IN HIS final interview before leaving Hong Kong, 'spymaster' John Thorpe, the last head of the colonial Special Branch, made an unusually frank admission.
Mr Thorpe, who normally avoided the press, confirmed that illicit arms trading was a problem and was a growing concern for the territory's security forces.
While Hong Kong has little if any demand for arms itself, it has become a growing entrepot for legal and illegal shipments between countries elsewhere.
'The last things we [Special Branch] were covering were arms proliferation,' said Mr Thorpe, who had run the territory's counter-intelligence operations for 14 years.
'They are commodities and Hong Kong is a place where deals are done.' Since then, the 'branch' has been reborn in the form of the Security Wing. It is only now that the results of those concerns are coming to light.
The 'new' branch, which had in fact been operating in the shadows since 1991, was already working behind the scenes gathering intelligence and tracking potential air and sea transshipments through Hong Kong.