HONG KONG: An Indonesian court yesterday sentenced a Hong Kong drug gang leader to death after he was caught with more than 860kg of methamphetamines in one of the country’s biggest drug busts in years.
The arrest of Wong Chi-ping, 40, in January followed a three-year investigation by the country’s National Narcotics Agency, which said it was the biggest drugs haul of the past five years.
“The harsh penalty on drugs will provide a deterrent effect for those who are looking to do such crimes,” said Slamet Pribadi, spokesman for the agency, after the West Jakarta District Court delivered its verdict.
Wong’s lawyers said they would appeal against the death sentence after the guilty verdict.
“We hope that our client still has a chance to prove himself,” said defence lawyer Rando Vittoro Hasibuan. “We still believe that Wong doesn’t deserve to get the death penalty.”
Wong, who has lived in Indonesia for 15 years, was believed to have been the mastermind behind the smuggling of methamphetamines from Hong Kong to Indonesia, packing the drugs into coffee containers, local media reported
In January this year, Wong and members of his drug syndicate were nabbed after police intercepted the massive meth consignment while it was being transferred between vehicles in the car park of a west Jakarta shopping mall.
Some 42 sacks of “coffee”, each containing 20kg of high-grade methamphetamine – known in the Southeast Asian country as “shabu shabu” – and a number of vehicles were seized by the narcotics agency.
The drugs were believed to have originated in Guangdong.
After the arrests, police forced Wong and other members of his group to burn 1 trillion rupiah (HK$569 million) worth of the drugs.
In Indonesia, the number of illicit drug users is set to reach nearly 3 per cent of the population this year, or five million people, up from just 1.5 per cent in 2005.
President Joko Widodo declared war on what he called a “narcotics emergency” after taking office a year ago.
He has repeatedly refused clemency to traffickers and more than a dozen drug convicts, most of them foreigners, have been executed this year after a five-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted.
