International drug couriers caught in Hong Kong last year continued to put their lives at risk by swallowing ever-larger quantities of cocaine pellets.
On average, “drug mules” arrested in the first 11 months of 2019 for smuggling ingested drugs were found with an average of 642 grams of cocaine inside them, up from 571 grams over the same period the previous year.
Hong Kong Customs yesterday seized about 4.2 kilograms of suspected liquid cocaine with an estimated market value of about $5.3 million at Hong Kong International Airport.
A male passenger arrived in Hong Kong from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, yesterday. During Customs clearance, three personal hygiene product bottles containing suspected liquid cocaine were found inside his suitcase. The man was then arrested.
The arrested man, aged 21, has been charged with one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug. He will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts tomorrow.
Two men accused of trafficking cocaine wrapped up as Christmas presents into Hong Kong are due in court on Monday.
Customs seized HK$30 million worth of the addictive stimulant from the luggage of two men, who were arrested after arriving at the city’s international airport on Friday. The two 25-year-old male passengers landed at Hong Kong International Airport on the same flight from Johannesburg, South Africa.
During the customs clearance, officers found a total of 24kg of the suspected cocaine in two of the men’s checked-in bags, which were packaged into 25 blocks and disguised with Christmas decorations and festive wrapping paper.
The two men have each been charged with one count of trafficking a dangerous drug. They will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
The bust led customs officials to warn of a spike in drug smuggling for the festive season.
“With the Christmas and New Year holidays approaching, there is a possibility that drug syndicates need to traffic in dangerous drugs urgently in order to meet increased demand during the long holidays,” a spokesman for the department said.
“Customs will further step up enforcement action to combat transnational drug trafficking activities before the long holidays.”
Sources: SCMP, HK Customs and Excise Department
Three Hongkongers were arrested for trying to smuggle 7kg of suspected cocaine into the city after being promised a free tour of the Maldives in return, police said on Tuesday.
Two men, aged 21 and 23, and a 21-year-old woman were intercepted at the airport’s customs clearance counter at about 9am on Monday after they collected their check-in luggage.
Senior Inspector Chan Mei-shi of the force’s Narcotics Bureau said 16 bags carrying the drugs were in secret compartments of the men’s suitcases. She said the consignment had an estimated street value of HK$8 million.
“We believe the men were hired by a drug trafficking syndicate and were responsible for bringing the haul into Hong Kong from the Maldives,” she said.
On Tuesday afternoon the two men were charged with drug trafficking and the woman was charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs. The trio was scheduled to appear at West Kowloon Court on Wednesday.
Chan said an initial investigation showed the three were recruited by a syndicate via a friend.
“They were offered free return tickets to the Maldives together with free accommodation and food,” she said, adding the trio were paid from HK$10,000 to HK$50,000 each as a reward and provided with a tour of the archipelago nation.
With the approach of Christmas and the new year, Chan appealed to youngsters not to fall for criminal get-rich-quick schemes.
“Criminals will offer youngsters huge rewards to lure them into bringing illegal drugs into or out of Hong Kong,” Chan said.
Hong Kong customs officers said they smashed a transnational drug smuggling syndicate on Monday, seizing a HK$30 million stash of cocaine and making three arrests.
The latest operation was the third large cocaine raid mounted by customs this year and the authorities admitted smuggling of the drug was a serious problem.
In the first six months of 2018, police and customs officers seized a total of 355kg of cocaine – almost double the 180kg haul in the same period last year.
The trio will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday morning charged with trafficking in a dangerous drug and manufacturing of a dangerous drug.
The 26kg of suspected cocaine in 36 packs was found hidden in the door rims of a 20-foot container which arrived at Kwai Chung Customhouse Cargo Examination Compound from Colombia on August 22.
Chan Tsz-tat, head of customs’ ports and maritime command, said the shipping document declared the container held 1.4 tonnes of wooden baffles worth about US$2,800.
Suspicious of the origins, weight, and value of the declared items, officers examined the container by X-ray and found the colour around the rims of the doors was deeper.
“The items inside the container were just empty wooden boxes of poor quality instead of wooden baffles,” Chan said on Wednesday. “When officers knocked on the doors, the sound was different. The rims were completely sealed and we were not able to find anything. We passed the case to the customs drug investigation bureau for further investigation.”
Customs tailed the container to a metal shack in Yuen Long where they arrested the 32-year-old driver, a 52-year-old South American man, and another 32-year-old local man.
Li Dandan pulled her mother in a tight embrace as soon as she emerged from a Hong Kong court’s cell holding unit, free at last from a drug trafficking case hanging over her head for nearly three years.
Beside them stood prison chaplain Father John Wotherspoon, who had waited anxiously for Li’s release, having spent the past two years helping the Guangzhou native prove her innocence.
“I’m very happy,” he said tearfully after learning of Li’s acquittal. “I’m hoping her case can help the [other drug mules] appeal.”
Wotherspoon since 2013 has been working on a “name and shame” project, identifying and exposing drug lords operating through and in the city. His efforts came as he travelled the world to help drug mules facing trial.
The Roman Catholic priest claimed about 20 mainland women had fallen victim to African drug lords over the past decade – and Li was one of them.
On November 7, 2015, Li was intercepted at Hong Kong International Airport while en route to Malaysia to help deliver clothing samples for her Nigerian boyfriend, IK, who said he would set up business in her home province of Guangdong.
In a backpack she carried were 1,983 grams of crystalline solids stored in a hidden compartment sewn into its linings.
Hong Kong prosecutors said the single mother, now 33, had trafficked 1,934 grams of methamphetamine, a drug more commonly known as Ice, worth HK$580,000.
But Li told a different story: of a love scam in which she was conned into making deliveries for a man she trusted.
“I dated this Nigerian man because he did not smoke or drink. He struck me as a hardworking person,” she wrote in a letter to Wotherspoon in July 2016. “I could not believe he was a drug trafficker.”
She thought he was a real boyfriend.
Wotherspoon said Li was highly vulnerable in light of her divorce.
Hong Kong’s young adults have been told age and a clean record will not save them from a lengthy jail sentence if they are caught smuggling drugs or other contraband into the city.
The warning came from Ida Ng Kit-ching, the head of the Rail and Ferry Command at Customs & Excise Department, as she revealed 92 young offenders had been arrested in the first five months of this year, a rise of 46 percent on 2017.
Ng said the case of a 20-year-old, who was sentenced to 22½ years in prison for trafficking 5kg of ketamine, should prove a salutary lesson for others tempted to follow in his footsteps – especially as he was paid just HK$500 to do so.
Low-level drug mules are convicted at a rate of more than one a day in Hong Kong’s High Court while only one gang organiser or senior syndicate member is sentenced every eight months, a study provided to Post Magazine shows.
An analysis by former deputy director of public prosecutions John Reading SC found that of 1,619 traffickers convicted from 2012 to 2015, only six were organisers or senior gang members, while 1,519 (or 93 percent) were couriers, apprehended either in Hong Kong or while trying to enter or leave the city. The remaining 94 cases mostly involved so-called storekeepers caught with drugs in Hong Kong.
Reading’s study also found that sentences for drug-trafficking offences were more severe in Hong Kong than in the 17 other jurisdictions surveyed, with a 22-year starting point for trafficking offences involving 1kg of a class-A drug compared with 20 years in Turkey, 15 to 20 years in Slovakia and 10 to 17 years in New York.
Hong Kong was the only jurisdiction surveyed, apart from Iceland and Austria, not to consider the role and seniority of the offender in the sentencing process. Hong Kong was also one of only six jurisdictions where previous good character was not recognised as a mitigating factor.
The average sentence over the four-year period in Hong Kong was nine years and nine months, while the highest sentences given out were to a 37-year-old sentenced to 32 years for trafficking 33.6kg of cocaine, and a 45-year-old sentenced to 33 years and six months for trafficking 11.9kg of cocaine and 410 grams of crystal methamphetamine.
Because 16-year-olds are tried in adult courts in Hong Kong, prosecutions over that period included 82 minors. All but two received substantial jail terms and cases included a 16-year-old sentenced to 17 years for trafficking 1.9kg of ketamine.
“The heavy sentences imposed for the offence in Hong Kong have not resulted in a significant reduction in drug trafficking cases over those years,” Reading concluded.
A 52-year-old woman from Peru arrested at Hong Kong International Airport on Saturday was carrying 2.5 kilograms of suspected cocaine in her body.
The woman arrived in Hong Kong via The Netherlands but was arrested during customs clearance after officials became suspicious because the woman walked slowly and awkwardly, Sing Tao Daily reported.
The woman ejected packets of suspected cocaine from her body during a check. The officers immediately sent her to North Lantau Hospital, where she discharged a total of 180 condoms with suspected liquid cocaine over two days.
The seized cocaine weighed about 2.5 kilograms in total and had an estimated street value of HK$2.3 million (US$294,462).
Officers said it was the biggest case of ingested drug trafficking caught by customs this year.
Hong Kong Customs yesterday seized about 2.6 kilograms of suspected cocaine with an estimated market value of about $2.4 million at Hong Kong International Airport.
A female passenger arrived in Hong Kong from Ethiopia yesterday afternoon. Upon examination of her hand-carry rucksack, Customs officers found the batch of suspected cocaine inside the false compartment of the rucksack. She was then arrested.
The arrested woman, aged 19, has been charged with one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug. She will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts tomorrow.
Hong Kong police have broken up a crack cocaine factory at a luxury flat in Yuen Long, seizing the largest haul of raw drug materials in 10 years and arresting four men, one of them Peruvian.
The ingredients – thought to have been flown into the city from Peru – could have made batches of the drug worth HK$59 million, officers said on Sunday.
The police operation, in Hung Shui Kiu on Friday, led to the seizure of 10kg of suspected crack cocaine and 150kg of materials to make the drug. The raw materials could have made another 50kg of drugs, the police said.
Four men aged between 19 and 38 were arrested. They included a Peruvian national who arrived in Hong Kong two weeks ago on a tourist visa, and is suspected to be the group leader. Officers said he was sent to the city to be the chemist for the operation.
The suspects were charged with manufacturing dangerous drugs and will appear at Tuen Mun Court on Monday. The maximum penalty for drug manufacturing is life imprisonment.
The syndicate rented a 1,000 sq ft luxury flat one month ago and tried to cover the smells emanating from their factory with fragrant oils.
According to police, drug cartels in Peru sent the raw materials by air cargo in 10 boxes. Customs officers did not detect the material because it was mixed with “acidic-smelling powders”.
Police said they believed it was the first time a luxury flat had been used as a base for making drugs.
“One of the reasons the syndicate chose to rent rather luxurious premises was that it provided a front to make it less suspicious and more difficult for us to detect [the factory],” Chief Superintendent Ma Ping-yiu, of the Narcotics Bureau, said.
Police also seized drug-making materials such as small stoves, flammable chemicals and other tools.
A Colombian drug mule who admitted trafficking more than HK$2.7 million worth of cocaine into Hong Kong to repay debts for his sister’s medicine was jailed for 16 years and eight months by a High Court judge on Friday.
Cesar Sanchez, 21, did not initially react to the sentence on one count of trafficking a dangerous drug. But he broke down in tears as his lawyers gathered around the dock to explain the sentence after the hearing.
The former butcher was convicted after stating through an interpreter: “I declare myself guilty.”
Sanchez was arrested at Hong Kong International Airport on October 26 last year after officers found five packets of paste, which contained 1,719 grams of cocaine, inside a rucksack.
According to prosecutors, he was offered up to US$35,000 to take the rucksack from Sao Paulo in Brazil. They said a man called Marcos came to his home and threatened to kill him or hurt his younger sister if he changed his mind about the trip.
Defense counsel Michael Arthur explained that his client had borrowed 5 million Colombian pesos (HK$13,127) from a loan shark to cover living expenses and medicine for his sister, 17.
Sanchez, as her primary caregiver, was earning a monthly wage of 900,000 pesos while she needed a million pesos a month to treat the lupus she was suffering.
When he could not meet repayment deadlines and the 20 percent daily interest, Sanchez reluctantly agreed to work for the loan shark, Arthur said.
“He regrets getting involved in drug trafficking,” Arthur continued. “This is an offense that is borne out of desperation.”
The court heard that Sanchez joined a campaign to write blogs and send letters back home to discourage fellow Colombians from taking drugs to Hong Kong.
But deputy High Court judge Madam Justice Susana D’Almada Remedios did not accept that as a mitigating factor. However, she reduced the initial 25-year sentence by a third because of his guilty plea.<
“Dangerous drug trafficking is a very, very serious offense,” she said. “It is unfortunate that people like yourself are targeted … I have every sympathy for persons like you.”
There were clear and binding sentencing guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal, the judge said.
Under Hong Kong law, those convicted of trafficking dangerous drugs can be jailed for life and fined HK$5 million.
