HKSAR v. Yusuf Lukman Adepoju

HCCC 45/2020

[2020] HKCFI 1436

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 45 OF 2020

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Transcript of the Audio Recording

of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:

Mr Yusuf, on 6 April of this year you pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs, contrary to sections 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap 134 before the Eastern Magistrates’ Court, and you have confirmed that plea today.

The Summary of Facts, which provides the basis of that plea, was read out to you today and you have agreed them. In essence, you arrived in Hong Kong on 28 February 2019 from Sao Paulo in Brazil via Dubai. You had swallowed 64 pellets of cocaine in Brazil and carried them into this country inside your body. You eventually admitted what you had done and you discharged those pellets whilst in hospital.

The value of that cocaine which you imported into Hong Kong was HK$585,310.

You are now 49 years old and from Mexico although you were born, I have been told, in Nigeria and you were originally a Nigerian citizen, which I presume you still are, but now you hold Mexican citizenship as a result of your marriage to a Mexican lady. I have been told that you are a carpenter by trade and when the civil war in Nigeria made your life and that of your family difficult, you fled to Mexico where you have been working on construction sites.

The economic situation in Mexico is very difficult and no doubt it was hard to make ends meet for your new family, and it was in those circumstances that you were foolish enough to agree to travel to Brazil in order to traffic drugs into China. As Mr Hotten has said, you are in fact extremely lucky to have been arrested in Hong Kong and not in China where the penalties for trafficking in drugs are considerably more harsh as are the prison facilities.

I have listened carefully to everything Mr Hotten has said on your behalf and I am impressed by your honesty and resignation in accepting your culpability and your fate. In a matter as serious as this, there is very little mitigation which can be advanced which will affect sentence, the sentence I am about to pass upon you.

This is a very serious offence which causes great harm to many families and to the community at large. You and those like you who think they can solve their own immediate problems by being involved in drug trafficking must be shown that crime is not the answer and that the people of Hong Kong do in fact take a very dim view of people who traffic in drugs.

For trafficking in 501 grammes of cocaine, as Mr Hotten has informed you, you fall to be considered under the guidelines set out in HKSAR v Lau Tak Ming [1990] 2 HKLR 370. For trafficking in between 400 and 600 grammes of cocaine, the guideline sentence after trial is between 15 to 20 years’ imprisonment. So for trafficking in 501 grammes of cocaine, the starting point for sentence is 17 years and 6 months. You are a man of previous good character both here and in your home country but there is also the aggravating factor of the importation of those drugs, for which you will receive an additional year on your sentence, making a total of 18 years and 6 months.

Unfortunately, there is no mitigation which can be advanced which can reduce that sentence that I am about to pass. You will, of course, receive a full one-third discount for your plea at the earliest opportunity, for which you should take that credit and you are thereby sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 12 years and 4 months.