Police arrested two people after raiding a suspected drug storage unit in a Tsuen Wan shopping centre and a suspected drug manufacturing site in a Yuen Long village house on 21 August. The suspects were an 18-year-old mainland man who entered Hong Kong on a two-way permit and a 17-year-old local girl. They were arrested on suspicion of trafficking in dangerous drugs and manufacturing dangerous drugs respectively, according to police and reports. The allegations have not been tested in court.
Police said the suspected trafficking group was active in East Kowloon and the New Territories. The Tsuen Wan shop, measuring about 170 square feet, was allegedly rented from April to receive drugs from Southeast Asia, repackage and divide them, and supply the local market.
Ming Pao reported that officers found more than 20 cardboard boxes containing about 264 resealable bags and suspected powdered drugs at the Tsuen Wan unit. It said the seizure there included about 16kg of suspected cocaine and 1.5kg of suspected methamphetamine, estimated at about HK$12 million.
At the Yuen Long village house, officers reportedly found about 3.6kg of suspected crack cocaine, 500 grams of suspected cocaine, raw materials and equipment including a steamer and a food dehydrator. The seizure at that site was estimated at about HK$4 million, the report said. Police reportedly believe the girl mixed and processed raw materials there before packaging the product into small packets for distribution.
The reported quantities and valuation differed between the two accounts. Star Headline reported about 20kg of suspected cocaine and 1.2kg of suspected methamphetamine, worth more than HK$16 million in total, while Ming Pao gave a more detailed breakdown of the drugs found at the two sites and put their combined estimated value at about HK$16 million. No explanation for the difference was provided.
Ming Pao reported that the Yuen Long operation had been running for about a month and that the girl was allegedly recruited through a friend for HK$15,000 per kilogram of finished product. Those details, along with reports that the man may have been motivated by a desire to make quick money, remained subject to investigation. The two suspects were expected to face relevant charges and appear separately at Kwun Tong and Tuen Mun magistrates' courts on 24 August; their actual charges and bail arrangements were not confirmed in the supplied reports.