COURT: Defendant, you pleaded guilty on the 26 January 2026 before a magistrate at Eastern Magistracy. Your plea of guilty was to a charge of trafficking in dangerous drugs. As a result of your plea of guilty, you have been committed here to the Court of First Instance for sentence.
In the charge, defendant, you admitted that on the 12 October 2023, opposite to No. 28 Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, in Hong Kong, you unlawfully trafficked in 13.71 grammes of a crystalline solid containing 13.59 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride; 113.39 grammes of a liquid containing 109.13 grammes of gamma-butyrolactones and 0.09 grammes of a solid containing 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
I turn now to the facts in support of your charge to which you pleaded guilty. The Summary of Facts dated the 20 January 2026, and the Amended Summary of Facts dated the 6 May 2026, was admitted by you as correct, and facts in support of the charge.
I turn now to the facts. At about 1.02 am on the 12 October 2023, police officers set up a roadblock and intercepted the
private car driven by you, the defendant, bearing registration mark XW6068, opposite to 28 Mody Road. At that time, you were the only person in the vehicle.
Since you looked nervous and kept looking at a handbag at the front passenger seat of the vehicle, you were instructed to get off the vehicle with the handbag, and the police officers searched it. Inside the handbag, dangerous drugs, Exhibits 1 to 4 were found. Further dangerous drugs Exhibit 5 to 6 was also found inside the car storage compartment of the front passenger seat of the vehicle.
Defendant, you were arrested for trafficking in dangerous drugs, and under caution, you stated that the Exhibits 1 to 4 were two packets of ‘Ice’ and five bottles of GBL were for your own consumption. For the Exhibits 5 to 6, also ‘Ice’, you also stated this was for your own consumption.
A search was conducted on you and cash of $2,170.50 and three mobile phones, each containing a SIM card, were seized from you.
In a subsequent video-recorded interview in the morning of 12 October 2023, you maintained that the Exhibits 1 to 6, the drugs, were for your own consumption. You claimed you were a logistic worker, earning $20,000 per month. You said you had purchased the drugs from a male in Kowloon Park at about 4 to 5 pm on the 4 October 2023 for a price of $3,500.
In the same morning on the 12 October 2023, a house search was conducted at your residence at Taikoo Shing, and nothing suspicious was found.
The estimated street value of the ‘Ice’, that is the drugs alone, was $5,772.
I turn now to your background in mitigation. Your counsel, Ms Vivian Yeung, had submitted very full and thorough mitigation on your behalf.
You were born in Hong Kong and you are now 44 years of age. You are a university graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce, Finance and Management from a university in Australia in 2004. You are single. You worked as an operations manager for your parents’ logistics company since 2005. That is shortly after graduation. Upon your parents’ retirement, you then set up your own logistics company in 2010 to take over from your parents’ business. You were the company director and were responsible for the daily management and operation for local construction site heavy machinery logistics services before your arrest. You lived with your parents in Taikoo Shing.
Unfortunately, during your remand, your grandmother passed away and you are also very remorseful for causing your parents and elder sister to take over your responsibilities in the logistics business whilst you have been detained.
During your detention whilst in remand, you have however attended a number of courses in order to arm yourself for a better career path. Your counsel has submitted various documents with photos and business registration and a copy of your university degree and matters relating to your psychological services.
You have two previous convictions related to drugs. One is for possession of dangerous drugs and the other is possession of Part 1 poison to which you were sentenced to probation for 15 months in 2021.
I am informed by your counsel Ms Yeung, because of work pressure, you started to take drugs and hence you were convicted in 2021. At that time, your parents came to know about your drug dependency and they encouraged you to quit and accompanied you to have psychiatric and psychological consultation in 2021 to which Ms Yeung has annexed those documents.
It appears to me that despite receiving consultation and despite strong family support, you, defendant, picked up the habit of taking ‘Ice’ again and also GBL and MDMA and Wai Gor together with ‘Ice’. In order to avoid your family members knowing that you had relapsed into taking drugs, you then kept the drugs and smoking paraphernalia in your vehicle and consumed the drugs outside of your home. I am informed by Ms Yeung that at the material time you were arrested, you had just finished work and was on your way home.
After your arrest on 12 October 2023, the urine test dated 15 October 2023 showed that your body contained amphetamine. It is your mitigation that all the drugs inside the handbag were for your own self-consumption. That is namely 8.41 grammes of ‘Ice’ and 109.13 grammes of GBL. The orange plastic straw for the ‘Ice’ bottle that was placed inside the storage compartment was also for use in taking ‘Ice’. It is submitted by Ms Yeung that the two bags of ‘Ice’ inside the handbag contained different quantities, namely 2.1 and 6.29 grammes was because some of the ‘Ice’ had already been consumed by you.
Similarly, the three bottles of GBL contained different quantities because they had also been consumed by you. It is therefore submitted by Ms Yeung that a significant proportion, that is a total of 8.41 grammes of the 13.71 grammes of ‘Ice’ found, was for your own self-consumption.
I turn now to sentence. The approach to sentencing in drug trafficking cases are the ones laid down in HKSAR v Herry Jane Yusuph [2021] 1 HKLRD 290, and complemented in HKSAR v Lee Ming Ho [2024] HKCA 150. In following the application of the principle and steps, they are as follows.
The first step is to assess the gravity of the offence and identify the relevant guideline applicable to the quantity of drugs concerned. The revised tariff case for the drugs, heroin, cocaine and ‘Ice” is set out in the case of HKSAR v Huang Ruifang [2025] 2 HKCA 234.
The tariff case for the drugs ecstasy or MDMA is set out in the authority of Secretary for Justice v Hii Siew Cheng [2009] 1 HKLRD 1. The tariff case for trafficking in the drug GBL, GBH is the case of HKSAR v Ko Wai Shing [2021] HKCA 1803.
Pursuant to the tariff, where an amount trafficked is 13.59 grammes of ‘Ice’, the commonly known name of methamphetamine hydrochloride, falls within the bracket of between 10 and 70 grammes, attracting a starting point of between 7 to 11 years’ imprisonment. Here the amount is 13.59 grammes of ‘Ice’ and that by itself would arithmetically attract a starting point of 7 years and 2 months’ imprisonment.
The amount of MDMA is 0.09 grammes for trafficking and that quantity of up to 1 gramme is in the court’s discretion. For that amount, I take a starting point of 1 month.
For the amount of 109.13 grammes of GBL, that would fall within the bracket of up to 500 grammes, which is again within the court’s discretion. For this amount, an appropriate starting point of 2 months would be appropriate.
There are three types of drugs which you are trafficking in. In determining the appropriate starting point for the three types of drugs trafficked, I adopt the combined and conversion approach. The most potent and serious drug is of course the drug ‘Ice’. As the quantity of MDMA and GBL are of such a small quantity, it is nominal when converted to ‘Ice’. Therefore, it would be fair to simply ignore it for the purposes of calculating the starting point.
I turn now to the second step. The second step is to assess the role and culpability of you, the defendant, based on the evidence before me. Defendant, you kept the drugs in your car for the purposes of concealing them for your own consumption and for concealing them from your parents and family. In view of the quantity of the drugs in the two glass bottles containing traces of ‘Ice’, there is an inference that it was not only you who were taking these drugs.
The third step is to identify where in the relevant band you come, bearing in mind the factors to which I have alluded to. It appears that you did consume much of these drugs, but you had these drugs also for trafficking, that is, for sharing with others. Given your income and the value of the drugs, these were well within your budget. Taking into account the third band in the guidelines of where I should take the starting point should lie, I consider that the starting point should nevertheless remain at 7 years and 2 months’ imprisonment.
I do not consider there to be any aggravating or personal mitigating factors. However, the most significant mitigating factor is your plea of guilty and the fact that a significant proportion of drugs were for your own consumption.
In relation to whether this court accepts that a significant proportion of drugs were for your own consumption, I take into account the factors to be considered as laid down in HKSAR v Wong Suet Hau [2002] 1 HKLRD 69, at paragraph 34, subparagraph (1).
I do not accept the quantifiable amount as submitted by Ms Yeung to necessarily be for your own consumption. I am, however, satisfied that a significant proportion was for your own consumption, particularly in view of the quantity of drugs and the value of the drugs, the number of packets, the finding of drug-taking paraphernalia, the fact that you, the defendant, are a drug-dependent, your past criminal record relate to dangerous drugs, the fact that upon remand your urine test was positive for amphetamine, and your explanation as to why they were kept inside your own car.
Defendant, you run your own logistics business. The business is the registered owner of this car, and your business premises are owned by your parents. I take into account your ability and means to pay for the drugs, otherwise than by trafficking in them. In the circumstances, I discount the starting point by 20 per cent for self-consumption.
The starting point being 7 years and 2 months’ imprisonment, that should be reduced to 5 years and 9 months.
Defendant, you have pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and will benefit from a one-third discount to your sentence, making the term the defendant used shall serve to be 3 years and 10 months’ imprisonment.
The sixth step, I have observed the overall sentence, and I am satisfied that it is fair, just, and balanced in all the circumstances, and the offence, and the offender.
