A High Court judge in Suva has warned that a Mexican traveller's success in carrying 2.1kg of cocaine through the Nadi International Airport raises concerns that Fiji could become a haven for drug traffickers.
The same woman successfully carried the cocaine - strapped to her body - through New Zealand while travelling from Argentina to Fiji, the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation said on its RadioFiji website.
Justice Daniel Gounder sentenced Graceila Bravo, 46, of Mexico to eight years in jail for transporting and possession of cocaine.
He noted that her ability to carry the cocaine undetected through customs checks at Nadi raised serious concerns about border security at the airport.
The judge did not comment on the implications for New Zealand's border security.
Bravo, a mother of four, was arrested in Fiji two days after her arrival.
Justice Gounder said the drugs were packaged in plastic cubes and numbered and clearly they were for sale.
When Bravo was arrested in September last year, a Fiji Police spokesman Corporal Suliano Tevita said more than 100 blocks of white powder were found in the woman's luggage at a Nadi hotel after an anonymous tip-off.
Mr Tevita said at the time Fiji police were concerned that the Pacific islands were being used as a transit point for hard drugs - including cocaine, heroin and amphetamines.
The arrest coincided with a claim by Australian police to have uncovered a sophisticated scheme to run drugs via the Pacific Islands and New Zealand.
Australian Federal Police told a Melbourne court how a syndicate hid links to "high-risk narcotic regions" in South America by having couriers from Australia collect smuggled shipments on Pacific islands.
Federal Police agent Emma Hurnall alleged a courier would travel through New Zealand to deliver cocaine from South America to places such as Tahiti or Rarotonga, and the drug would be picked up by another courier from Australia. One syndicate was known to have done this eight times since 2005.
