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Federal Bureau of Investigation
The FBI recently opened a new law enforcement attaché office in New Zealand to strengthen and enhance cooperation with a key strategic law enforcement partner in the region.
FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to the southwestern Pacific country to visit the new attaché office—what used to be called a legal attaché, or legat—in New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington. The site is one of about 90 law enforcement attaché offices around the world that help the FBI work within their host countries.
The Wellington office was originally established in 2017 as a suboffice of the Canberra, Australia, attaché office. Director Patel said having a full attaché office in New Zealand will fortify the Bureau’s relationship with a key partner of Five Eyes, a coalition of five countries that also includes the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
“The FBI has had a strong relationship and collaborated closely with our counterparts in New Zealand for years,” said Director Patel said in remarks July 31. “Expanding the Wellington office demonstrates the strength and evolution of our partnership as we continue to work together to address our shared security objectives in the region.”
Watch a video of the event below:
The attaché office will investigate and work to disrupt a wide range of threats and criminal activities including terrorism, cybercrime and fraud, organized crime and money laundering, child exploitation, and foreign intelligence threats. The Wellington office has territorial responsibility for New Zealand, Antarctica, Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands, and Tonga.
“Our focus here is countering terrorism, countering narcotics, the cyberthreats, and the ransomware attacks that we face in America,” Patel said. He said the strengthened partnership and collaboration will better protect Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders in the region and abroad. The Director also emphasized how the new office can help better address threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“The Pacific island countries are critical to bolster the relationship that we have with them through you and the Five Eyes partnerships,” Patel said, “in order to counteract what the CCP wants to do here in this region and has already done.”
The Five Eyes coalition grew from an agreement with Great Britain shortly after the end of World War II to share intelligence and coordinate security efforts. The five member countries have a long history of trust and cooperation, and they share a commitment to common values.
“This is such a great Five Eyes moment, but it’s also a great law enforcement moment,” Judith Collins, a member of New Zealand’s parliament who serves as the country’s attorney general, said at the July 31 ribbon-cutting. “What this day marks is not only a commitment to law and order and safety in our region but also the very long-standing and enduring and very reliable relationship that we have with the United States.”
The FBI in 2023 hosted the Emerging Technology and Securing Innovation Security Summit in California. During the summit, Five Eyes intelligence chiefs, government employees, researchers, and private industry partners came together to discuss how innovators can protect their ideas and technology from being stolen or exploited. The intelligence alliance publicly warned about China’s persistent and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and cyber espionage activities.
The FBI and New Zealand Police have previously partnered on a number of investigations, including the 2019 terrorist attacks in Christchurch that killed 51 people and 2021’s Operation Trojan Shield, a worldwide FBI-led takedown targeting organized crime that included 35 arrests in New Zealand.
