A wanted criminal is a globetrotting gangster who is addicted to social media and cannot stop posting about himself or his adversaries. As humorous as that sounds, the fact remains that Anthony Pele could have been in Samoa.
This is a worry because Pele has been wanted by the Australian police since 2023 for murder and if he had been able to move in and out of Samoa, this shows that there is a communication breakdown between authorities. People wanted in other countries can go in and out of Samoa. There may be a jurisdiction issue but there are agreements that allow authorities to move past those.
We now know that criminal networks were able to set up operations in Samoa and then recruit young Samoans to carry out a hit in Vietnam. The consequence of this has led to two lives now being lost to a foreign jurisdiction and it is not known whether Joseph Vaa and Steve Tofa were the only two who were recruited. The feeling is that there could be more people involved.
From what it looks like, such criminal networks set up business operations in the country and then, through that, carry out their operations, which are suspected to be money laundering and drugs. Perhaps, there is a need to revisit laws that question unexplained wealth and investments. Stricter laws could actually restrict such a setup and if these laws do exist, has it become redundant because of the lack of enforcement?
