HONG KONG: Customs seized marijuana buds from Canada worth HK$21.5 million – the biggest seizure in 10 years in Hong Kong. Customs officers found the 131 kilograms of drugs at a logistics company in an industrial building on Wang Lung Street, Tsuen Wan, on Monday.
The drugs were stashed in 15 wooden boxes shipped in from Canada and declared as personal belongings, customs said. The drugs were vacuum packed and sealed in two layers of paperboard to prevent smells, said Customs Drug Investigation Bureau head Hui Wai-ming. The drugs were also hidden among other objects within the crates. “The [smugglers] made a careless and stupid mistake, for the boxes weighed roughly the same,” Hui said. He said the investigation started early this year and they moved in last Saturday when three men, aged 26 to 60, went to collect the shipment. All three were arrested.
Meanwhile, a Hong Kong national has been sentenced to 15 years in jail by a New Zealand court after trying to smuggle 175kg of “meth” into the country. Cheung Kai-yip, 20, was arrested last October in one of the biggest ice busts in the country, with the market price of the seizure NZ$176 million (about HK$940 million). The court heard that Cheung shipped the drugs, hidden in tea packages, in 10 containers.
