Drug cartels target Australia from south Pacific bases Cocaine cartels have established bases in the south Pacific to conduct massive drug importations into Australia, according to a confidential federal police and US Drug Enforcement Administration inquiry. The intelligence gathering operation has linked one central America syndicate to over 1500 kilograms of cocaine smuggled to Australia from Vanuatu via yachts participating in successive Bundaberg Cruising Yacht Cub "Port2Port" rallies. The syndicate is suspected of importing a huge shipment of cocaine into Australia in the Port Vila to Bundaberg yacht rally in late 2010. Federal police seized a second shipment of 700 kilograms of cocaine smuggled on a yacht in the 2011 sailing event and made another seizure of 750 kilograms of cocaine on a boat in Port Vila earlier this year. The crackdown in the south Pacific, which has also included large cocaine seizures from yachts near New Caledonia and Tonga, is part of a major shift in the federal police's anti-organised crime operations. Commander David Sharpe said the federal police cannot "arrest its way" out of the drug trafficking problem facing the nation and is complementing its traditional drug seizure and prosecution program with new measures to deter offshore cartels from targeting Australia's drug market. The police's new strategy includes a greater focus on money laundering and closer relationships with state agencies and America's DEA, which has agents in most trafficking hot spots around the globe. The DEA's top Australian agent said cartels are aggressively targeting Australia due to record local drug prices. DEA agent Dave Cali also said his agency was concerned with the international expansion of Australian outlaw bikie gangs, including into the Asia-Pacific region. US bikie gang the Mongols recently established several chapters in Australia. "We just view them as organised crime syndicates regardless of what patch they are wearing," Mr Cali said. It is a concern for us when gangs go outside of Australia to other areas closer to the US. Federal police commander Ian McCartney said police teams tracking dirty money have identified a "United Nations" of launderers, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne. He said both cities "are awash with drug cash." The drug money movers are predominantly Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Tamil and Chinese nationals who knowingly flout laundering laws in return for a 3 per cent to 5 per cent cut of every dollar moved. Commander McCartney said the illicit business is so profitable, some money launderers will even underwrite funds and replace money if it is seized by police. "What we were seeing is the major [crime syndicate] controllers are actually based offshore," he said. The people that were coming here were at a lower level in what we call shore parties ... we could continue to keep arresting them, but the disruptive impact on organised crime was not going to be that significant. So our focus shifted to targeting and disrupting the professional money laundering syndicates that are, in effect, moving money on behalf of organised crime. The AFP's work in this area - driven by joint-taskforces with the DEA and other state and federal agencies - is generating intelligence about the identity of overseas syndicates making billions of dollars from the local drug market. "Allowing that money to run gives us the opportunity to identify major organisers overseas and track fresh importations," commander McCartney said.