The United States announced more than $44 million in new programs to help Pacific island governments fight drug trafficking and other organized crime at the first U.S.-Pacific Islands Conference of Police Ministers, known as COPMIN, held in Los Angeles on October 21 and 22. The meeting was co-chaired by Palau's minister of justice, Jennifer Olegeriil, and the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Adm. Kevin Lunday. The State Department said criminal networks are moving "fentanyl precursors, cocaine, methamphetamine" and other drugs into Pacific communities and on to the United States, and are tied to online scams, cyber-enabled fraud and money laundering through underground banking, while illegal fishing depletes the region's fish stocks. Cook Islands officials welcomed the cooperation on their own terms. "Transnational crime does not respect borders, and no Pacific country can tackle it alone," said Sonny Williams, an assistant minister who led the Cook Islands delegation, adding that cooperation should run through agreed regional arrangements and respect each nation's sovereignty and capacity.
Where the money goes
The largest single item is $7 million for the Aumoana Regional Center in Palau, a maritime law-enforcement training and coordination center. The Coast Guard will put $4.5 million into Project Kanaloa, which provides training in small-boat operations, boarding, fisheries enforcement and prosecution, and will expand its "shiprider" arrangements, under which Pacific officers ride aboard U.S. cutters to enforce their own countries' laws in their own waters. Nearly $5.5 million goes to a regional maritime awareness network, called Shared Waters, Shared Watch, including surveillance and communications tools, a boat ramp in Fiji, equipment for four Papua New Guinea fisheries patrol boats and secure communications for a crime coordination center in Samoa.
Other programs target investigations and money. The FBI will run a $5 million program to build Pacific police capacity to investigate drug trafficking, bribery, money laundering and cybercrime. A separate $5 million initiative will support financial intelligence and cybercrime units, including training in tracing cryptocurrency. Homeland Security Investigations gets $2.5 million for border and port security, the Drug Enforcement Administration $450,000 over three years for investigative training, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers $5 million to help Pacific police academies. A new $4 million effort, RIPTIDE, will work with INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization to link drug seizures to investigations and financial networks. Tonga will receive about $3.5 million for cargo screening at its main port in Nuku'alofa and a police dog facility in Neiafu. Two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers will be embedded in Palau for a 60-day pilot, and the United States and Palau signed an agreement on law-enforcement training.
Who took part
Police ministers and senior law-enforcement officials from Pacific island countries attended, joined by counterparts from Ecuador and the Philippines, whose coast guards took part in a cross-regional roundtable. The U.S. delegation included officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the DEA, CBP and the Treasury. The program included field visits to the Port of Long Beach and to FBI, DEA and Los Angeles Police Department offices, according to the Cook Islands government. Karopaerangi Ngatoko, chief of staff in the Cook Islands prime minister's office, said she was there to "make sure the voice of small island states is heard," and argued that community, church and health workers should be recognized alongside police in any regional response to drug harm.
What it is, and is not
The commitments are law-enforcement programs: training, equipment, surveillance tools and investigators, delivered mainly through the Coast Guard, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the DEA and the State Department. Some funding comes from Joint Interagency Task Force West, a U.S. military command that supports counter-drug operations in the Indo-Pacific. Added up, the itemized programs come to slightly under the $44 million total, with some commitments, such as the expanded shiprider agreements, carrying no published dollar figure. "When the Pacific Islands are secure, the American homeland is safer," the State Department said.
This article reflects reporting through the evening of Sunday, October 25, 2026. Sources: U.S. State Department release via Mirage News and the State Department; Pacific Islands News Association, October 21; Cook Islands Office of the Prime Minister, October 22; Tampa Free Press.
