fiji lab was allegedly just one of several operated by Lam and his operation around the world. His syndicate has been linked to several significant busts from 2001 to 2004.

Lam's empire has tentacles in New Zealand and he is believed to have been here.

"The Fiji syndicate is huge and the fact is that New Zealand is extremely closely aligned to some elements of that syndicate," says a police intelligence officer.

Among the operations linked to the Fiji lab case is the October 2000 seizure of 357kg of high-purity heroin in Fiji. The drugs, destined ultimately for Australia, had passed through New Zealand. One of the men jailed for the heroin seizure was Tak Sang Hao, who had business and property interests in New Zealand.

Fiji's experience has justified warnings in a UN drug report of the danger for the Pacific: "The Pacific islands connect some of the world's largest drug producers with the largest drug markets in the world. It is a strategic, if perilous, location with regard to the global illicit drug trade."