Elderly foreigners being tricked into smuggling drugs out of Hong Kong, customs say
New tactics revealed as customs say seizures soar; officials using foreign intelligence to fight back but claim no sign city is trafficking hub
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 11 February, 2015, 12:46am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 11 February, 2015, 12:20pm
Samuel Chan [email protected]
Ten such visitors aged between 45 and 82 were intercepted at the airport as they prepared to leave last year, Ho said. Photo: Edward Wong
Foreign retirees as old as 82 have been tricked by drugs gangs into flying to Hong Kong with false claims of an inheritance and then lured into smuggling narcotics back to the West, the Customs and Excise Department says.
The tactics - unknown in the city before last year - were revealed as customs said drug seizures in Hong Kong in 2014 surged by about 140 per cent.
A boom in psychotropic drugs in the Asia-Pacific region was cited as the reason for the jump in smuggling. Overall, customs said the amount of these drugs seized across the region multiplied by 100 between 2011 and 2013.
One tactic stood out. "The emails [which the victims received] said all the travel expenses would be paid for," said Ho Shi-king, assistant commissioner for intelligence and investigation.
"They would be asked [if they came to Hong Kong] to carry a suitcase back home for some money … usually around 1-2kg of Ice was hidden inside the suitcase," he said yesterday, referring to an operation jointly mounted with the Australian and American authorities.
Customs commissioner Clement Cheung Wan-ching said Hong Kong officials were working closely with overseas authorities. Photo: David Wong
Ten such visitors aged between 45 and 82 were intercepted at the airport as they prepared to leave last year, Ho said. A total of 29.5kg - mostly Ice - with a local market value of HK$12 million, was seized.
"But the drugs are worth three times more in Australia with a market value of HK$36 million," Ho said.
The operation is ongoing and the mastermind behind the syndicate has yet to be arrested, he added.
Ho said there were 25 drugs seizures as a result of foreign intelligence reports from foreign counterparts last year, compared with just two in 2013.
But Commissioner of Customs and Excise Clement Cheung Wan-ching said he saw no sign that the city has become a drugs distribution hub and there was no indication that syndicates were using Hong Kong as a base to direct trafficking.
Customs last year busted 808 cases of drug smuggling, a 57 per cent rise compared with 2013.
Methamphetamine, commonly known as Ice, accounted for 40 per cent of the total with the amount of the drug seized quadrupling from 2013.
Meanwhile, seizures of "bath salts" - a synthetic form of cathinone, a substance derived from khat which has been chewed as a stimulant in the Middle East for centuries - rose 12-fold.
"Bath salts" and ketamine comprised 22 and 12 per cent of seizures respectively.
Asia Pacific accounted for 89 per cent of global seizures of psychotropic drugs in 2012, customs said.
Some 70 per cent of drugs seizures last year took place at Chek Lap Kok airport, which customs officials attributed to improved investigation.
The popularity of e-commerce also posed new threats, with drug seizure reports at the airport's Air Mail Centre up seven-fold to 292 cases last year. There was a 10-fold increase in the amount of drugs seized at the centre to 354kg.
Customs officials said they would step up their oversight of e-commerce activities for drugs trafficking and counterfeit or fake goods.
