Fiji police say several kilograms of cocaine held as evidence in a major drug case have gone missing from the High Court in Suva, and that forensic testing on what was left behind confirmed the exhibits had been tampered with. The police statement was issued on Tuesday, 29 September, and reported by Reuters, whose account says local outlet Fiji Village reported that the bars remaining in the evidence room had been filled with flour.
Key facts
- Police opened an investigation after the 15 September discovery that seven of 39 cocaine bars were missing from a High Court evidence room.
- Forensic tests on the drugs still in the room confirmed that exhibits had been tampered with, police said.
- Fiji Village reported that the other 32 bars had been filled with flour, per the wire report.
- Media accounts cited in that report put the drug exhibits taken from the court at nearly 40 kg (88 lb) — a figure consistent with the size of the original 39-bar consignment, not with the seven bars that vanished.
- Media valued the drug at about $31 million; no currency was specified in the report, and no basis for the valuation was given.
- Police said they would question a person of interest who was allegedly overseas. No arrest or charge over the missing exhibits has been reported.
Why it matters
The material that disappeared was not a seizure sitting in a police depot. It was evidence lodged with the country’s highest trial court, in the registry whose job is to keep exhibits intact from seizure through to the end of every appeal. Police said their inquiry is centred on the officials responsible for looking after it.
That makes this a chain-of-custody failure inside the judiciary’s own building rather than a street-level theft, and chain of custody is the mechanism that lets a court treat a drug exhibit as proof at all. If bars can be removed from a High Court registry and replaced with a white powder that is not cocaine, the questions that follow are institutional: how the registry logs, seals and audits exhibits; who holds keys and for how long; when the substitution would have been caught if a count had not been run on 15 September; and what any of that means for the other narcotics files stored in the same room. Turaga’s acknowledgement to Fiji One that this is not the first such instance sharpens that point, because it moves the story from a single lapse toward a pattern that has not been publicly documented.
There is also a live defendant at the centre of it. The exhibits were being held while a convicted man pursued an appeal, and tampered exhibits are precisely the kind of defect defence lawyers build arguments on — a risk the reporting does not resolve either way.
Context deepens the stakes. In 2024 the United Nations described Fiji as an emerging regional hub for drug trafficking in the Pacific, the wire service noted. A jurisdiction being used as a transit point needs its courts to be the most reliable link in the enforcement chain, not the weakest.
What police have said
In their Tuesday statement, police said: “The exhibits were all tampered with and the investigation is focused on those directly charged with the management of the exhibits at the High Court registry.”
That single sentence carries most of what is on the record. It confirms the tampering finding, and it names the registry’s exhibit handlers — not outsiders — as the focus of the inquiry. Police also said they would question a person of interest who was allegedly outside the country. The report does not say how many people are under scrutiny, does not name anyone, and records no charges or arrests over the missing exhibits.
Government response
Justice Minister Siromi Turaga said those responsible for the theft would face the full force of the law. “It’s shocking … no one will be spared,” he told news outlet Fiji One, adding that it was not the first such instance. It was not immediately clear what punishment offenders face, the wire service said.
The numbers, and what they do not settle
Two figures in circulation deserve care before they are repeated.
The first is the weight. Media accounts cited in the report describe the drug exhibits taken from the court as amounting to nearly 40 kg (88 lb). The report does not attach that weight to the seven missing bars specifically, and it does not give a per-bar weight. Set against a consignment of 39 bars, however, a total close to 40 kg works out at roughly one kilogram a bar, which points to the figure describing the full original haul rather than the missing portion. That is an inference from the two numbers in the reporting, not a police breakdown, and until officials publish one the weight actually removed from the registry remains unstated.
The second is the valuation. Media put the drug’s worth at about $31 million, with no currency named in the report and no explanation of how the estimate was reached — wholesale, street-level or otherwise. Divided across nearly 40 kg it implies about $775,000 a kilogram. We flag the arithmetic rather than the headline because a valuation this large, unattributed and without a currency, is the least checkable claim in the story.
How the drug came to be at the court
Media reports cited in the Reuters dispatch say the cocaine was seized in 2019 from Fiji-Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman and stored at the court as evidence while he appealed against his 2021 conviction and sentence. That timeline means the exhibits had been held in the registry for roughly six years, and were still being held because the case was not finished.
No comment from Rahman or his lawyers appears in the reporting, and the report does not say what stage the appeal has reached, whether the appeal court has been told about the tampering, or whether the exhibits were due to be produced again.
The wider drug picture in Fiji
Fiji police have said cases involving drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine have surged since 2018. The UN assessment cited in the same report found drug arrests, mainly linked to methamphetamine, more than tripled in 2023 — a caseload expansion that also means more exhibits flowing into police and court storage.
That enforcement trend sits alongside health findings this site has reported, including Fiji’s declaration that one in 60 adults are living with HIV, which health officials tied to methamphetamine use, and gaps in Fiji’s own drug-harm data. Separately, the case mix reported by Fiji’s Financial Intelligence Unit to MPs shows where the state’s financial-crime work has been concentrated — a useful comparison, because drug proceeds and the money-laundering files that follow them depend on the same evidence surviving to trial.
What is still unclear
- When the exhibits were interfered with, and how long the substitution went undetected before the 15 September count.
- How many people police are examining, and who the overseas person of interest is.
- What weight the seven missing bars represent, and which currency the $31 million estimate is in.
- Whether any registry staff have been suspended, charged or arrested.
- What the tampering finding means for Rahman’s appeal, and whether other drug exhibits in the same registry have been audited.
Police have described the investigation as focused on the High Court registry; no findings have been published.
A note on sourcing
This report is based on the Reuters account of the Fiji police statement of 29 September, including the quoted police sentence, the remarks Justice Minister Siromi Turaga made to Fiji One, and the flour detail the wire service attributes to Fiji Village. We have not independently verified the flour claim, the weight or the valuation, and we have not seen the police statement in full or any court filing. Attributions are given so readers can see which claim rests on which source; the arithmetic observations about weight per bar and value per kilogram are our own and are labelled as such. This piece will be updated if police, the judiciary or the courts put further detail on the record.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly went missing from the High Court in Suva?
Seven of 39 cocaine bars held as evidence were found to be missing from a High Court evidence room on 15 September, according to a Reuters report on the police statement. Police said forensic testing showed the exhibits had been tampered with, and local outlet Fiji Village reported that the 32 bars still in the room had been filled with flour.
Does the ‘nearly 40 kg’ figure refer to the missing bars or the whole haul?
The wire report attributes the figure of nearly 40 kg (88 lb) to media accounts of the drug exhibits taken from the court, without breaking it down bar by bar. Because the consignment was made up of 39 bars, a total near 40 kg is consistent with the full original haul at roughly one kilogram per bar rather than with the seven bars that are missing. That reading is our arithmetic inference, not a figure police have published, and the reporting does not state the weight of the seven missing bars.
Is the $31 million valuation in Fiji dollars or US dollars?
The report does not say. It attributes the figure of about $31 million to media, with no currency specified and no source for the valuation method. Spread across a consignment of nearly 40 kg it would imply roughly $775,000 a kilogram, which is why the number should be treated as an unverified media estimate rather than an official figure.
Who was the cocaine originally seized from, and why was it still being held?
Media reports cited by Reuters say the cocaine was seized in 2019 from Fiji-Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman. It was stored at the court as evidence while he appealed against his 2021 conviction and sentence, according to those reports.
What penalties could those responsible face?
It was not immediately clear what punishment offenders would face, the wire service said. Justice Minister Siromi Turaga said those responsible would face the full force of the law, but no specific charge or sentencing range was set out in the reporting, and no arrest or charge over the missing exhibits has been reported.
Is this the first time court drug exhibits have been interfered with in Fiji?
Turaga told Fiji One that it was not the first such instance, according to the Reuters account. The report did not identify the earlier cases, say how they were resolved, or say when they occurred.
How fast have drug cases been growing in Fiji?
The United Nations said in 2024 that Fiji had emerged as a regional hub for drug trafficking in the Pacific, per the same report, which added that the number of drug arrests — mainly linked to methamphetamine — more than tripled in 2023. Fiji police have separately said drug cases involving substances such as methamphetamine and cocaine have surged since 2018.
