COURT: Defendant, on 29 June 2023, you pleaded guilty to an offence of attempting to traffic in a dangerous drug before a magistrate sitting at the Eastern Magistracy. As a result of your plea of guilty, you were committed here to the Court of First Instance for sentence.
The charge to which you admitted was that on the 20th day of December 2012, outside a metal shack house at DD117 Lot 698 Wong Nai Tun Tsuen, Tai Tong, Yuen Long, New Territories, you attempted to unlawfully traffic in 18.95 kilogrammes of a mixture containing 12.45 kilogrammes of heroin hydrochloride.
As regards the amended Summary of Facts to which you admitted, in support of the charge they can be stated as follows: a container with a pallet allegedly containing 40 cartons of canned fruit, known as “the Consignment”, were shipped in to Hong Kong from Thailand on 9 December 2021. The consignee was one named Ken.Mary Industry Co, Limited. The party to be notified for the Consignment for Ken.Mary was called U-Rich International Forwarding (HK) Co, Ltd.
When the container arrived in Hong Kong, Customs & Excise selected the container for examination. The container was escorted to a warehouse known as Big Luck Logistics Limited.
A day prior to the arrival of the container, U-Rich was told to deliver the Consignment to an address in Ho Man Tin and the contact details was a person by the name of Ng Wang-yip. On 15 December, U-Rich received a call from a person claiming to be Mr Ng enquiring about the transportation status of the Consignment. Mr Ng told U-Rich there is no need to transport the Consignment, but advised them that the arrangements would be made for collecting the goods. U-Rich informed Mr Ng that the Consignment was still undergoing clearance formalities and Mr Ng would be informed when they were ready.
The following day, on 16 December, customs opened the container at the Big Luck warehouse. Inside the container within the Consignment, 40 carton boxes containing canned foods was examined. Upon examination, inside three carton boxes out of 40, a total of the quantity of drugs as stated in the charge were found concealed inside 72 cans of alleged canned food. The Consignment was then seized. The estimated street value of the dangerous drugs seized was $21,546,150. U-Rich received calls from Mr Ng inquiring about the status of the Consignment on 16, 17 and 18th morning of December.
Customs replaced the 72 cans containing the drugs as quantified in the charge with 72 cans of dummy cans between 16 and 17 December. They then arranged a controlled delivery with the 72 dummy cans in the replaced Consignment. A customs officer then disguised himself as a staff of U-Rich who was given the delivery order of the Consignment for the controlled delivery.
At around 2.35 on 20 December, a male driving a lorry attended the warehouse at Big Luck to collect the Consignment. The lorry left the Big Luck warehouse approximately an hour later with the replaced Consignment. Customs officers then followed the lorry. At about 4 o’clock, the lorry stopped at the entrance of Wong Nai Tun Tsuen in Tai Tong, Yuen Long. That is when the defendant appeared and helped the lorry driver unload the replaced Consignment from the back of the lorry to outside the metal shack, the address as stated in the charge.
At around 4.10 pm the same day, the defendant was arrested and under caution he said he did not know what the cartons contained. His friend Yeung Kwai asked him to collect the batch of goods on his behalf. Yeung Kwai would call him to collect the goods from him. Yeung Kwai was his former colleague whom he had known for around six months. When the batch of dummy cans was opened and it was explained that they had been replaced with the batch of goods containing non-dangerous drugs, the defendant said he had no knowledge of the dangerous drugs.
At the time of his arrest a mobile phone with two SIM cards was found on the defendant. Armed with a search warrant, the phone was screen checked. Inside the telephone was found two photographs dated 1 December 2021 at 1.22 am and 1.23 am respectively showing white powder mixtures placed on a black electronic scale.
There were also WhatsApp exchanges between the defendant and a contact person named Tim on Monday, 20 December 2021 showing that the defendant had sent his Bank of China bankcard to Tim. That was at 11.59 am. Then at 12.50 pm, there was a message from Tim telling the defendant, “Deposited. Deposited.” And then at about 12.56.57, a text was sent to the defendant’s phone providing the address of Wong Nai Tun Tsuen, Tai Tong to Tim. At 4.05 there was a text from the defendant’s phone to Tim’s saying, “Moving.” There was also other texts between the defendant and Siu Ming and further texts between the defendant and the username called Yeung Kwai.
The text between the defendant and Yeung Kwai were between 6.30 pm on Sunday and 4.04 on Monday, 20 December 2021. From these texts it would appear that it was Yeung who asked the defendant, to keep, to store these Consignments, Consignment of 40 boxes. Yeung Kwai told the defendant only one or two boxes had “things” inside, the rest was used as a cover and that it was 99 per cent safe and not to worry.
The defendant was worried if there were too many boxes at his home his mother would become suspicious. Yeung Kwai told the defendant to tell his mother that his friend was throwing a party and wanted to put the boxes in his home first and that they will come to collect them the following day. Yeung Kwai then sent the photo of the boxes to the defendant. The defendant then asked Yeung Kwai how much he would be paid to store them for one night. Yeung Kwai told him he would be paid $2,000 for one night’s storage because there is only one or two boxes that really have things inside.
He told defendant to rest easy and that he would not let the defendant get into trouble. The defendant told Yeung Kwai to move the goods into his home at about 2.00 to 3.00 pm because his mother would not be at home. Yeung Kwai told the defendant not to open the boxes and not to lose them. Yeung Kwai then told the defendant that arrangements would be made for the boxes to be moved to him. He was told that a few thousand dollars would be transferred to his account for the transportation fee and to give it to the driver and not to use the money. The defendant told Yeung that he would take the transportation fee and to let him go for two pallets. Yeung Kwai told him if he did that he will be beaten to death and hunted down. Eventually, Yeung Kwai told the defendant that the things were ready to remove and that the logistics people would drive to his place after lunch.
The defendant now accepts and admits that he knew the carton boxes to be stored at his home contained dangerous drugs.
Defendant, you are now 22 years of age. You were born in Hong Kong. At the time of this offence you were aged 20 and you are of clear record. You received up to secondary three education and prior to the commission of this offence, you were working as a delivery worker for a courier company earning $19,000 a month.
You lived with your parents and younger brother at a single-storey cottage, that is, the offence location. However, your father is working in Indonesia as an expat and so really you only lived with your mother and younger brother. I am informed by your counsel, Mr Victor Cheng, that the only reason you committed this offence was simply out of greed and the need to make fast and easy money. Through your plea of guilty you are very remorseful, shown your remorse and you understand that you will lose your freedom for over a decade.
You have also written a letter to this court setting out your mindset. You informed the court that during your last two years whilst in custody you have had reflection and intend to make lots of changes to your life. You will make your time worthwhile whilst serving your term and study hard and prepare yourself for when you are eventually released to look after your parents and younger brother. You are saddened that you have let your family down, particularly as you were really the role model or father for your younger brother who is less than 10 years old as your father has been away working and you were looking after your mother.
You fully understand the seriousness and severity of this offence and particularly how trafficking has a very bad impact to the community. Your mother is here in court today, supporting you. No doubt she is disappointed with you. Your greatest, strongest mitigation is your early plea of guilty.
As Mr Cheng has correctly stated, you were trafficking in a very substantial amount of drugs. The drugs involved were that of heroin hydrochloride. In sentencing you for this type of drug, the guideline sentencing case is that of Abdullah Anwar, given the very large quantities. You were trafficking in 12,450 grammes or 12.45 kilogrammes of heroin hydrochloride. That falls within the band of between 4,000 to 15,000 grams, which attracts a sentence of between 26 and 30 years’ imprisonment had you been convicted after trial. Your role in this offence was that of a storekeeper. This can be considered one of the lowest ranks.
So far as this case is concerned, there are no aggravating features. The only and strongest mitigating factor is your plea of guilty to which you shall be awarded the full one-third discount. If there are any further mitigating factors, as stated by Mr Cheng, those can be dealt with at a later stage.
For this quantity of drugs had you been convicted after trial, I would have taken a starting point of 29 years’ imprisonment. Giving you full credit for your plea of guilty, I will discount that sentence by one-third and you shall be sentenced to 19 years and 4 months’ imprisonment.