HONG KONG – Hong Kong police today announced a record-breaking 700kg cocaine seizure, with officers suspecting that the huge shipment was smuggled into the city via speedboats.
The bust is the largest in the territory in nearly a decade, and netted some HK$930 million (RM495 million) worth of drugs.
Authorities said the collapse of global travel during the coronavirus pandemic has forced smugglers to make riskier bulk shipments instead of using drug mules travelling through airports.
Police said the bust was made on Friday when officers intercepted a man with a trolley in the Fo Tan industrial district and found 150 bricks of cocaine in cardboard boxes.
Another 492 bricks were later found in an industrial building and an apartment in the same district, leading to the arrest of two men, aged 19 and 25.
“We believe (the drugs) were transported via long-range shipping to waters near Hong Kong from their source area in South America, and then smuggled in using illegal speedboats,” senior superintendent Ng Kwok-cheung told reporters.
“We found a lot of waterproof bags that were still wet at the scene, and all the cocaine bricks were carefully wrapped in plastic.”
Police said Hong Kong’s previous record cocaine seizure was 649kg, discovered by customs personnel in 2012. – AFP, April 4, 2021
