How 12 refugees paid $8k each to be smuggled into Australia only to be stranded at a remote air base

An insider has lifted the lid on how 12 refugees became stranded at an Australian air base amid fears people smugglers could have found a new way to crack Australian borders.

A dozen asylum seekers who landed on Australian shores last week told locals they paid USD $8,000 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 hideouts among 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.

Rohingya refugees looking on from their shared quarters at a temporary Indonesian immigration shelter in Lhokseumawe, Aceh province. Picture: AFP

“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 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.”

The men were detained by ABF. Pictures: Jack Tran

In February, the Albanese government delivered on its election promise of allowing about 19,000 people on Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas who arrived 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 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 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.”

Senator James Paterson. Picture: Martin Ollman

ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre expert Andrew Carr said the incident should “probably be isolated” and that many attempts to get to Australia had been made both under Labor and Coalition governments.

“There is always the risk that people smugglers will take anything the government says to try and dupe people. They are willing to lie quite a lot to people to get their money,” he said.

“It’s certainly something to pay attention to. There have always been concerns of dual use of fishing boats. You can’t stick a lot of people on them and you can’t move them fast but you could see smaller groups coming in them.”

Prof Carr said the key for the government was to ensure co-operation with neighbouring nations to stamp out people smuggling at the root.

“The vast amount of our success has been getting the support of countries around us.”

The ABF said it does not comment on operational matters.

“(Operational 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,” a spokesman said.

“OSB video products, including messages from the Commander, RADM Justin Jones, are regularly published on the OSB YouTube channel.”