HONG KONG: Hong Kong has become a transit hub for the smuggling of illegal drug methamphetamine, or “ice,” with the amount seized nearly tripling.
But the government has always rejected claims that Hong Kong is among the world’s major places for the transit of drugs.
Statistics released by customs and police show 357 kilograms of ice were seized between January and October last year, up 122kg from the same period in 2013.
There were 216 cases of ice seizures and 136 people were arrested.
The latest figures show an alarming trend in recent years, with just 44kg seized by the authorities in 2011 and 50kg in 2012.
A spokesman for the Customs and Excise Department said the increase was due to a recent upsurge of drug smuggling through transshipment express parcels from the mainland to overseas.
“Most drug seizures were concealed inside or camouflaged as commercial commodities such as water filters, tea leaves or shampoos,” he said.
“Hong Kong customs will always stay alert and step up our anti-narcotics enforcement to combat new trafficking trends.”
Customs seized a whopping 104kg of ice worth HK$42 million at Chek Lap Kok airport on December 9, the biggest bust in nearly a decade.
The drugs were detected in five transit express cargo consignments from the mainland bound for Malaysia via Hong Kong.
They were declared as containing water filters but customs officers cut open the metal cylinders to find drugs inside.
Police also seized 51kg of ice worth HK$22 mil
lion during a raid at a Lok Ma Chau village house on October 15.
But police senior superintendent Ko Shun-chi denied Hong Kong has become a transit hub for drugs despite the increase in seizures last year. The record for a single ice bust was 192kg in 2005.
The figures did not include a spate of busts in November and December.
A 48-year-old man and a 55-year- old woman were arrested at the airport on December 21 after customs officers found about 2.4kg of ice with a market value of HK$1 million. The pair were about to depart for Sydney, Australia, before they were intercepted.
Officers made another bust a day before in Lo Wu, when an 18-year-old female was carrying 3kg of ice worth HK$1.2 million in plastic bags hidden in her handbag.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on November 10 for carrying 1kg of ice worth HK$430,000.
According to former customs deputy commissioner Lawrence Wong Sau-pui, Hong Kong came under international pressure in 2008 following claims in the 1970s and 1980s that it was a drug transit center.
“In the 1980s and 90s, smuggling by land infested Hong Kong while smuggling by sea involving high-powered speedboats used by illegal syndicates was rampant,” he said.
Meanwhile, a joint operation between SAR and Indonesian police saw five Hongkongers arrested as part of an alleged international drug smuggling syndicate, during which 800kg of ice was seized in west Jakarta.
The alleged mastermind was 41-year-old Wong Chi-ping, who was arrested in Jakarta, and Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency said the drugs worth an estimated HK$800 million were suspected to have come from Guangzhou and then shipped to Indonesia.
