CRIMINAL CASE NO. 395 OF 2010
COURT: Choijilsuren Ochbadrakh, you have been convicted on your own plea of trafficking in 875.10 grammes of a mixture containing 507.94 grammes of heroin hydrochloride and 89.67 grammes of monoacetylmorphine hydrochloride.
Those drugs were in the form of 90 pellets which you had swallowed prior to arriving in Hong Kong from Kuala Lumpur on 20 April last year. You were stopped by Customs officers while you were in transit prior to taking a ferry to Shekou up on the mainland. They took you to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where you later excreted the pellets.
It is apparent that these drugs were destined for the mainland rather than for Hong Kong, but some indication of the size and value of this quantity of drugs can be obtained from the fact that the street value if they had been sold in Hong Kong would have been almost HK$780,000.
You can have been in no doubt that very serious consequences would follow if you were caught trafficking in this quantity of drugs. It is clear that you must have decided that it was worth the risk, bearing in mind the reward of US$5,000 which I am told by Mr Fan you had been promised. You are perhaps fortunate that you were caught with these drugs in Hong Kong rather than in Malaysia or on the mainland, where the consequences might have been even more serious than they are in Hong Kong.
In deciding the appropriate starting point, I bear in mind that as far as the authorities are aware, you have not been involved in this sort of activity before. Mr Fan tells me that you have no previous convictions elsewhere. I also bear in mind that there is nothing to indicate that you were the mastermind of this offence. I approach this matter on the basis that you were simply a courier being used by others in return for a substantial financial reward.
I also bear in mind that in the case of a fellow countryman, who is the 3rd defendant on the indictment, who appears to have been travelling on the same flight as you and had swallowed 80 pellets containing a slightly smaller quantity of drugs, namely 774.36 grammes of a mixture containing 437.47 grammes of heroin hydrochloride and 75.54 grammes of monoacetylmorphine hydrochloride, the sentencing judge adopted a final starting point of 18 years 10 months’ imprisonment, which included an enhancement of 12 months for the aggravating feature to reflect the international element of the offence.
Taking all these factors into account, I am adopting a starting point in your case of 19½ years’ imprisonment. By reason of your plea of guilty, you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.
I have listened to all that Mr Fan has said on your behalf. He has told me about your family and your working background. There is nothing in that background that warrants any further discount than the one-third to which I have already referred.
Accordingly, I sentence you to 13 years’ imprisonment.