HK, mainland jointly smash transnational drug syndicates

The Hong Kong Police (HKP) with their counterparts in China's Mainland jointly smashed two transnational drug trafficking syndicates, according to the Hong Kong government source on Thursday.

Since late 2004, officers from the Narcotics Bureau (NB) of the HKP have been targeting a trans-national drug trafficking syndicate which was organizing a shipment of ketamine from a Middle East country into Chinese Mainland via Hong Kong.

The operation turned overt in late March this year in Guangdong with the arrest of eight persons, including the syndicate head. A total of 400 kilograms of ketamine were discovered in two containers which were transported from Guangxi to Guangdong.

In another joint operation in March this year, a syndicate involved in the smuggling of heroin and methamphetamine from Chinese Mainland to Hong Kong and foreign countries.

The operation turned overt when the syndicate members delivered the drugs to a Hong Kong buyer in a hotel at Shenzhen. Two people from China's Mainland, a Vietnamese and a man from Hong Kong were arrested, who carried seven kilograms heroin having a retail value of approximately 2 million HK dollars (about 257,000 US dollars).

Source: Xinhua