12 held in multimillion-dollar porn video crackdown

Police say they have wiped out a triad-linked syndicate that made more than HK$20 million from selling discs of pornographic material over a four-year period.

The syndicate, allegedly run by the 14K and Wo Shing Wo triad gangs, had retail outlets across the city and rented two units in an industrial building on Ta Chuen Ping Street, Kwai Chung, which it used as its manufacturing and packaging centre.

During a raid on the centre and two retail outlets in Tsuen Wan on Wednesday officers seized 554 CD writers, two computers and seven printers together with 9,200 discs of obscene material. Police said the haul was worth HK$500,000.

"Police have smashed the triad-linked pornographic video syndicate and suppressed the income source of the triads," a police spokesman said.

A source said the syndicate had provided a "one-stop service" that included manufacturing, packaging, delivery and retail. Mainlanders were hired to produce the discs in Kwai Chung.

"Hired delivery vans were used to deliver finished products to various retail outlets in Mong Kok, Sham Shui Po, Wan Chai and Tsuen Wan," said Chief Inspector Suen Suet-ying, of the New Territories South regional crime unit.