Police destroy 9,000 marijuana plants and burn huts in Vatubalavu raid
More than 30 officers destroyed 9,000 marijuana plants, root crops and plantation huts at Vatubalavu in the Navosa highlands in late September 2006. Village chief Ratu Jone Rokovesa protested that the raid broke a June agreement with the police commissioner and the church under Operation Valoma, and said villagers wanted compensation.
More than 30 police officers entered Vatubalavu village in the Navosa highlands
and destroyed 9,000 marijuana plants, root crops and small huts the villagers
used as resting houses in the plantations.[1]Radios, pots, plates, bedding
and mats inside the huts were destroyed and burnt.[1]
Village chief Ratu Jone Rokovesa said the raid broke an agreement made in June
with police commissioner Andrew Hughes and the church: a six-month Operation
Valoma under which villagers would uproot the plants themselves with police
help at the end of the month, but officers came months early.[1]When
villagers complained at the new police headquarters, a senior officer said the
head office had no knowledge of the directive and told them to write to Hughes,
while some villagers wanted the police to pay for the damage.[1]Attempts to
get comment from the police were unsuccessful.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
More than 8,000 plants believed to be marijuana were uprooted from two farms in the Lea farming area of Cakaudrove. The joint Northern Division Taskforce, supported by Republic of Fiji Military Forces officers, found the farms this week while police separately seized suspected methamphetamine and cash in Laucala Beach.
Police discovered a 1,500-plant marijuana farm at Vesivuru, Lea, and a 100-plant farm at Nawi, Tukavesi, arresting the suspected owner, a 38-year-old man, as nationwide operations continued on 29 October 2026.
Northern Division police uprooted 2,371 suspected marijuana plants from two farms at Nanuca, Savusavu, on 19 October 2026. A 38-year-old farmer from Drekeniwai Village was arrested over the alleged cultivation.
Fiji Police uprooted more than 11,000 plants believed to be marijuana from a farming area in Nasuva, Cakaudrove, on 2 October 2026. The farm's owner has not been identified and police were still trying to locate them a week later; the plants were seized for analysis.
