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Customs officers show their biggest seizure of 412kg of ketamine with a street value of HK$47 million at its Kwai Chung Customhouse on June 1. Photo: David Wong

Ketamine seizures jump three-fold in ten months

Seizures of ketamine saw an almost three-fold year-on-year increase in the first 10 months of this year, figures released by the Fight Crime Committee showed.

Seizures of ketamine saw an almost three-fold year-on-year increase in the first 10 months of this year, figures released by the Fight Crime Committee showed.

Police and Customs and Excise seized 682 kilograms of the drug from January to October this year – up from 232 kilograms in the same period last year.

Acting Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu attributed the increase to abundant world supply.

He said the sharp rise was also due to closer co-operation between law-enforcement bodies in the city and overseas.

The acting chief also drew attention to deception cases, which have seen a 12.4 per cent year-on-year increase, up from 4,977 to 5,596.

Lee categorised offences into three types: phone, e-mail and internet scams.

The number of mainland visitors arrested has surged by 9.7 per cent amid a huge influx of mainland tourists.

The number of arrests, mainly for theft, rose from 991 to 1087.

But Lee said the percentage of mainlanders arrested out of the total number of arrivals was “very low”.

The overall number of crimes has increased slightly by 0.3 per cent, from 63,263 to 63,474.

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