Trading Places

The Australian Government believed it had eliminated refugee boats from its shores. Asylum seekers who once risked their lives at the hands of unscrupulous people-smugglers no longer travelled to Australia. Border Force officers assured the Australian officials the arrival of illegal immigrants by sea had been terminated. The officials assured their politicians and the politicians assured voters they had eliminated the illegal refugee trade. However, they had not stopped all the boats. Exiled Papua New Guinean millionaire, Tobias Ogame, wanted for a botched kidnap attempt of a Swedish tourist, and more recently, sought after to assist with inquiries into an international counterfeiting syndicate which had operated on the Fly River, believed he had stumbled onto a new way to make money ferrying émigrés to Australia via Papua New Guinea. The astute businessman did not intend to risk lives in decrepit and unseaworthy rust buckets. His plan involved a more civil venture, covert but comfortable. He also knew, the more exclusive his customers, the more money he could make. This operation was not for desperados. His clients, selected by the International Movement for Cohesive Disunity, an organization focused on holding governments to account, especially on human rights, and climate action, undertook their operations with an ethos based on permeation rather than aggression. The IMCD planned to infiltrate the fabric of economic and fiscal policy in Australia. As agents of influence, in the long term, their decisions would benefit the major players they worked for. In the short term they would benefit Ogame. Safe and discreet passage was limited to the highest bidders. Ogame was convinced, this time, nothing could go wrong. But like he had in the past, he misjudged the power of circumstance. With the PNG pair Danny Kenney and Kenny Danny taking the luxury superyacht, the Pacific Wanderer, to Australia and back, and with the coincidence of misfortune for a Paradise Island Tour Guide and a Scottish researcher, once again Ogame underestimated the complexities of the world in which he sought to undertake business. His venture into trading places to Australia went well but was by no means perfect.