Australia has signalled plans to tighten security in the Torres Strait to stop burgeoning criminal activity across the border with Papua New Guinea.
The Courier Mail reports that crime syndicates are using high-powered boats to exploit the porous border through drugs, guns and human trafficking in the Torres Strait.
West African gangs and criminal bikies have reportedly opened an illicit cross-border pipeline to smuggle methamphetamine into far north Queensland out of PNG.
Australia's customs minister Scott Morrison says he plans to plug the gap and match the criminals with a fleet of new boats for high-speed pursuits up -rivers and over reef systems.
Last year, customs detected eight drug shipments on the border, just three kilometres from the PNG mainland.
Almost 500 suspected PNG criminals were refused entry out of nearly 50,000 traditional movements through the islands.
