Drug dealer gets 18 years

A TAXI driver who became caught up in the drug trade after falling into debt, was yesterday sentenced to 18 years' jail in the High Court.

Ho Shum, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in heroin.

Prosecutor Stanley Chan told Mr Justice Wong that on June 22 last year police went to a flat in Hyde Tower, Kwun Tong, where they found 2.18 kilograms of heroin together with equipment for packaging and manufacturing drugs.

Ho was arrested when he returned and was found to be the registered tenant.

In mitigation, Richard Wong said Ho had, in the early 1980s, served a jail sentence for robbery, but since his release in 1983 he had turned over a new leaf, becoming a taxi driver.

He got married in 1989 and found it hard to manage financially when a daughter was born. He had to borrow money to pay for funeral expenses for his father in 1991 and in mid-1992 he had shouldered responsibility for an $18,000 chit fund when two men absconded with the money.