Traffickers fail to get juices flowing

Police officers have landed their biggest drug trafficking bust this year with the seizure of 178 kilograms of illegal drugs worth HK$170 million that were concealed in juice bottles at a warehouse in On Lok Village in Fan Ling.

Officers on Thursday discovered the drugs, including ice, ketamine and heroin, hidden in more than 1,000 bottles of apple, orange and grapefruit juice.

The drugs were stuffed into 305 juice bottles, including 150 bottles containing 88 kilograms of ice, 143 bottles containing 82 kilograms of heroin and 12 bottles containing eight kilograms of ketamine.

Two south Asian men, who were moving the bottles from the room when police arrived, have been arrested for trafficking in dangerous drugs.

One of the suspects is a 33-year-old Pakistani man with Hong Kong residency working in transportation, while the other is an unemployed 27-year-old Bangladeshi male who holds a temporary certificate of identity.

The two men are believed to be part of a transnational drug trafficking group but have not found any connection to triads.

The pair will appear in Fan Ling magistrates' courts today.

Police have yet to confirm the drugs' origins but believe none of the narcotics have entered the local market due to the goods being unopened.

Narcotics bureau superintendent Raymond Chou Wong-chung said the use of beverage bottles to hide drugs was not a new method as police had previously seized drugs hidden in wine bottles.

"In general, we can say they use all possible means to conceal the drugs," he said.

Chou said moving drugs through imported cargo had become a major avenue for traffickers due to stricter immigration restrictions during the pandemic.

The number of large-scale illegal drug trafficking had also risen recently, he said, with this already being the fourth case in Hong Kong this year to involve drugs worth more than HK$100 million. "During the pandemic, drug prices have risen, we have observed It may cause drug dealers to smuggle more drugs at a time and increase the number of large seizures," he said, with police seeing a "continuous upward trend" in global drug production and the seizure of illegal drugs staying at a relatively high level.

In the first half, police seized 348 kilograms of ice, up 20 times from the 16 kilograms seized in the same period last year.

Chou said the amount of ice and heroin seized this year has exceeded the total for the two drugs seized in the last two years.

According to the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, any person who traffics in a dangerous drug is liable to a fine of HK$5 million and life imprisonment.