HKSAR v. Ng Kwok Wai

HCCC 149/2026

[2026] HKCFI 4424

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 149 OF 2026

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT: The defendant pleaded guilty during committal proceeding to a count of trafficking in a dangerous drug. He was charged on 19 July 2024, at the building at No. 170 Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok, unlawfully trafficked in a dangerous drug, namely, 966 grammes of a solid containing 782 grammes of cocaine.

The facts are as follows. On 17 July 2024, at around 11.50 pm, customs officers were deployed to examine a UPS parcel with the following details: tracking number IZ010X316798313957; consignor: Abigail Sandoval Nolasco; and consignor address is Google Operaciones De Mexico; consignee name is Ng Kwok-wai; consignee address: Kowloon, 4^th Floor, 170 Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong: contact number of consignee: 852 6365 0873; declarations: Iron Prize, For A Gift.

In the presence of UPS staff, Custom Officer 18186 opened the parcel and found a wooden box therein. The officer opened the wooden box and found a metal trophy base therein. The officer conducted an iron scan test on the metal trophy base, and the result yielded positive result towards cocaine. As a result, the officer drilled a hole into the metal trophy base and discovered some white powder therein. A preliminary narcotics test on the white powder indicated positive test towards cocaine. The white powder was later confirmed by the government chemist to be 966 grammes of a solid containing 782 grammes of cocaine.

Subsequently, the parcel was repackaged and handed over to Custom Officer 19191 to conduct further controlled delivery operation.

On 19 July 2024, at around 3.47 pm, Customs Officer 19191 disguised as a UPS courier and called the phone number of the consignee to confirm whether someone would be at the consignee address in around half an hour. The defendant received the call, stated that he had not yet returned and asked Custom Officer 19191 if he could deliver the parcel later. The officer told him that he still had to deliver other goods and would call the defendant later.

At around 4.19 pm on the same day, defendant called Customs Officer 19191 and asked if he could change the address for receiving the parcel. Officer stated that he needed to check the progress of delivering other goods and he could only confirm at around 5 pm. Defendant then told the officer that he would call back.

At around 4.22 pm, the defendant called Customs Officer 19191 again and asked if he would deliver the parcel at 5 pm. The officer asked the defendant if he still wished to change the address for receiving the parcel, but the defendant stated that he was almost back to the consignee address. The officer told the defendant that he would come up to deliver the parcel, but the defendant instructed him to wait at the lobby of the consignee address as he would come down to pick it up.

At around 5.03 pm, defendant called Customs Officer 19191 again and asked if he had arrived. Customs Officer 19191 told the defendant that he would arrive in around 10 minutes and confirm whether he wished to pick up the parcel at the lobby. Defendant replied in the positive.

At around 5.10 pm, Customs Officer 19191 carried the parcel and arrived at the staircase between the lobby and the 1^st floor of the building at 170 Fa Yuen Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, and called the number, but no one picked up the call. The officer called the number again and the defendant waved at him at the staircase. Officer also heard that the defendant’s mobile phone was ringing. Officer told the defendant that he had a UPS delivery and asked if the defendant was expecting a parcel. Defendant replied in the positive. The officer then asked the defendant to confirm the shipment details on the airway bill affixed to the parcel. Upon reviewing the shipment details, the defendant acknowledged receipt of the parcel and signed the delivery note. The defendant then took over the parcel from the officer.

Immediately afterwards, at around 5.13 pm, the officer revealed his identity and arrested and cautioned the defendant accordingly. Under caution, the defendant claimed that he did not know what was inside the parcel as he could pick up whatever things which were delivered to him, and he planned to bring the parcel back home to check its contents.

A subsequent cautioned video-recorded interview was conducted with the defendant. Under caution, apart from confirming the post-record statements, he refused to answer all other questions put to him.

The estimated street value of all dangerous drugs seized was around $725,466.

The telephone number of the SIM card seized from the defendant was the same as the number of the consignee. The customs officer had a preliminary screening of the mobile phone seized from the defendant and found the call records between the defendant and the Officer 19191 during the controlled delivery operation.

Defendant now admits and accepts that at the material time of the offence, he had knowledge of 782 grammes of cocaine seized and was knowingly in possession of all the said dangerous drugs seized for the purpose of unlawful trafficking in their entirety.

The dangerous drugs in this case is 782 grammes of cocaine. According to the Court of Appeal in Huang Ruifang [2025] 2 HKLRD 138, for cocaine between 500 to 1,500 grammes, the sentencing bracket is 16 to 20 years.

In assessing your role and culpability, I do not accept that you are a mere courier or a storekeeper. There is an international element in it in assessing your role and culpability. The Court of Appeal in Lee Ming Ho [2024] 1 HKLRD 1186, the court in paragraph 70 of the judgment stated “where an international element is involved”:

“...are, in the ordinary course, now to be regarded as matters going to the role and culpability of the offender when identifying the starting point, rather than as separate and additional aggravating features.”

Paragraph 74 of the judgment:

“We must reiterate that the international element should now generally be considered as a factor when assessing the role and culpability of the offender in order to identify the appropriate starting point for sentence. In exercising their discretion, courts will still bear in mind the quantity of narcotic being introduced into Hong Kong, which not only increases the supply of the particular dangerous drug but causes greater harm to the community. As Zervos JA put the matter in HKSAR v Fong Yau Heung:

‘The courts in Hong Kong have long recognised that the importation of dangerous drugs is a serious aggravation of the offence of drug trafficking because it involves the international smuggling of the quantity of drugs imported finding its way into the local drug market and putting the people and the community at risk of substantial harm.’”

In HKSAR v Raman Kapusamy [2024] 2 HKLRD 955, the Court of Appeal in their judgment, paragraph 60:

“There can be no denying that the international element is an aggravating factor in sentencing in dangerous drug cases in other jurisdictions and has been part of the sentencing practice in this jurisdiction since before Abdallah was decided 15 years ago. However, as we were at pains to make clear in Lee Ming Ho, the international element is itself capable of taking a number of different forms and may not, therefore, lend itself to a standard or uniform enhancement. The most common example to come before the courts is the courier who, for a fee or reward, crosses the border with dangerous drugs secreted in or on their person or in their luggage. However, there is also the importer who engineers the arrival of an elaborate commercial cargo by land, sea or air deliberately disguised in or as some innocuous shipment. Then there is the recipient of a parcel, which has arrived at the post office or a parcel delivery company, and which the recipient knows is both from abroad and contains dangerous drugs. And there is the offender who orders a dangerous drug from abroad, perhaps online through the Internet. These are some of most common permutations of the cross-border trafficking of dangerous drugs encountered in this jurisdiction. But they are not exhaustive categories and even within them, there may be variations and different gradations of seriousness in assessing different roles and culpability.

Whatever form the international element takes in the context of trafficking in dangerous drugs, all offenders have one thing in common: they have each either arranged, or caused or facilitated dangerous drugs to be brought over the border illegally into Hong Kong. That is essentially what the international element in the present context means.

In the context of drug trafficking, however, the international element may be reflected differently in the roles and culpability of individual defendants.”

At paragraph 58 of the same judgment, the Court of Appeal reminded:

“...sentencing judges should remember, in relation to the international element, that the greater the quantity, the more harm is caused by that quantity entering Hong Kong and being disseminated on our streets.”

Guided by these two Court of Appeal authorities, I adopt an initial starting point of 18 years and 1½ months. You are now 51 years of age. There is nothing much in your background which I can take into consideration as mitigation. On the other hand, you have a bad record. You first committed an offence when you were about 21 years of age. You were convicted on that occasion of aiding and abetting remaining in Hong Kong without the authority of the Director of Immigration after having landed unlawfully in Hong Kong.

In the same year, some three months later, you were convicted of attempted robbery, for which you were sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. After that attempted robbery, on two occasions you were convicted of three counts of trafficking in dangerous drugs. Those two occasions were in the Court of First Instance. You were last convicted of trafficking in dangerous drugs and were sentenced to 12 years in 2008. You were released from prison from that sentence in 2015, October.

In Lee Ming Ho, the Court of Appeal has stated:

“...it is unrealistic, as the court in Abdallah suggested, to treat every defendant who has a prior conviction for trafficking in dangerous drugs as deserving of at least 2 years’ imprisonment if convicted of trafficking in more than 1 kilogramme of narcotics. The previous conviction may be very different in qualitative or quantitative terms, there may be one or more than one such previous conviction, it may have been recorded in a different jurisdiction of the court or it may have been relatively recent or a long time ago. As we put it in HKSAR v Har Tsz Yui:

‘Because of the myriad of factors which may be present in a particular case, we think that, in this area of sentencing, the amount by which a judge chooses to enhance a sentence for a previous record of similar offences must be one peculiarly within his sentencing discretion, depending on the facts of the case, the nature of the offence, the circumstances of the individual and the need for personal and public deterrence. It is not an automatic exercise, although a previous criminal record of similar offending will cause the judge to consider whether and to what extent, subject to submissions from the defendant, the sentence might or should be enhanced.’”

Finally, the Court of Appeal said:

“Since it is eminently a matter of discretion, depending upon what may be very different facts and circumstances, we think it unwise to be too prescriptive about when and how a previous conviction for trafficking in dangerous drugs should aggravate the starting point for sentence; or whether, indeed, it should aggravate it at all.”

All three counts of trafficking in dangerous drugs which you were convicted of were convictions in the Court of First Instance, so the quality and the quantity must be serious. And, in fact, on the first occasion, in the Court of First Instance, you were sent away for 14 years. Shortly after your release from prison for that offence, you were convicted of another trafficking in dangerous drugs, and you were sent away for 12 years.

I am sure that you have not been deterred from trading in dangerous drugs despite the heavy sentence that you had received in the past. This is an aggravating factor, and I have decided to enhance the initial starting point by another year. As a result, the notional starting point for conviction after trial is one of 19 years and 1½ months.

As I have said earlier, I see nothing in your background or anything else which I can say, mitigates the offence which you have committed. The only discount I can give you is your early plea, and I see no reason why I should not give you one-third discount. So, Mr Ng, please stand up.

I sentence you to a term of imprisonment for 12 years 8 months and 10 days.

(Discussion re calculation of sentence)

COURT: Mr Ng, could you stand up, please? I am sorry that earlier on, my maths is incorrect. The notional starting point which I have adopted is one of 19 years and 1.5 months. After giving you one-third discount, the sentence should be one of 12 years and 9 months.

	I/we certify that to the best of my/our ability and skill, the foregoing is a true transcript of the audio recording of the above proceedings
	Angelica Louise Bedana
	Date: 28 July 2026