THE top man in a Hong Kong syndicate believed to have been trafficking drugs for 10 years from the Far East to Australia, Europe and North America was yesterday extradited to Canada for trial.
Kong Kim-fai is alleged by police to have been behind recent imports into Canada of heroin so powerful it has killed more than 70 addicts.
Kong, 36, was arrested in September by Senior Inspector Pat Laidler of the Wan Chai office of the Narcotics Bureau.
The investigation was also aided by two locally-based members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
At a hearing at Eastern Court yesterday, Kong agreed to be extradited and was put on a plane to Vancouver at 2.15 pm. He faces charges of conspiracy to import heroin.
Kong, who lived in Quarry Bay, is believed to be a member of the Luen Lok Tong triad society. He had been under surveillance after a shipment of 6.9 kilograms of 97 per cent pure heroin, worth $700,000 at wholesale prices, was discovered concealed in a consignment of picture frames airmailed to Vancouver from Thailand on March 30.
Canadian customs officials were suspicious because the consignee's address was given as a hotel room and because the pictures did not appear to be worth the cost of posting them.