HK gangsters held in huge Ice bust
Smuggling ring uncovered in Sydney
Three Hong Kong gangsters arrested in connection with Australia's second-largest haul of the drug Ice are part of an international drug-smuggling syndicate operating out of Hong Kong, police said yesterday.
The Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau has a continuing investigation into the syndicate bosses allegedly behind a series of large-scale shipments of crystal methylamphetamine to countries including Australia, Japan and the United States.
The arrests of the three men in Sydney on Friday followed a tip-off from Hong Kong police about a suspect shipment aboard the Maltese-flagged Kota Sejati, which arrived in Port Botany from Guangdong on October 9.
Police and undercover agents intercepted the container ship, set up surveillance of the drug shipment and later arrested two men at a warehouse at Homebush in western Sydney and the third at a hotel in Sydney's Chinatown.
The three men are alleged to have led the Australian base of the sophisticated international drug syndicate.
Tsang Yuk-chuen, 42, Wong King-sun, 41, and Simon Leung Ming-sing, 38, were all refused bail when they appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court on charges of importing and possessing narcotics.
Leung also faced an additional count of possessing a false passport.
A Hong Kong Narcotics bureau statement released yesterday said: 'Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs Service intercepted a container from Guangdong to Sydney allegedly containing 740 cardboard boxes of various sizes of candles.
'A total of 125kg of Ice, with a street value of about $100 million, was found concealed inside 624 hollowed-out candles.
'The Narcotics Bureau of the HK Police assisted the investigation which led to the identification of three HK Chinese men.
'The operation turned overt on October 21 when these three men were arrested as they collected the candles at a warehouse in Sydney.
'Narcotics Bureau officers searched several addresses in HK on October 21 with a view to tracing the associates of these three HK Chinese men and to identifying the source of drugs.'
The latest bust follows the discovery of 233kg of the drug in May last year.
The drugs were found hidden in bundles of rice sticks, also smuggled into Sydney aboard a Chinese container ship.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty said the surge in Ice importation reflected an international trend.
'Methylamphetamines and amphetamines are an enormous problem in the region and will be a great problem for us in the not-too-distant future,' he said.