Task force becomes a victim of its own success

A TOP flight task force, launched three years ago to smash the lucrative smuggling trade in Hong Kong, is about to end its commission.

The territory's Anti-Smuggling Task Force (ASTF), set up in February 1991, is now seeking a permanent niche within the Hong Kong Police.

ASTF Senior Superintendent Laurie Poots said the 140-strong force was likely to merge with the Marine Police or Organised Crime and Triad units.

A police review, due in March, will outline options for the mid-year change.

''It is not an option to disband it completely,'' Mr Poots said. ''But whether it remains a unit made up of people from various services - Customs and Excise and Police - or whether it's a new division in Marine Police, there's no hard-and-fast decision made on that yet.'' Future manpower would fluctuate with the rise and fall of smuggling operations.

As the task force notches up its third year, officers claim to have quashed many of the smuggling rackets which flourished along the northeast coast of the New Territories.

''I wouldn't say the problem has been solved, but certainly the smuggling problem is nothing to what it was two years ago,'' Mr Poots said.

''We've tightened up on the shoreline and the loading points are covered all the time. In the run-up to Christmas, smuggling was very, very low. In fact, November was our lowest month on record.'' A boom net strung across the mouth of Tolo Harbour in 1991 has shut off a smuggler's haven of landing places, loading ramps and dimly-lit coves. Boats entering or leaving the notorious smuggling thoroughfare are subject to police scrutiny at a mid-sea checkpoint.

''It's not possible for them to come to the shoreline any more because we're preventing them from doing that; the landing spots are covered by us all the time,'' Mr Poots said. Smugglers now have to go out to sea and cross-load their goods from fishing boats and sampans, then transfer them to the tai fei at sea.

Task force sorties now concentrate on the exposed bays and villages of Sai Kung, where fishing boats and sampans cater to a mainland demand for multi-room air conditioners.

Mr Poots points to the falling number of luxury cars as proof of the operation's effectiveness. The average monthly rate of 300 plunged to a low of 14 in November, and a reduction in Chinese import taxes from 250 per cent to 100 per cent, is expected to keep the numbers down.

''The number of stolen cars is now very low, and we don't believe any of them are going out by sea,'' Mr Poots said.