Hong Kong man charged after 100kg Ice bust in Australia
Suspect, aged 30, charged with drug smuggling after Ice was found in shipping container at Sydney's port labelled as children's toys
A Hong Kong man arrested in a sting operation in which almost US$50 million worth of the powerful illegal stimulant Ice was seized has been charged with drugs smuggling, the Australian authorities said yesterday.
The unidentified 30-year-old man had earlier been picked up in Sydney in a joint operation by Australian police and customs after they found the consignment of drugs hidden in a shipping container at the city's port.
The methamphetamine - commonly known as crystal meth or Ice in Hong Kong - was found under a false floor. The container had been labelled as holding "kids' toys".
Australia is facing what officials there describe as a "meth pandemic", with seizures and arrests reaching an all-time high. The country recorded its largest meth bust ever in November after 849kg of the stimulant was found in a container from Germany.
Hong Kong and southern parts of mainland China are frequently pinpointed by Australian authorities as a key source of much of the methamphetamine - and its ingredients - flooding the country's illicit drug market.
Earlier this month, Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the that a portion of a record 2.4 tonnes of Ice seized in Guangdong had likely been destined for Australia.
The issue was discussed during high-level talks in November when Hong Kong customs commissioner Clement Cheung Wan-ching met his counterpart in Canberra.
The latest arrest came after police said they conducted a controlled delivery of the 100kg Ice consignment to an address in Sydney's southwest suburbs.
The Hong Kong suspect was arrested alongside a 37-year-old Malaysian national, Australian police said.
"This was a complex concealment clearly designed to evade law enforcement detection, however our expert X-ray image analysis and enforcement officers have once again proven that crime doesn't pay," said Australian customs commander Tim Fitzgerald.
The seizure follows a number of similar cases around the region involving Hong Kong residents.
Last Friday, a Hong Kong man, identified only by his initials TKH, was arrested by police in Indonesia while allegedly delivering 6kg of meth on a motorcycle in Jakarta.
Last month, suspected Hong Kong drugs kingpin Wong Chi-ping was forced to burn a staggering 860kg of the drug that was confiscated from him by Indonesian officers. It was the largest seizure ever by the country's drug enforcement agency.
Okto Irianto, head of Indonesian customs, said the majority of drug smuggling cases through the capital's international airport originated in Hong Kong.
