With the Chinese New Year approaching, Hong Kong Customs officers will continue to make every effort to stop dangerous drugs from being trafficked into Hong Kong, a Hong Kong Customs spokesman said Thursday.
Enforcement at all control points had already been strengthened before Christmas and New Year to clamp down on cross- boundary drug trafficking activities, the spokesman said.
During the period from Dec. 6 to 30, 2008, Customs officers of the Airport Command had cracked seven drug smuggling cases at the Hong Kong International Airport, resulting in the arrest of five men and a woman, aged 19 to 31.
A total of three kilograms of heroin, 920 grams of cocaine and 1.68 kilograms of cannabis resin were seized. The seized drugs could fetch about 2.94 million HK dollars (379,624 U.S. dollars) in the market.
The traffickers attempted to smuggle drugs into Hong Kong by various means in the above cases. The modus operandi included body- packed method, concealment inside backpacks or shoe soles, internal body concealment, and the sending of express parcels, the spokesman said.
Among the cases, Customs officers on Dec. 6 and 12 found a total of 1.16 kilograms (116 pellets) of cannabis resin carried by a woman and a man arriving from Nepal and Bangladesh respectively. In the woman's case on December 6, drugs were also found concealed inside her body.
On Dec. 27, officers seized one kilogram of heroin hidden in the backpack of a man arriving from Malaysia. On Dec. 29, they found 520 grams of cannabis resin inside the shoe soles of a man who had arrived from Bangladesh.
On Dec. 6 and 26, Customs officers uncovered two kilograms of heroin and 340 grams of cocaine in express parcels posted from Bangladesh and Brazil respectively.
Under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, drug trafficking is a serious offense. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment and a fine of 5 million HK dollars (645,619 U.S. dollars).
Source：Xinhua
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