Police said they had dismantled a methamphetamine laboratory in an iron-sheet structure in Fanling, where some heating, filtration, reaction and refrigeration equipment was still operating. Officers seized about 9 kilograms of suspected solid methamphetamine, suspected liquid methamphetamine, production equipment and chemicals. The suspected drugs were estimated to have a street value of about HK$23 million.
The site posed a serious risk to people living nearby, police said. The manufacturing process involved high temperatures and pressure and could release large quantities of toxic gas. The unit also contained flammable and highly toxic chemicals, while the weak fire resistance of iron-sheet structures could have made an accident particularly serious.
The operation began on the evening of September 17, when officers stopped and searched a 49-year-old mainland Chinese man near Tsz Tong Tsuen, Fanling. Police said they found a key on him and used it to enter a loft unit in a nearby iron-sheet structure, where they found the suspected laboratory.
Police then searched another unit near the laboratory and a flat in another residential estate, arresting a 56-year-old non-Chinese woman and a 55-year-old local man. All three arrested people were being held on suspicion of manufacturing dangerous drugs. Police described the woman as a core member of the group and the man as its alleged ringleader.
Police said their preliminary investigation indicated that people had been recruited with financial inducements to manufacture drugs, carry supplies or act as lookouts. One recruited person was reportedly introduced by a friend and paid HK$1,000. Manufacturing a dangerous drug carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on conviction under Hong Kong’s Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. The three suspects were expected to face drug-manufacturing charges and appear at a magistrates’ court in Fanling on the following Monday.