The Fiji Police Force will centralise the storage of drugs seized as court exhibits, holding them only at stations fitted with secure vaults instead of at individual police stations, Commissioner of Police Rusiate Tudravu has said.
The Fiji Sun reported the change on 1 October 2026, saying it follows the start of investigations into missing hard drugs and wider concerns about the security of drugs held in police custody. The report does not give an effective date or a rollout timetable for the new arrangement.
At a glance
- Four custody sites: seized drug exhibits are to be concentrated at Nadi, Lautoka and Totogo police stations and at the Police Mobile Force, the force’s paramilitary arm, according to the Fiji Sun.
- No start date: the Fiji Sun’s report does not state when the centralisation begins, how long the transfer of existing exhibits will take, or which station currently holds what.
- Nationwide audit running: a special police team has spent almost three weeks checking drugs and cash held in police custody in all divisions, Mr Tudravu said. No findings have been released.
- The trigger: seven bars from an original 39.5kg consignment of cocaine, linked to Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman, were found to be missing from the High Court vault, the Fiji Sun reports.
- Court-side review: Minister for Justice Siromi Turaga said on Tuesday that a review had covered storage, access controls, closed-circuit television, record-keeping and chain-of-custody procedures, and that security upgrades were under way at the High Court criminal registry.
A note on sourcing
Readers should know how thin the sourcing on this announcement is. Every detail of the centralisation plan above comes from a single outlet — the Fiji Sun’s 1 October 2026 report — and Fiji News has not matched Mr Tudravu’s comments against a Fiji Police Force media release, a Ministry of Justice statement issued directly, or a second outlet’s account of the same briefing. Neither the Fiji Police Force nor the Ministry of Justice has published a document setting out the new storage policy that Fiji News has been able to review. The details below are therefore attributed to the Fiji Sun throughout, and should be read as that outlet’s reporting rather than as confirmed policy text.
What changes in police custody
Under the arrangement Mr Tudravu outlined, seized drugs are to be concentrated in the four vault facilities named above rather than spread across local stations, where exhibits have previously been held until they were needed in court.
“That is the strategy that we have followed so that they are not kept at individual Police stations like the practice before,” Mr Tudravu told the Fiji Sun.
The Commissioner also said a special team has been in the field for almost three weeks, following up on the investigation and carrying out checks across all divisions on two categories of property in police hands: drugs and cash. He did not say, in the comments reported, how many stations the team has reached, whether any discrepancy has been found, or when the audit will finish.
Where the courts fit in
Mr Tudravu drew a jurisdictional line in his comments to the Fiji Sun: police have no authority over drugs stored in court exhibit rooms, because those facilities fall under the judiciary. The centralisation announced this week therefore applies only to material in police custody — it does not reach exhibits already deposited with a court, which is where the missing cocaine was being kept.
Responsibility on that side of the line sits with the Ministry of Justice and the judiciary. Mr Turaga, speaking on Tuesday, said the review he commissioned had been completed and that security upgrades were already in progress at the High Court criminal registry in Suva, the Fiji Sun reports. The report does not say what the upgrades consist of, what the review concluded, or whether its findings will be published.
Prosecutors have also been drawn in. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has defended its own exhibit rules since the discovery, and on the police side of the investigation six persons of interest have been named.
Why it matters
Drugs seized by police are not simply contraband to be locked away — they are the primary evidence a prosecution is built on, and their value in court depends on an unbroken chain of custody showing who held them, when, and under what controls. Once a vault is shown to have given up seven bars of a 39.5kg consignment, and once the bars that remained have tested negative, the question stops being about one case and becomes a question about the system that stores every other case’s exhibits.
How large that exposure is remains unquantified, and that is the central gap in the public record. No authority quoted by the Fiji Sun has said how many active drug prosecutions depend on exhibits held in police or court custody, how many kilograms are currently in storage across the four nominated vaults, or whether any pending trial has been affected. The nationwide audit Mr Tudravu describes is the mechanism that would produce those numbers, and until its results are released the scale of the problem — one compromised vault or a systemic weakness — cannot be stated. Fiji News has asked no authority to speculate and will not: the figure either exists in the audit or it does not yet exist at all.
Background: the missing cocaine
The shortfall was discovered five years after police deposited the consignment at the High Court vault, according to the Fiji Sun. Forensic testing of the exhibits that were still there then returned negative results, with flour found inside the bars in place of cocaine.
That discovery of bars left behind in the High Court vault holding flour is what set off both the police investigation and the ministerial review described by Mr Turaga. The Fiji Sun does not report any charges, arrests or convictions arising from the missing exhibits.
What is not yet known
Four questions remain open on the public record: when the centralisation takes effect and how existing exhibits will be moved; what the three-week police audit has found; what the Ministry of Justice review concluded and whether it will be released; and whether any prosecution has been weakened by the gaps in the custody chain.
Fiji News will report further developments as the police team completes its divisional checks, as the Ministry of Justice accounts for the High Court registry upgrades, and if the Fiji Police Force issues a formal statement setting out the new storage policy and its start date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where will the Fiji Police Force store seized drug exhibits?
Commissioner of Police Rusiate Tudravu told the Fiji Sun that seized drugs will be held only at stations with secure vaults — Nadi, Lautoka and Totogo — and at the Police Mobile Force, rather than at individual police stations as before.
When does the centralisation of drug exhibits take effect?
No start date has been reported. The Fiji Sun’s 1 October 2026 report quotes Mr Tudravu describing the arrangement as the strategy police have followed, but it does not give an effective date, a rollout timetable or a completion target, and Fiji News has not seen a Fiji Police Force media release setting one out.
What did forensic testing of the remaining cocaine exhibits find?
According to the Fiji Sun, forensic testing of the cocaine exhibits that were still in the High Court vault returned negative results, with flour found in the bars instead of cocaine.
What did the Ministry of Justice review cover?
Minister for Justice Siromi Turaga said the review covered storage, access controls, closed-circuit television, record-keeping and chain-of-custody procedures, the Fiji Sun reports. He said security upgrades were already under way at the High Court criminal registry in Suva.
Is the police team checking cash as well as drugs?
Yes. Mr Tudravu told the Fiji Sun the checks across all divisions were based on two things — drugs and cash held in police custody. He said the special team had been working for almost three weeks.
How many court cases could be affected by the exhibit concerns?
No figure has been published. Neither the Fiji Sun’s report nor the official statements it quotes puts a number on how many active drug prosecutions rely on exhibits held in police or court custody, and no authority has said whether any prosecution has been compromised.
