November 29, 2023
A dozen asylum seekers who landed on Australian shores last week told locals they paid USD $8000 per person to come to Darwin before being abandoned at a narrow air base in remote Western Australia.
It comes amid claims of a dramatic escalation in Indonesian fishermen heading to the region in large numbers and cutting boat hides into the mangroves to avoid authorities prompting fears a potential new avenue for people smuggling has emerged.
The Daily Telegraph spoke to an insider with intimate knowledge of the new arrivals who revealed the group of adults, all men, were mostly from Bangladesh and told Indigenous locals they had paid the inordinate sum to the people smugglers to be dropped off in Darwin.
But the group revealed to locals that they had been duped and left at the Anjo Peninsula in the middle of the night before managing to find help.
The insider claimed that eight of the arrivals were initially caught by officials while authorities had to hunt for the remaining four who left the scene of their arrival.
"Most were Bangladeshi and paid 8000 US dollars each to get into Indonesia...(where) they got told they'd be dropped off in Darwin," the source said.
"When they were on a little boat at the sea they realised they were ripped off.
"It's good they got dropped off there (at Anjo Peninsula) because 200km either direction there is no civilisation.
"How many others have been dropped along the coast that have perished?" The source said they were concerned fishermen would see this as a new way of making cash, earning "way more than a fisherman would in Indonesia" through people smuggling.
"This whole part of northern WA, the number of Indonesian fishermen coming down has increased exponentially in the past 18 months.
More and more fishermen are coming in," they said.
"Boat hides have been cut into the mangroves.
"They are getting to know the coast very well. They don't come in big boats, they come in little 30-40ft (9m to 12m) blue boats. These are the first guys making it to the mainland in a long time but this potentially could be a new way of getting them in." In February, the Albanese government allowed about 19,000 people on Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas who arrived in Australia before 2013 to get pathways to permanent residency.
The Coalition has argued the decision will be used by people smugglers as a way of luring in clients, particularly from bloated refugee camps in Bangladesh, from where the UN reports a drastic increase in people smuggling.
"The Albanese Government cut $600 million from Australia's border protection regime in the last budget, failed to deliver adequate maritime surveillance and publicly committed to abolishing temporary protection visas a core pillar of Operation Sovereign Borders," Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said.
"People smugglers will inevitably seize upon these decisions as evidence that Australia's strong border protection policies are being weakened to sell illegal ventures to vulnerable people like those who arrived last week.
"This was the tenth people smuggling venture to attempt matters".
to arrive illegally in Australia since May 2022, and sadly I expect we will see more in the months ahead because of Labor's failures on border security." Last night, the Australian Border Force said it did not comment on "operational But a spokesman said: "(Operation Sovereign Borders) is continuously monitoring rumours and misinformation being spread by people smugglers, and developing new strategic communication products to counter these lies and deter people from dangerous boat journeys. OSB video products, including messages from the Commander, RADM Justin Jones, are regularly published on the OSB YouTube channel." Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre expert Andrew Carr said the most recent arrival to our shores was "probably isolated".
"This was the tenth people smuggling venture to attempt to arrive illegally James Paterson
