The Vanuatu Daily Post is deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Dan McGarry, our former media director. McGarry was a fearless investigative journalist, photographer, and software professional who made a lasting contribution to the development of the Daily Post.

He managed media content across the company’s publications, website, and social media platforms, while also shaping the wider media landscape in Vanuatu.

Before formally joining the organisation in 2015, he wrote regular columns under the pseudonym Graham Crumb.

• READ MORE: ‘He will never be replaced’ – tributes flow for ‘fearless’ Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry
• OCCRP mourns the loss of Dan McGarry, pioneering Pacific editor and investigative journalist
• Dan McGarry’s articles on Asia Pacific Report

Prior to joining the Daily Post, McGarry was part of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PiPP), an independent, non-profit, regionally focused think tank based in Port Vila. He also worked with Computer Network Services (CNS) as technical manager during its early years.

Reports indicate that McGarry, 62, fell ill following a trip to Papua New Guinea earlier this month and was evacuated to Brisbane.

He faced complications during recovery and remained in critical care in recent weeks. At the time of his passing, McGarry was serving as Pacific editor for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

McGarry was a leading voice in Pacific journalism, driven by a strong sense of justice and commitment to the public good.

He is survived by his wife and children. His passing leaves a profound gap in the media community.

The Vanuatu Daily Post extends its heartfelt condolences to his family during this difficult time and stands with them in mourning this loss.

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post.

Tributes are pouring in from across the region for “fearless” and “formidable” Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry, who died on Wednesday.

McGarry, 62, fell ill after a trip to Papua New Guinea earlier this month, from where he had to be evacuated to Brisbane to undergo a heart bypass.

But he faced complications during his recovery and had remained in critical care for the past few weeks.

• READ MORE: Dan McGarry’s articles on Asia Pacific Report
• OCCRP mourns the loss of Dan McGarry, pioneering Pacific editor and investigative journalist

McGarry, who was a former editor of Vanuatu’s only national newspaper, the Vanuatu Daily Post, and Pacific editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) at the time of his death, has left behind his wife and children.

“It’s with great heartbreak that I have to announce that the legendary Dan McGarry passed away earlier today,” Aubrey Belford, who was a co-editor with McGarry at OCCRP, said in a Facebook post.

“Dan was an absolutely dominating presence in Pacific journalism and in the region more generally.

“Dan was compassionate, sharing, and always motivated by a sense of justice and the common good. He was driven but also understood the importance of patience, friendship, and community.

‘A shell or more of kava’
“When home in Vanuatu he loved nothing more than finishing his day with a shell or more of kava, satisfied in the knowledge he had found his place in the world.”

Belford added McGarry’s loss was devastating not just for his family but for all journalists working in the region.

“He will be missed, and he will never be replaced.”

Another friend and colleague, Andrew Gray, said McGarry was “a good man”.

“After a hard life he finally found happiness in Vanuatu, and he did a lot more for the country than people appreciate. Last time I saw him he was planning his retirement at Lalwori.

“Condolences to Line McGarry Watsivi and their daughters.”

InsidePNG described McGarry as “more than just a colleague, a titan of regional journalism and a tireless advocate for the truth”.

‘Wealth of experience’
“As the former editor of the Vanuatu Daily Post, he brought a wealth of experience and a fearless spirit to every project he touched. Dan was absolutely instrumental in the birth of our investigative centre in Port Moresby.

“He didn’t just help set the foundation, he guided and mentored InsidePNG through our most critical work, building a lasting connection with our team that went far beyond professional duty,” the news outlet said in a social media post.

Kiribati journalist Rimon Rimon, who worked with McGarry, described him as “one of the brilliant minds I had the privilege of working closely with in our OCCRP investigations!”

The University of the South Pacific’s head of journalism associate professor Dr Shailendra Singh said McGarry’s passing is “profoundly felt across the Pacific media community, where his contributions as journalist, trainer and mentor have made a lasting impact”.

“He will be greatly missed. My thoughts are with his loved ones during this difficult time.”

RNZ Pacific manager Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor said McGarry’s presence would be missed.

“Dan McGarry was one of the best – a champion of the truth.”

Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie said: “Vale Dan McGarry. A stunning loss to investigative journalism and media courage and integrity in Vanuatu and the Pacific. A friend and mentor to all.

“Farewell Dan and many thanks for your inspiration and mentoring. Deepest condolences to whānau. RIP.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

EDITORIAL: By the OCCRP editors

“OCCRP is a deep state operation.
“OCCRP is connected to the CIA.
“OCCRP was tasked by USAID to overthrow President Donald Trump.”

How did we end up getting this kind of attention? Old fashioned investigative journalism.

We wrote a simple story in 2019 about how Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine for some opposition research and ended up working with people connected to organised crime who misled him.

Unbeknown to us, a whistleblower found the story online and added it to a complaint that was the basis of President Trump’s first impeachment. We also wrote a story about Hunter Biden‘s business partners and their ties to organised crime but that hasn’t received the same attention.

• READ MORE: Trump’s foreign aid freeze throws independent journalism into chaos
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

Journalism has become a blood sport. It’s harder and harder to tell the truth without someone’s interests getting stepped on.

OCCRP prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. No donor has any say in our reporting, but we often find ourselves under attack for our funding.

It’s not just political interests but organised crime, businesses, enablers, and other journalists who regularly attack us. What’s common in all of these attacks is that the truth doesn’t matter and it will not protect you.

Few attack the facts in our reporting. Instead we’re left perplexed by how to respond to wild conspiracy theories, outright disinformation, and hyperbolic hatred.

At the same time, we’ve lost 29 percent of our funding because of the US foreign aid freeze. This includes 82 percent of the money we give to newsrooms in our network, many of which operate in places [Pacific Media Watch: Such as in the Pacific] where no one else will support them.

This money did not only fund groundbreaking, prize-winning collaborative journalism but it also trained young investigative reporters to expose wrongdoing. It’s money that kept journalists safe from physical and digital attacks and supported those in exile who continued to report on crooks and dictators back in their home countries.

OCCRP now has 43 less journalists and staff to do our work.

No attack or funding freeze will stop us from trying to fulfill our mission. Just in the past week, OCCRP and its partners revealed how Russia’s shadow fleet sources its ships, how taxes haven’t been paid on Roman Abramovich’s yachts, and how Syrian intelligence spied on journalists.

Next week, we’ll take on another set of powerful actors to defend the public interest. And another set the week after that.

We are determined to stay in the fight and keep reporting on organised crime and the corrupt who enable and benefit from it. But it’s getting harder and we need help.

• How to donate to the OCCRP project.

• The operator of a Pacific-wide network of pharmacy companies, Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, was sentenced to four years prison in New Zealand in August for illegally importing millions of dollars worth of pseudoephedrine, a precursor chemical of methamphetamine.
• Umarji, a Fijian national, had long been a target of police in his home country but had for years escaped justice thanks to what Fijian and international law enforcement say was an unwillingness by the previous authoritarian government of Voreqe Bainimarama to seriously tackle meth and cocaine trafficking.
• Fiji’s new government, which was elected last December, is now investigating donations that Umarji and his family made to the previous ruling party, as well as “potential connections” to top law enforcement officials.

Until recently, Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji was — in public at least — a pillar of Fiji’s business community.

With ownership of a Pacific-wide pharmacy network, Umarji and his family were significant donors to the party that repressively ruled the country until it lost power in elections last December. He was also a major figure in sports, serving as a vice president of the Fiji Football Association and as a committee member in soccer’s global governing body, FIFA.

And he did it all as an internationally wanted drug trafficker.

• READ MORE: Fall of a Fijian trafficker – the full OCCRP report
• Other OCCRP investigations

Umarji’s fall finally came in August this year, after he ended a period of self-imposed exile in India and surrendered himself to authorities in New Zealand to face years-old charges. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison for importing at least NZ$5-$6 million (US$2.9-3.5 million) worth of pseudoephedrine — a precursor for methamphetamine – into the country.

His sentencing was hailed by Fijian police as a blow against a “mastermind” whose operations stretched across the region.

But behind the conviction of Umarji, 47, lies a far murkier story of impunity, a joint investigation by an Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), The Fiji Times, The New Zealand Herald and Radio New Zealand has found.

Umarji was able to thrive for years amid a failure by senior officials of Fiji’s previous authoritarian government to confront a rise in meth and cocaine trafficking through the Pacific Island country.

And when New Zealand authorities finally issued an international warrant for his arrest, Umarji was able to flee Fiji under suspicious circumstances.

Reporters found that Umarji and his family donated at least F$70,000 (US$31,000) to the country’s former ruling party, FijiFirst, in the years after he was first put under investigation. This included F$20,000 (US$8,700) given to the party ahead of last December’s election — roughly three years after he was first charged.

The party’s general secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, was Fiji’s long-serving attorney-general and justice minister at the time.

Reporters also found that the Umarji family’s business network has continued to expand despite his legal troubles, and currently operates in three Pacific countries. The newest of these pharmacy companies, in Vanuatu, was founded just last year.

Fiji’s Minister for Immigration and Home Affairs, Pio Tikoduadua, told OCCRP an investigation has been opened into how Umarji was able to flee the country.

He said authorities are also investigating donations Umarji and his family made to FijiFirst, and any “potential connections” he may have had to top officials in the former government, including Sayed-Khaiyum and the now-suspended Police Commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho.

“Certainly, I am deeply concerned about the potential influence of drug traffickers in Fiji, especially over officials and law enforcement,” Tikoduadua said.

“The infiltration of these criminal elements poses a significant risk to our society and institutions.”

Umarji declined a request for an interview and did not respond to follow-up questions. His Auckland lawyer, David PH Jones, said a request from reporters contained “numerous loaded questions which contain unsubstantiated assertions, a number of which have little or nothing to do with Mr Umarji’s prosecution”.

Sayed-Khaiyum and Qiliho did not respond to written questions.

‘A hub of the Pacific’
The rise in drug trafficking through Fiji is just one part of a booming trans-Pacific trade that experts and law enforcement say has become one of the world’s most profitable.

In Australia, the most recent data shows that drug seizures have more than quadrupled over the last decade, and Australians now consume 4.7 tonnes of cocaine and 8.8 tonnes of meth a year. In much smaller New Zealand, drug users strongly prefer meth to cocaine, consuming roughly 720 kilograms a year.

Consumers in both countries pay some of the highest prices on earth for cocaine and meth, much of it exported from the Americas. Lying in the vast blue expanse between the two points are the Pacific Islands.

“Fiji is a hub of the Pacific. You’ve got the ports, you’ve got the infrastructure, and you’ve got the ability to come in and out either by [water] craft or by airplane,” said Glyn Rowland, the New Zealand Police senior liaison officer for the Pacific.

“So that really leaves Fiji quite vulnerable to be in that transit route off to New Zealand and off to Australia.”

Fiji has long been eyed by international organised crime for its strategic location close to Australia and New Zealand’s multi-billion dollar drug markets.

In the early 2000s, for example, an international police operation took apart a “super lab” in Fiji’s capital, Suva, run by Chinese gangsters with enough precursor chemicals to produce a tonne of meth.

But after early successes, Fiji in recent years went cold on the fight against hard drugs.

The previous government of Voreqe Bainimarama, who first took power in a 2006 coup, showed little interest in tackling meth and cocaine trafficking, according to current and former law enforcement officers from Fiji and the US. Despite recent signs that trafficking was increasing, the police force under Bainimarama’s hand-picked commissioner, Qiliho, seemed to overlook the problem, the officers told OCCRP.

Bainimarama did not respond to questions.

Ernie Verina, the Oceania attaché for US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), said his agency had become worried about trafficking through Fiji.

In mid-2022, HSI assigned an agent to be based in the country. But when the agent raised the issue of meth with top officials from Bainimarama’s government, he was met with total pushback, Verina said.

“Categorically, like, ‘There is no meth’,” Verina said of the Fijian response.

“That’s what they told the agent.”

A lot of influence
Despite high-level denials, Fiji’s narcotics police were very much aware of the country’s drug trafficking crisis. In fact, they had long had Umarji in their sights. But he was a difficult target.

As far back as 2017, Umarji was identified as “one of the tier one” suspected traffickers in the country, said Serupepeli Neiko, the head of the Fiji Police’s Narcotics Bureau.

While the drug trade through Fiji is also the domain of transnational organised crime groups, Umarji was suspected of having carved out a niche for himself by using his network of pharmacies, Hyperchem, to legally import pseudoephedrine and divert it onto the black market, Neiko said.

In early 2017, Umarji and one of his colleagues were charged with weapons possession after scores of rifle bullets were found on his yacht, moored in his hometown of Lautoka. But the charges were “squashed in court,” Neiko said.

“So that gave a red flag to us that a [drug trafficking] case against Umarji would have been challenging as well.”

A former senior Fijian officer, who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media, put it more bluntly: “Umarji had a lot of influence with the previous government.”

Reporters found no evidence that any senior Fijian officials intervened against investigations into Umarji. But the perception that he had influence was powerful, current and former police officers said.

Indeed, since the fall of Bainimarama’s government last year, multiple senior officials have faced charges that they abused their positions, but none have been convicted.

The suspended police commissioner, Qiliho, and the former prime minister, Bainimarama, were both acquitted by a court on October 12 of charges that they had illegally interfered in a separate police investigation.

Former Attorney-General Sayed-Khaiyum is also currently facing prosecution in another unrelated abuse of office case.

Despite becoming a top-level police target, Umarji continued to expand his influence in Fiji.

Company records show that, in 2015, he and his wife, Zaheera Cassim, opened Hyperchem companies in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and a now-defunct branch in Samoa.

In May 2017, Umarji opened a new company, Bio Pharma, in New Zealand.

Ahead of elections the following year, Umarji and his relatives donated a total of at least F$50,000 to the FijiFirst party, declarations from the Fiji Elections Office show.

Umarji also made a name for himself in soccer, getting elected a vice-president of the Fiji Football Association in December 2019.

Pills and cash
By 2019, it was clear that avenues for a Fijian investigation were closed. So police in New Zealand stepped in instead. Reporters were able to reconstruct what happened next via court records and interviews.

While seconded that year to Fiji’s Transnational Crime Unit, New Zealand detective Peter Reynolds heard whispers about Umarji’s alleged criminal activity from his local colleagues. On returning to New Zealand, he decided to take things into his own hands.

Digging through police files, Reynolds found a lucky break in a case from nearly two years prior.

In late 2017, an anonymous member of the public had reached out to an anti-crime hotline with a tip that a businessman, Firdos “Freddie” Dalal, had a suspicious amount of money in his home in suburban Auckland.

Acting on a warrant, police made their way inside and found NZ$726,190 in cash and 4000 boxes of Actifed, a cold and flu medicine that contains pseudoephedrine.

Known as Operation Duet, the investigation that led to Dalal’s conviction provided the information that Reynolds needed to go after Umarji. It turned out that Dalal, who owned an Auckland-based freight forwarding company, was also listed as the director of Umarji’s New Zealand company, Bio Pharma.

Reynolds soon figured out how it all worked. Using his Pacific-wide Hyperchem network, Umarji ordered Actifed pills to be delivered from abroad to his pharmacies in Fiji and Solomon Islands. The shipments were set to transit through New Zealand, where Dalal’s forwarding company was responsible for the cargo.

While the drugs sat in a restricted customs holding area, Dalal simply went inside and swapped them out for other other medicine, such as anti-fungal cream, which was then sent on to their island destinations. The purloined pseudoephedrine was sold on New Zealand’s black market.

Dalal did not respond to questions.

In just three shipments between January and October 2017, Umarji’s operation brought in an estimated 678,000 Actifed pills containing about 40.7 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, Auckland District Court would later find.

But if deciphering Umarji’s operation was straightforward, arresting him would prove anything but.

New Zealand Police filed charges against Umarji in December 2019, but Reynolds told the Auckland court that he believed they faced little chance of getting Umarji to voluntarily fly to Auckland and show up in court.

“If the summons were to be served it would likely result in Umarji fleeing [Fiji] to a country that has no extradition arrangements with New Zealand,” the detective said in an affidavit.

So New Zealand authorities decided to go through the arduous process of requesting extradition. In November 2021, a Fijian court agreed to the request, and New Zealand Police issued an Interpol red notice.

Despite all the effort, within days Fiji Police had to contact their New Zealand counterparts with an embarrassing admission: Umarji had fled the country, and was in India.

New Zealand Police’s Pacific liaison, Rowland, declined to comment on how Umarji was able to flee Fiji, but added: “The reality is, sometimes corruption isn’t about what you do. Sometimes corruption is about what you don’t do, or turn a blind eye to.”

Despite his legal troubles, Umarji remained a respectable public figure in Fiji, thanks in part to a restrictive media environment that made it difficult for reporters to look into him in detail.

In May 2021, while Umarji was still in Fiji and his extradition case was pending, he was elected to FIFA’s governance, audit and compliance committee. He kept the position even after his flight abroad later that year, and was re-elected unopposed as Fiji Football Association vice president this June. He only resigned both positions on August 7, two days before his sentencing.

FIFA and the Fiji Football Association did not respond to questions.

Umarji also made little effort to hide during his exile in India. At one stage last year, he recorded an online video testimonial for a stem cell clinic outside of Delhi where he said he was getting treatment for diabetes.

His family’s second round of donations to FijiFirst, F$20,000 ahead of last December’s elections, were similarly made while Umarji was on the run.

But the drug trafficker eventually tired of exile.

In early 2022, he first contacted his high-powered Auckland lawyer, Jones, to arrange his surrender to New Zealand Police. He pleaded guilty to the Auckland court earlier this year and was allowed to return to Fiji to sort his affairs before handing himself in for sentencing.

New focus
With Umarji now in prison, Fijian authorities say they are continuing to investigate his operations.

Umarji’s pharmaceutical business continues to run with his wife, Cassim, at its head. Cassim has for years been a significant public face for the businesses, including publicising its charitable work. She declined to respond to reporters’ questions.

OCCRP visited Umarji’s companies in Lautoka in late June, during the period in which he was allowed by the New Zealand court to briefly return to Fiji. Reporters found a bustling network of businesses, including a well-staffed warehouse and office on the edge of town for Hyperchem.

Reporters contacted Umarji by phone from the warehouse’s reception area, but he declined to come out for an interview and referred reporters to his lawyer.

Homeland Security Investigations’ Verina said the new government of Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has since removed roadblocks to investigating these sort of trafficking operations.

“We have started to see enforcement operations and arrests and holding individuals accountable for the methamphetamine smuggling,” Verina said.

An Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation. Additional reporting by Lydia Lewis (RNZ) and George Block (New Zealand Herald). This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A pair of Chinese scam artists wanted to turn a radiation-soaked Pacific atoll into a future metropolis. They ended up in an American jail instead.

How they got there is an untold tale of international bribery and graft that stretched to the very heart of the United Nations.

The stakes could scarcely have been higher for Hilda Heine, the former president of the Marshall Islands.

• READ MORE: Flashback: The Rongelap and the boat and the bomb story
• The full OCCRP investigation
• Other reports on Rongelap and the scam

A new OCCRP investigation reveals details of how Chinese-born fraudsters Cary Yan and Gina Zhou paid more than US$1 million to UN diplomats to gain access to its headquarters in New York, before embarking on a controversial plan to set up an autonomous zone near an important US military facility in the Pacific Ocean.

For years, Hilda Heine’s remote archipelago nation of just 40,000 people was best known to the world for Cold War nuclear testing that left scores of its islands poisoned.

Sitting in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, the country was a strategic but forgotten US ally.

But the arrival of a couple of mysterious strangers threatened to change all that. With buckets of cash at their disposal, the Chinese pair, Cary Yan and Gina Zhou, had grand plans that could have thrust the Marshall Islands into the growing rivalry between China and the West, and perhaps fracture the country itself.

Public controversy
First proposed in 2017, while Heine was still president, Yan and Zhou’s idea raised public controversy.

With backing from foreign investors, the couple planned to rehabilitate one irradiated atoll, Rongelap, and turn it into a futuristic “digital special administrative region.”

The new city of artificial islands would include an aviation logistics center, wellness resorts, a gaming and entertainment zone, and foreign embassies.

Thanks in part to the liberal payment of bribes, Yan and Zhou had managed to gain the support of some of the Marshall Islands’ most powerful politicians. They then lobbied for a draft bill that would have given the proposed zone, known as the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR), its own separate courts and immigration laws.

Heine was opposed. The whole thing reeked of a Chinese effort to gain influence over the strategically located Marshall Islands, she told OCCRP.

The plan was unconstitutional and would have created a virtually “independent country” within the Marshall Islands’ borders, she said.

The new Chinese investor-backed zone would also have occupied a geographically sensitive spot just 200 km of open water away from Kwajalein Atoll, where the US Army runs facilities that test intercontinental ballistic missiles and track foreign rocket launches.

Became a target
But when President Heine argued against the draft law, she became a target herself. In November 2018, pro-RASAR politicians backed by Yan and Zhou pushed a no-confidence motion to remove her from power.

She survived by one vote.

Even then, the president said she had no idea who this influential duo really were. Although they seemed to be Chinese, they carried Marshall Islands passports, which  gave them visa free access to the United States. Nobody seemed to know how they had obtained them.

“We looked and looked and we couldn’t find when and how they got [the passports],” Heine said. “We didn’t know what their connections were or if they had any connections with the Chinese government.

“But of course we were suspicious.”

The plan came to an abrupt end in November 2020, when Yan and Zhou were arrested in Thailand on a US warrant. After being extradited to face trial in New York, they pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to bribe Marshallese officials.

Both were sentenced earlier this year. Zhou was deported to the Marshall Islands shortly after her sentencing, while Yan is due for release this November.

But although the federal case led to a brief burst of media attention, it left key questions unanswered.

Who really were Yan and Zhou? Who helped them in their audacious scheme? Were they simply crooks? Or were they also working to advance the interests of the Chinese government?

OCCRP spent nearly a year trying to find answers, conducting interviews around the world and poring through thousands of pages of documents.

What reporters uncovered was a story more bizarre — and with far broader implications — than first expected.

Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall and Martin Young are investigative writers for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.

• Read the full OCCRP investigation

Fiji’s government has taken the local leader of an influential South Korean doomsday sect into immigration custody after he and several other members of the Grace Road Church were declared “prohibited migrants” based on charges filed in 2018.

Fiji had announced last Thursday that it was taking steps to deport Daniel Kim and the other sect members who had been detained.

The passports of the sect members had been annulled by the Korean government in 2021, and Interpol “red notices” were issued against them.

• READ MORE: Fijian doomsday sect gets rich in Fiji with government help
• Fiji immigration officials detain Grace Road cult leader Daniel Kim
• Interpol ‘red notices’ against 7 Grace Road cult figures, but court orders stay
• Other Grace Road cult reports

Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua revealed that all of this had been ignored by the previous repressive Fiji government led by former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama, according to Fijivillage News and other local media.

Tikoduadua said two sect members had already been deported while the deportations of another two were temporarily halted by a court order.

One more member was still at large.

OCCRP investigated Grace Road and its close ties to the Bainimarama regime last year. Kim and others had managed to evade a 2018 INTERPOL red notice until the new government acted. https://t.co/i4d0XtVLYS

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) September 7, 2023

A joint investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP) and KICJ-Newstapa last year exposed how the secretive Grace Road became an economic powerhouse in Fiji during the 16-year rule of Bainimarama, who lost power in elections last December.

Reporters discovered that the church was able to thrive in Fiji despite Kim and other key members being wanted on international warrants.

The investigation also uncovered how the church expanded its empire, which included a farm, restaurants, petrol stations, and supermarkets, all while receiving millions in state-backed loans.

Grace Road’s spiritual leader, Kim’s mother Ok-joo Shin, was arrested at Seoul’s international airport in 2018 and imprisoned for offences, including assault, child abuse, and imprisoning church members.

Around the same time, South Korean police attempted to bring Kim and other church members back on similar charges in Fiji but were forced to return empty-handed after a court blocked their removal.

Republished with permission from the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP).

The press statement was clear enough — that the Interpol Red Notice described these individuals as “Fugitive wanted for Prosecution”. pic.twitter.com/EjqJcyVVwv

— Pio Tikoduadua (@piotikoduaduafj) September 8, 2023

Concerns have been raised about foreign influence in Pacific media after it was revealed Solomon Islands’ longest-running newspaper received funding from China in return for favourable coverage.

Earlier this week the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed how China has been attempting to gain influence in media outlets in Palau and Solomon Islands.

In Palau, a failed media deal pushed by China has revealed how Beijing was seeking to exert its influence in the Pacific region by using political pressure and funding to capture local elites, including in the media.

• READ MORE: Solomon Star promised to ‘promote China’ in return for funding
• Leaked email shows how China got what it wanted at newspaper that promised favourable coverage
• Other Pacific media and China reports
• The OCCRP website

The OCCRP said at least one front page story had been supplied by an initiative that was backed by investors with ties to China’s police and military.

China had even more success gaining favour in Solomon Islands, where it has steadily been increasing its presence and influence since the Pacific nation switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019.

There, according to the OCCRP,  the Solomon Star newspaper received Chinese money after giving assurances it would push messages favourable to Beijing.

Desperate for funding, editors at the Solomon Star wrote up a proposal to China’s embassy in Honiara in July last year.

Paper struggling to keep up
The paper was struggling to keep up and needed assistance — its printing machines were deteriorating and papers were often hitting the streets a day late, according to the proposal the Solomon Star sent to China.

Its radio station, Paoa FM, was having difficulty broadcasting into remote provinces.

“Reporters obtained a July 2022 draft funding proposal from the Solomon Star to China’s embassy in Honiara in which the paper requested 1,150,000 Solomon Islands dollars ($206,300) for equipment including a replacement for its ageing newspaper printer and a broadcast tower for its radio station, PAOA FM,” OCCRP said.

“The Solomon Star said in the proposal that decrepit equipment was causing editions to come out late and ‘curtailing news flow about China’s generous and lightning economic and infrastructure development in Solomon Islands’.”

According to the proposal, seen by the ABC’s Pacific Beat programme, China stood to gain “enormously”.

“The intended outcome of this project . . .  is that Solomon Star newspaper will be produced on time for the benefits of its readers, subscribers and the advertising community,” it said.

“China’s timely intervention in Solomon Islands’ infrastructure and economic development will also benefit enormously as news about this new-found partnership is published.”

OCCRP has confirmed the printing equipment the Solomon Star wanted was delivered earlier this year.

Alfred Sasako, Solomon Star’s editor, said the newspaper maintained its independence.

He told the OCCRP that any suggestion it had a pro-Beijing bias was “a figment of the imagination of anyone who is trying to demonise China”.

Sasako told the OCCRP the paper had tried unsuccessfully for more than a decade to get funding from Australia.

Financial desperation drives ailing paper to Chinese backers
Ofani Eremae, a journalist and co-founder at In-depth Solomons who used to work at the Solomon Star, said it has been struggling financially since COVID, and the majority of staff have left.

“They are really in a very, very bad financial situation, so they are desperate,” he told the ABC.

“I think this is what’s prompting them to look for finances elsewhere to keep the operation going.

“It just so happens that China is here and they [Solomon Star] found someone who’s willing to give them a lot of money.”

Taking the assistance from China has raised questions about the paper’s independence, he said.

“It’s a paper with the reputation people trust but in situations like that, you lose your credibility, you lose your independence and of course you become some kind of organisation that’s been controlled by outsiders,” Eremae told the ABC.

Government spending on advertisements in the paper could help it somewhat, but Eremae said “democratic countries, especially the US” should step in and help.

‘Have to defend democracy’
“They have to defend democracy, they have to defend freedom of the press in this country,” he told the ABC.

“Otherwise China, which seems to have a lot of money, they could just easily come in and take control of things here.”

University of South Pacific associate professor of journalism Shailendra Singh said “the Chinese offer hit the right spot” with the paper facing financial challenges due to covid and advertising revenues going to social media.

“If you look across the region, governments are shaking hands with China, making all kinds of deals and also receiving huge amounts of funds,” he told the ABC.

Dr Singh said media outlets had become part of the competition between large countries vying for influence in the region and warned other struggling Pacific media companies could be tempted by similar offers.

“They would seriously consider surrendering some of their editorial independence for a new printing press, just to keep them in business,” he said.

“Let’s just hope that this does not become a trend.”

The concerns these kind of deals bring was clear.

‘Risk of compromising editorial independence’
“This is simply because of the risk of compromising editorial independence,” Dr Singh told the ABC.

“There is concern the country’s major newspaper is turning into a Chinese state party propaganda rag.”

If China managed to sway both the Solomon Islands government and its main newspaper, that would create an “unholy alliance”, Dr Singh said.

“The people would be at the mercy of a cabal, with very little — if not zero — public dissent,” he said.

Despite the concerns, Dr Singh said there were some sound reasons for the Solomon Star to enter the deal.

“If they don’t sign the deal they will continue to struggle financially and it might even mean the end of the Solomon Star,” he told the ABC.

Only the Solomon Star publisher and editor had a full grasp of the situation and the financial challenges the paper faced, he said.

‘Makes business sense’
“From our lofty perch we have all these grand ideas about media independence in theory, but does anyone consider the business realities?”

“It may not make sense to the Americans or the Australians, but makes perfect sense to the Solomon Star from a business survival point of view.”

Solomon Islands and Pacific outlets have been funded for media development by Australia and other governments.

Third party organisations such as the ABC International Development supports the media community across the Pacific to promote public interest journalism and hold businesses, governments and other institutions to account.

But Solomon Islands opposition MP Peter Kenilorea Junior said he was concerned by direct support given to the Solomon Star by a foreign government.

“It’s totally inappropriate for any government — let alone the Chinese government — to be involved in our newspaper publications, because that is supposed to be independent,” he told the ABC.

“I don’t think standards are kept when there is this, according to the report, involvement by the Chinese to try and perhaps reward the paper for saying or passing on stories that are positive about a particular country.”

Georgina Kekea, president of the Media Association of Solomon Islands, said the financial support did not come as a surprise as most businesses were struggling.

“It’s quite difficult for us to ensure that the media industry thrives when they are really floundering, where companies are finding it hard to pay their staff salary,” she told the ABC.

“It is sad to see the US-funded OCCRP through its agent in Solomon Islands, Ofani Eremae, and his so-called ‘In-depth Solomons’ website making unrelented attempts to tarnish the reputation of the Solomon Star Newspaper for receiving funding support from China,” the paper said.

“One thing that Solomon Star can assure the right-minded people of this nation is that we will continue to inform and educate you on issues that matter without any geopolitical bias and that China through its Embassy in Honiara never attempted to stop us from doing so . . .  Solomon Star also continued to publish news items not in the favour of China and the Chinese Embassy in Honiara never issued a reproachment.

“It is indeed sad to see the OCCRP-funded journalists in Solomon Islands and the Pacific trying to bring geopolitics into the Pacific and Solomon Islands media landscape and Solomon Star strongly urges these journalists and their financiers to stop geo-politicising the media.”

OCCRP said it “is funded worldwide by a variety of government and non-government donors”.

“OCCRP’s work in the Pacific Islands is currently funded by a US-government grant that gives the donor zero say in editorial decisions,” it said.

Dr Singh said whether aid came from China, the US or Australia: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

The ABC has sought comment from the Solomon Star and the Chinese Embassy in Solomon Islands.

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

A major daily newspaper in Solomon Islands received nearly US$140,000 in funding from the Chinese government in return for pledges to “promote the truth about China’s generosity and its true intentions to help develop” the Pacific Islands country, according to a leaked document and interviews.

The revelation comes amid Western alarm over growing Chinese influence over the strategically located country, which switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019 and then signed a surprise security agreement with Beijing last year.

Solomon Islands journalists have complained of a worsening media environment, as well as what is perceived to be a growing pro-China slant from local outlets that have accepted funding from the People’s Republic.

• READ MORE: How China’s creeping influence undermines Pacific media freedom — Shailendra Singh
• Other Pacific media and China reports
• The OCCRP website

A document obtained by OCCRP shows how one of these outlets, the Solomon Star newspaper, received Chinese assistance after providing repeated and explicit assurances that it would push messages favorable to Beijing.

Reporters obtained a July 2022 draft funding proposal from the Solomon Star to China’s embassy in Honiara in which the paper requested SBD 1,150,000 (about $137,000) for equipment, including a replacement for its aging newspaper printer and a broadcast tower for its radio station, PAOA FM.

The Solomon Star said in the proposal that decrepit equipment was causing editions to come out late and “curtailing news flow about China’s generous and lightning economic and infrastructure development in Solomon Islands.”

The document shows the Chinese embassy had initially offered SBD 350,000 in 2021, but revised this number upward in recognition of the newspaper’s needs.

A dozen pledges
In total, the proposal contains roughly a dozen separate pledges to use the Chinese-funded equipment to promote China’s “goodwill” and role as “the most generous and trusted development partner” in Solomon Islands.

In interviews, both the Solomon Star’s then-publisher, Catherine Lamani, and its chief of staff, Alfred Sasako, confirmed the paper had made the proposal, but declined to speak in detail about it.

Sasako said the newspaper maintained its independence. He said any suggestion it had a pro-Beijing bias was “a figment of the imagination of anyone who is trying to demonise China.”

Sasako said the paper had tried unsuccessfully for more than a decade to get assistance from Australia’s embassy in the country. Other Western countries, such as the United States, had neglected Solomon Islands for decades and were only now showing interest because of anxiety over Chinese influence, he added.

“My summary on the whole thing is China is a doer, others are talkers. They spend too much time talking, nothing gets done,” he said.

Press delivered
OCCRP was able to confirm that the printing equipment the Solomon Star had requested was indeed purchased and delivered earlier this year.

“I can confirm what was quoted was delivered in February and the payments came from the Solomon Star,” said Terry Mays, business development manager of G2 Systems Print Supply Division, the Brisbane, Australia, based supplier named in the proposal.

The Solomon Star funding is just one part of a regional push to get China’s message out in the Pacific Islands, as well as build relationships with the region’s elites, reporters have found.

Earlier this month, OCCRP reported on an aborted deal in the northern Pacific nation of Palau involving the publisher of the country’s oldest newspaper and a Chinese business group with links to national security institutions.

Bernadette Carreon and Aubrey Belford report for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). OCCRP is funded worldwide by a variety of government and non-government donors. OCCRP’s work in the Pacific Islands is currently funded by a US-government grant that gives the donor zero say in editorial decisions.