Luxon in Samoa: Up against it in the Pacific as cocaine trafficking skyrockets
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
APIA, SAMOA: ANALYSIS: New Zealand has promised to share drug trafficking intelligence with Samoa as the flow of cocaine surges through the Pacific.
But collaborative efforts with Samoa don’t appear to extend to further support for the fallout of the sinking of the Manawanui, at least for now.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon arrived in Apia on Monday night, his officials hard at work behind the scenes to smooth out an awkward misunderstanding about his pending chiefly title.
On Saturday, his Samoan counterpart Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt told a local radio station Luxon had personally asked to be made a matai.
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A red-faced New Zealand Government pushed back and Schmidt later retracted, stating this request never happened.
Luxon was keen to shrug it off and be done with it once the air was clear.
“We’ve worked our way through that issue … there was some miscommunication and all of that, but we've got ourselves to the right place.”
Luxon will leave Apia a matai ‒ an honour bestowed on someone for their presence and importance to Samoa.
It carries moral weight and set the scene for a memorandum of understanding both nations struck to share more intelligence between their respective police and customs agencies.
“We’ve seen submarine and all sorts of things happening with drugs coming into this part of the world and those criminal gangs will not give up,” Luxon said.
“They are very innovative and they keep pushing their product on our people and we don’t like it.”
Customs chief executive Christine Stevenson said drug trafficking in the Pacific had skyrocketed in recent months ‒ with about 14 tonnes of cocaine intercepted this year alone.
“There’s no sign of the drugs stopping,” she told The Post.
“We’ve seen more ventures on the water, maritime ventures coming down from South America, in the first eight weeks of this year than we saw in the whole of the two previous years.”
She said she could not overstate the problem.
Boosted by rising profitability, the global production of illegal narcotics had risen and the second Trump administration meant South American cartels were looking elsewhere to send their supply, she said.
“It’s harder to get drugs over the southern border of the US and when you've got the US firing on Narco vessels, the cartels are smart.
“They are agile and flexible and nimble and they will move their operations. They run as very sophisticated businesses and they don't want their businesses taken apart.”
New Zealand and Samoan authorities have collaborated for more than a decade but have had to huddle closer in light of the crisis.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers ‒ formerly stationed at Interpol in France ‒ has been working with police chiefs across the Pacific on drug trafficking since stepping into the role.
Island nations, including Samoa, needed investigations and dog detector programmes support ‒ something New Zealand was happy to provide, he said.
“There’s no point us trying to tackle the extent of this problem on our own and neither should Samoa be doing that,” Chambers said.
Luxon’s trip comes as the Manawanui wreck still lies underwater on the south coast of Upolu Island.
The Samoan government is still working through allocating the first portion of the NZ$6 million to affected communities.
Speaking after his bilateral meeting with Luxon yesterday, Schmidt hinted his government could ask for more support.
“At this stage, the continuation of the negotiations is still on, and we need to have time, better time … to consider what is good for us here and protective and also preserve what's going to be affected in the future.”
Luxon said New Zealand had given Samoa an independent ship wreck assessment and would “always do the right thing”, despite emphasising the compensation had been “full and final”.
Today the prime minister will spend the morning at community events in Samoa before boarding the Defence Force plane to fly to Tonga.