COURT: Mr Chiu, you had plead guilty in the Magistrates’ Courts to a count of conspiracy to traffic in dangerous drugs. The particulars of the offence is that between 20 April 2022 and 22 April 2022, you conspired with others to unlawfully traffic in dangerous drugs, namely, methamphetamine hydrochloride.
The facts are as follows. At around 8.38 pm on 22 April 2022, police officers laid ambush outside Room 4218 on the 42nd Floor of Nina Hotel in Tsuen Wan West. A hotel staff rang the doorbell, and you opened the door. The officers then gained entry into the room. You were the only person found inside the room.
Upon search, in a wardrobe, a number of items were found, and they are, inter alia, a bowl containing 540 grammes of a solid containing 515 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride (‘ice’), a yellow bag containing 15 plastic bags, each marked with “X21” on the bag. These bags contain a total of 204 grammes of a solid containing 201 grammes of ‘Ice’. There were also five resealable plastic bags containing many
empty resealable plastic bags. Then there are also electronic balances, a heat sealer, a spoon and a marker pen.
Further search on a table, police found a mobile phone with two SIM cards, three keys and an access card to the room, as well as cash of HK$990, some bank cards in your name and an Octopus Card.
The total estimated street value of the drugs was $425,568.
According to the record of the hotel, you booked the room between 18 to 25 April 2022. After your arrest and under caution, you said that you received $7,000 for helping other(s) to sell ‘Ice’.
Subsequently, in video-recorded interviews, you said under caution the bowl of ‘Ice’ found in the wardrobe was given to you at the hotel lobby around noon two days before your arrest. The ‘Ice’ was for giving to others. As to the 15 plastic bags with ‘Ice’, you say there were originated from the bowl of ‘Ice’. Someone paid you by topping up your Octopus Card. You also admitted that the electronic balance, the spoon and also the sealer are paraphernalia for packaging the drug. You also admitted in the video-recorded interview the empty resealable plastic bags were given to you. You admitted that you were the only one who had the room’s access card.
You are now 26, and you were 23 at the time of the arrest for this offence. You have two previous convictions in trafficking in dangerous drugs and one for possession of dangerous drugs. You were arrested for the possession of dangerous drugs on 24 January 2022. You failed to report to police on 23 March 2022. You committed the present offence on 22 April 2022 while you were on bail for that possession of dangerous drugs offence, at that time you are a fugitive as well.
Looking at your record, you since 2017, make your living by committing crimes. In 2017, you were convicted of robbery and was sent away for 4 years. It must be not long after your release from prison, in 2019 October, you were convicted of two counts of trafficking in dangerous drugs. On that occasion, you were sentenced to a total term of 28 months. Then, you were found in possession of dangerous drugs in January 2022. As I said, while you were on bail, while you were on the run, you committed the present offence. And from your admission to the police, you committed the present offence for money.
While you were remanded for this case, you were arrested for money laundering, to which you were convicted in August
2023. For that money laundering, you were sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 months. So I must say, it looks as if, from 2017 onwards, you are making your living by committing crimes, one after the other.
The charge you face is one of conspiracy to traffic in an unspecified quantity of ‘Ice’. It was said by the Court of Appeal in the case of HKSAR v Tsang Ka Wing [2017] 5 HKLRD 799, where in conspiracy to traffic in an unspecified quantity of dangerous drugs was concerned, the sentencing court must do its best to arrive at a starting point based on inferences and assumptions properly derived from the particular facts of the case. Unless clear-cut, such inferences and assumptions would inevitably lean in favour of the defence.
Guided by this, doing my best, I agree with your counsel in his submission that I should use the drugs found in the room as the yard stick. So I will use 716 grammes of ‘Ice’ as the yard stick in assessing what sentence I should pass on you for this conspiracy charge. In the case of HKSAR v Tam Yi Chun [2014] 3 HKLRD 691, the Court of Appeal has said for 600 grammes and over of ‘Ice’, the same tariff prescribed in HKSAR v Abdallah [2009] 2 HKLRD 437 for heroin is applicable. In Abdallah, for 600 to 1.2 kilogrammes of heroin, the sentencing range is 20 to 23 years.
You are not a mere courier or a storekeeper as such. Having regard to your admission under caution, as well as how the drugs were packed, together with the paraphernalia found, I have no doubt you are a direct trafficker. You have admitted that you are the only one who had the keys to the hotel room. So I will adopt an initial starting point of 21½ years.
There are aggravating factors in this case. As I have already said, you have quite a bad record, committing offences one after the other. You have also had two similar convictions, to which you were sentenced to a total of 28 months. And that was not long ago, in 2019. It seems that the sentence passed on you on that occasion does not deter you from committing dangerous drugs offences.
Other than that, as I have already said, you committed the present offence when you were on bail and while you were a fugitive. With these aggravating factors, I enhance this initial starting point by 18 months. That takes my initial starting point to 23 years.
Mr Ho has already said everything that can be said on your behalf, but I can discern no mitigating factors except your timely plea. I will give you a one-third discount for that.
So the final sentence I pass on you is one of 15 years and 4 months.