Crystal meth seizures at Lo Wu border crossing soar
Soaring demand from Hong Kong drug users and rising profits makes methamphetamines a lucrative product for smugglers, says customs
Hong Kong's growing appetite for methamphetamine was underlined yesterday as customs chiefs revealed a 300 per cent jump in the amount of Ice seized at the Lo Wu border crossing.
Soaring local demand and increased profits for traffickers made the drug - also known as crystal meth - a lucrative product for smugglers, said Wong Jug-tung, deputy head of the customs department's rail and ferry command.
While the number of drug cases at Lo Wu had dropped year-on-year, the amount of Ice seized in the first eight months of this year - 13.7kg - was 291 per cent more than the 3.5kg seized in the first eight months of last year.
Hong Kong's growing demand for the drug matches an explosion in its popularity globally, fuelled and met by production and distribution networks in Guangdong. The province is widely accepted to be one of the world's biggest sources of both the main ingredients for crystal meth and the finished product.
Wong said there had been seven significant drug seizures at the Lo Wu crossing in the past three weeks, all of which involved Hongkongers trying to smuggle crystal meth or ketamine from the mainland into the city.
Most of the 8.2kg of seized drugs were concealed inside packs strapped to the mules' bodies;. one 35-year-old male was discovered with a mixture of crystal meth and ketamine hidden in his underpants.
