The police sting was called Operation Clinker and involved more than 100 officers, the Australian embassy, Australian Federal Police, two yachts and members of the 14K triad gang.

Mason, who retired from the Hong Kong Police Force in 2016 after 32 years’ service, has written a book about the case, called Operation Clinker: Heroin Smuggling, which was published in November 2020 by Austin Macauley.

Mason joined the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1983 and was assigned to its Narcotics Bureau in 1988. He grew his hair and wore a hoop earring to be deployed undercover in Wan Chai bars if someone was suspected of selling drugs, usually cocaine or cannabis.

Hong Kong smuggling, sea battles and saving refugees

In his book, Mason not only tells how the Clinker sting unfolds, but provides the reader with a condensed history of narcotics in Hong Kong, beginning with opium and the growing importance to the city’s illegal-drugs trade of the Golden Triangle (a major drug production centre in the region where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet).

Having also spent time policing the lawless Kowloon Walled City, he also gives a breakdown of the various triad societies, when and how they were founded, and their traditions.

But, above all, Operation Clinker is a story of high adventure, with smugglers deceived and caught on the high seas.

In the summer of 1988, an unemployed Canadian yacht skipper, John Bridges, was in the Philippine capital, Manila, hoping for a sailing gig when he was approached by Roberto Baptista in a Makati bar. A Filipino in his late 50s, Baptista befriended Bridges and said he wanted to sail to Australia.

After a few meetings, Baptista asked Bridges to help him buy a yacht, hire a crew and sail it to Australia via Hong Kong. Bridges agreed to the proposal, but, feeling suspicious, he decided to report the request to the Australian consulate in Manila.

Mike Howard, then acting superintendent of operations in the international or section of the Royal Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau, was contacted by the Australian Federal Police, who relayed the information.

“So we got a few weeks’ warning that the yacht was coming and initially thought we’d just put surveillance on it,” says Mason, who was one of three chief Inspectors working for Howard. The wait paid off when the yacht arrived in August 1988 and moored at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in Causeway Bay.

A team of 60 police officers were deployed to watch Baptista and two senior 14K triad standard bearers who were involved in the goings-on. The police team was based in a suite in the now-demolished Excelsior hotel overlooking the yacht club, yet it was weeks before they discovered what the Filipino planned to smuggle to Australia.

In a stroke of luck for the police, Baptista instructed Bridges to sack the Filipino crew and recruit European sailors, who he felt would be less conspicuous entering Australia. So the skipper knowingly hired four undercover officers – Mason, young Marine Police officer Bill Renwick, who sailed his father’s yacht and played in the Hong Kong rugby team, and two others, one of whom was a woman.

“There was a lot of excitement and anticipation,” says Mason, who assumed the role of a merchant navy officer on leave who fancied sailing a yacht down to Australia. The vessel, called the Oui, was a 45-foot, two-masted sailing boat, with room for six people.

The police had an audacious plan – to intercept the yacht on its voyage near the Po Toi Islands, just off the southern coast of Hong Kong Island, with police officers dressed as civilians.

They would arrest Baptista, and persuade him his prison term would be reduced if he assisted the police. Then, after a few weeks, they would fly Baptista to Australia to take part in a ruse to bust the criminals there, as well as the syndicate in Hong Kong.

Just before the yacht sailed from Hong Kong, a tattooed triad enforcer, former bouncer Wong Hon-man, 24, boarded. He was there to watch over both Baptista and the illicit haul. The police had seen Baptista put a heavy bag on board and suspected it was narcotics, but had no proof. As the yacht headed out towards Po Toi, a transponder in Mason’s case helped his colleagues track the boat.

Meanwhile, the undercover officers settled into the role of transient crew members setting off on a cruise to Australia. “The first CD we put on was Rod Stewart’s I am Sailing,” says Mason. “Another one was Dignity by Deacon Blue,” another song on the same theme.

The officers were keyed up and ready. “I think our main fear was that we would do something wrong and blow the case,” Mason says.

A short time before the yacht was intercepted, Mason says, the catamaran developed mechanical problems in one engine, which affected its speed and steering. The weather was worsening and, in the dark, Bird was forced to ram the catamaran into the Oui. Three police officers jumped onto the yacht.

On board, Mason and Renwick subdued and arrested Baptista, Wong and Bridges – to maintain the deception Bridges was part of the gang. They then searched for the heroin, which turned out to be a 43kg haul stowed in the yacht’s fresh water tanks.

“We opened the portside tank and there was just a couple of kilos in there, which elicited enormous disappointment,” Mason says. “But when we opened the starboard tank, it was stacked to the brim.”

Once the arrested trio had been taken off the yacht, Renwick and Mason raised a skull-and-crossbones flag Mason had hand-sewn – a lighthearted gesture to announce they had seized control.

The yacht was soon repainted and renamed off the Po Toi Islands to give the impression that the Oui had left Hong Kong.

Several weeks later, Howard flew to Australia to liaise with the Australian Federal Police. As part of the ruse, Bridges, Wong and Baptista were also flown in. Officers had substituted plaster of Paris for 41kg of the heroin, leaving 2kg intact, and the haul was handed over to members of the Australian syndicate in an apartment in the northern Sydney suburb of Artarmon.

“We had a microphone so we could hear people talking,” Howard told the Post. “One of the Australian syndicate criminals cracked open one of the blocks of ‘heroin’ and the dust flew up and covered everyone present in luminous dye.

“A Swat team rappelled down from a helicopter onto the roof; they let flashbangs go off in the flat. It was really exciting.”

The operation resulted in multiple arrests in both Hong Kong and Australia, and serious damage to both syndicates. Baptista was sentenced to 11 years in prison and Wong to nine after testifying against the others.

To celebrate, the Hong Kong police team dined at the Lamma Hilton seafood restaurant in Sok Kwu Wan. The guest of honour was the head of the Narcotics Bureau at the time and future police commissioner, Tsang Yam-pui, the brother of subsequent Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang Yam-kuen. In the centre of the table was a flag bearing a skull and crossbones.