Drug smuggling through ‘prime battlefront’ of Hong Kong airport jumps six-fold to August compared with same period in 2022

But officials on Monday pledged to boost international cooperation to crack down on drug trafficking.

“The airport is our prime battlefront,” Vincent Lee Ka-ming, a senior superintendent who leads the department’s drug investigation bureau, said.

He was speaking as customs officials revealed 128kg of illegal drugs were seized from passengers arrivals at the airport in the year to August.

The figure was a 652 per cent increase on the 17 kilograms recorded in the same period last year.

Heroin and cannabis recorded the biggest increases by weight.

The amount of heroin detected jumped from 50kg in the first eight months of 2022 to 242kg in the same period this year.

Officials also seized 1,288kg of cannabis in the first eight months of the year compared with just 325kg over the same period in 2022.

Traveller, 75, arrested in Hong Kong for allegedly hiding cocaine in his body

The department logged 945 drug incidents in the first eight months of the year, an 84 per cent increase on the 513 recorded over the same period in 2022.

But the amount of drugs seized so far this year has yet to eclipse pre-coronavirus pandemic figures.

Customs officials seized 256kg of illegal drugs from air passengers in 2019.

The figure dropped to 162kg in 2020 and to just 3kg in 2021 because of strict anti-coronavirus travel restrictions.

Mark Woo Wai-kwan, assistant customs commissioner in charge of intelligence and investigation, said the increase in cannabis smuggling was linked to recent legislation that outlawed products containing cannabidiol (CBD).

3 travellers arriving in Hong Kong arrested for concealing cocaine in their bodies

He added the city had seen an increase in cocaine importation from Africa, instead of traditional sources in South America, with a jump in the number of individual smugglers detained at the airport.

The department last month arrested three air arrivals in a week on suspicion of drug trafficking.

They included a 65-year-old man who arrived from Ethiopia who is alleged to have had 2kg of cocaine worth HK$2.1 million hidden in three book covers and a 75-year-old Peruvian man who arrived from Brazil who was said to have had HK$1.7 (US$217,000) million worth of liquid cocaine hidden in his body.

Woo added that the department would start a series of joint operations with the World Customs Organisation’s Asia-Pacific information and intelligence centre next week in a bid to pile the pressure on drug traffickers.

The department is also holding meetings this week with anti-drug trafficking agencies from mainland China and overseas to improve international collaboration and intelligence sharing. Similar meetings were also held in February.