Heroin, meth flood immigration detention centres in drugs crisis

Heroin thrown over fences, a meth-smuggling mother caught and a package of hard drugs left in a kitchen; new crisis hits immigration detention.

Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney's southwest. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dylan Robinson

Heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl are flooding into Australia’s immigration detention centres, with a package of hard drugs even found lying in a dining room at one of the secure ­complexes.

In a new immigration detention crisis for the Albanese government, The Australian can reveal drugs are being smuggled in and thrown over detention centre fences, including one case where a woman – accompanied by her two children, aged 10 and 14 – was found carrying 250 grams of methamphetamine into Sydney’s Villawood complex while visiting her husband.

Despite Australian Border Force facilities, which house about 1000 detainees awaiting deportation, operating under tight security, drugs are routinely being detected, with one source claiming “they’re everywhere” in the network of six ­complexes.

In the past three months, there has been a spate of drug-related issues in detention centres in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth where private security officers working for Serco have launched investigations in conjunction with state police in some cases.

The Australian’s revelations have sparked a fresh attack on the federal Labor government’s hand­ling of immigration, which has already come under fire over the release of detainees with criminal records.

Opposition immigration and citizenship minister Dan Tehan said revelations about hard drugs was a symptom of broader mismanagement of immigration detention by Labor.

“Australians will be outraged that Labor is letting murderers and rapists out of immigration detention but letting drugs go in,” Mr Tehan told The Australian.

“Labor’s failure to manage immigration detention is another example of their failures to ­manage the immigration portfolio that has seen record-high ­migration during a housing crisis, offering brothel keepers skilled work visas and issuing more than 200,000 Covid work visas when there was no pandemic. Labor ­always makes a mess out of ­immigration.”

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Immigration Minister Tony Burke’s office declined to ­comment.

While the detention centres are secure, detainees are allowed mobile phones and regular visitors and it’s believed these freedoms are commonly abused to smuggle drugs.

The Australian can reveal on September 14 this year at Villawood, a mother and her 10-year-old and 14-year-old children arrived at the centre to visit her husband.

NSW Police Force officers searched the mother and found a crystal substance and three cigarette lighters.

Police also searched the ­children but did not find any ­contraband.

Days later, police entered Villa­wood, the nation’s largest immigration detention centre, housing almost 400 people, and arrested and charged the husband and seized two mobile telephones.

The mother was charged with supplying the drugs and her ­detainee husband admitted to ­officers that he had instructed her to smuggle them into the centre.

Australian Border Force. Picture: AAP

On October 9, in a West Australian detention centre, CCTV captured the moment when a detainee walking in a recreation yard and speaking on his phone picked up a package that two men, standing on a car, had thrown over the fence.

Serco, the private operator of the detention centres, dispatched security officers to conduct a snap search of the detainee’s room, where they found a pencil wrapped in masking tape to convert it into a makeshift weapon and a drug pipe.

The pipe tested positive for methamphetamine, fentanyl and morphine.

On December 1, in the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre, Serco was alerted that kitchen staff had stumbled across a package wrapped in white paper near a dining room tap.

Guards unwrapped the package and discovered two packages inside, one filled with a crystal substance and the second containing white powder. They later tested positive for heroin and methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine.

The ABF conceded that the smuggling of hard drugs into the facilities was a problem and an ongoing risk to detainees and staff.

“A prison-like culture has been a sustained feature of the (Immigration Detention Network) for many years, with the majority of the detainee population comprising those who have had a visa refused or cancelled on character grounds. This poses complex security and safety risks to the IDN,” an ABF spokesperson told The Australian.

“Illicit substances are known to be introduced into immigration detention facilities, including through the mail, in person by visitors, and being thrown over the fences.”

The Albanese government has battled an immigration detention crisis for most of 2024, following last year’s NZYQ High Court ruling that freed 150 foreign offenders including convicted murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and people smugglers. The number of freed detainees is believed to have increased to about 200.

A number of former detainees have been charged with fresh offences since being released.

According to the latest data published by the ABF in October, there are 989 people – the vast majority of them men – housed in Australia’s network of six immigration detention centres. About 750 of those have criminal records.

New Zealanders make up most of those held in detention, with 185 Kiwis in custody. Iranians (63), Vietnamese (63) and Indians (56) are the next highest nationalities in detention.

ABF data also reveals that 66 people have been in detention for more than 1825 days, about five years, while another 82 detainees have been held for more than 1096 days.

The ABF said officers worked “tirelessly” to provide safe and secure facilities and the department “takes seriously the health and wellbeing of detainees as well as the safety and security of detainees, staff and visitors” but it concedes that the “presence of illicit substances and their trafficking in IDFs (are a) risk to detainees and staff”.

The ABF said new laws that passed through parliament last month would arm authorities with greater “search and seizure” powers in immigration detention facilities, but the new laws do not enable a blanket ban on mobile phones or other lawful items.

“The amendments also maintain and clarify the department’s ability to search for and seize weapons or escape aids, and evidence of grounds for cancelling a visa,” an ABF spokesperson said.