Hong Kong Customs said it had uncovered a suspected etomidate manufacturing facility in a Kam Tin village house on September 1 and arrested a 61-year-old local unemployed man. The suspected drugs and equipment seized were estimated to have a market value of about HK$42 million.
The seizure included more than 3,000 suspected etomidate capsules, about 13.4 kilograms of suspected liquid etomidate and about 3 kilograms of suspected etomidate powder, as well as manufacturing and packaging equipment. The HK$42 million figure was an estimated market value provided by Customs or reported by the news outlets.
Customs said the facility contained a high-precision liquid-filling machine forming part of a semi-automated production line. The equipment was designed to fill capsules with precise quantities of etomidate, and authorities described the discovery as unprecedented in their investigations.
Customs also estimated that the production line and the seized raw materials could have produced more than 160,000 etomidate capsules within a short period.
The operation took place on the afternoon of September 1, when officers intercepted a suspicious man during an anti-drug operation, searched a nearby village house and arrested him after finding the suspected drugs and equipment, according to Customs and reports.
Ming Pao reported that the facility was an approximately 300-square-foot unit in a village house believed to have been used as a workshop rather than a residence. The report said the man may have committed the alleged offences for payment, while the amount remained under investigation. It also said there was no evidence at that stage linking him to triad involvement.
The man was expected to face one count of manufacturing a dangerous drug and one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug. He was scheduled to appear at Tuen Mun Magistrates’ Courts on September 3.
Investigators had not established how long the suspected facility had been operating, where the liquid-filling machine came from, or where the suspected drugs were intended to go. It also remained unclear whether any had entered the market and whether further investigation or forensic examination would confirm the substances and equipment. Star Headline reported that investigators had not ruled out the possibility that the man learned to manufacture the drug from online videos and acted after being offered money by a trafficking group, but this remained an investigative possibility rather than an established fact.