Smuggler Blues

FEATURE
Smuggler Blues
New tactics and high-tech equipment
are to the fore in Hong Kong’s latest
anti-smuggling strategy
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A sampan of females from Shenzhen captured on night patrol
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In February a joint anti-smuggling operation
involving customs and police officers and
the Government Flying Service, seized a
record haul of over 160,000 kilogrammes of
unmanifested frozen meat, including chicken
wings and offal, worth about HK$18 million.
The smuggling syndicate was cracked when
customs and police observed cartons of frozen
meat being transferred from ten 40-foot
containers into the un-refrigerated cargo holds
of two Hong Kong cargo vessels. Customs and
police eventually intercepted the vessels in the
eastern waters of Hong Kong and seized the
goods on board, as they were not covered by
export manifests.
“We don’t just want obvious lawbreakers,
our goal is to hit the cash flow of the
syndicates,” says Gilbert Wong Kwong-hing,
Superintendent of Police, Marine Region of
the Hong Kong Police Force.
He lists some of the common items
seized: “Cigarettes, petrol, exotic animals,
indeed, any kind of dutiable commodity.
Eel, tortoise, and chickens are smuggled into
Hong Kong , whilst mobile phones, USB
drives, electronic and optical equipment
are smuggled to the Mainland. We’ve also
seen beef offal and chicken wing tips from
a number of countries being smuggled
into China in un-refrigerated boats, which
presents a significant health hazard as by
the time the meat arrives it has defrosted.”
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He says the big incentive for smugglers is
avoiding taxation and that the criminals
have engineered ways to get rebates so the
shipment of goods becomes a lucrative circle.
In July 2008 the Legislative Council
Panel on Security was briefed on the antismuggling work of the Customs and
Excise Department and was informed that
smuggling activities can be broadly classified
into three main categories: the organized cases
involving syndicates and organized activities;
individual cases where individual travellers
bring in undeclared dutiable goods (e.g.
cigarettes, liquors and hydrocarbon oil); and
licensing offences involving the importation
of items such as meat and poultry and
endangered species without an import licence
or health certificate as required by the law.
There are also additional cases involving
fishing vessels with altered cargo holds which
are also used to smuggle marked oil and
edible oil into the Mainland or cigarettes
into Hong Kong.
Under the principle of ‘One Country,
Two Systems’, the HKSAR has retained its
status as a free port and separate customs
territory, and this continues to make
smuggling attractive. In 2006 the C&ED
and the Police commenced a major on-going
joint operation against sea smuggling activities
involving cargo vessels, often converted fishing
trawlers, carrying frozen meat and other
products. In addition, a multi-agency working
group comprising the C&ED, the Police and
other government departments concerned
has been established to take enforcement
action against suspicious cargo vessels at sea.
Since its inception in 2006, the working
group coordinated operations have detected
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94 smuggling cases, with a seizure value of
HK$280 million. Investigations and targeting
operations for suppressing smuggling activities
by sea are the responsibility of the Marine
Strike and Support Division, which works with
the Marine Region of the Hong Kong Police
Force (HKPF) to combat smuggling activities
in the waters of Hong Kong.
As the primary maritime law enforcement
agency within the HKSAR the Marine Region
of the HKPF is tasked with ensuring the
security and integrity of Hong Kong waters and
maintaining law and order within Hong Kong’s
sea borders, which includes 191 kilometres
of sea boundary, 1,651 square kilometres of
coastal and port area, and 261 islands. It has five
divisional Marine Police operational bases that
are centrally co-ordinated from the Marine Police
Headquarters Command and Control Centre
at Sai Wan Ho. Every year the HKPF stops and
searches around 100,000 vessels and conducts
approximately 7,000-8,000 operations.
Marine Region, Senior Inspector of
Police, Richard A C Barton-Smith has seen
some unusual contraband seized in his five
It’s like UPS, sometimes you’ll even find they have
put someone’s name on a box, like taking orders
years with the Marine Police, including,
“Live lobsters, mobile phones, hard disks
and both new and used computer monitors
as well as just a few months ago silver
bullion discovered in pods on the undersides
of a fishing trawler. The smuggling trends
are constantly changing to meet demand
and the type of boats used and cargo seized
reflect this. In the early 1990s Mercedes cars
were the goods of choice.”
Senior Inspector Barton-Smith says
much of the smuggling is done by groups
of habitual criminals, taking advantage of
the price differential of goods and products
between Hong Kong and its free port status
and the Mainland. “Many of these are from
traditional fishing families and have their
own dialect,” he says.
The Hong Kong Marine Police have
one of the most effective high speed
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interception capabilities in the world and
a highly trained dedicated team equipped
with high-powered off-shore interceptors
takes on this challenging role round the
clock. “Smugglers will make determined
attempts to escape if carrying cargo and
in recent years a number of Mainland law
enforcement anti-smuggling boats have been
deliberately rammed, resulting in fatalities.”
says Senior Inspector Barton-Smith. “We’ve
even had live cobras thrown on board
pursuing Police boats, and even monitor
lizards on occasion.”
And the smuggling operations can be very
brazen. “These syndicates are often extremely
well organized providing individually packaged
waterproofed boxes of cargo, just like UPS,
sometimes you’ll even find they have put
someone’s name on a box, to facilitate
delivery.” He says that another previously used
2 Soft-shell turtle seized
3 A record haul of
elephant tusks
method of smuggling is to tow contraband in
a submerged container behind a ship such as
a fishing vessel, “At Tai O, we found a rusting
coffin-shaped structure at low tide, that was
a previously used as a submersible container
designed exactly for this job.”
However, the only cargo Senior Inspector
Barton-Smith has not seen in his career are
large size shipments of drugs, but it is likely
out there in smaller quantities. Millions
of dollars worth of Columbian cocaine
was seized in Shenzhen two years ago, but
most of the drug busts are in the five-to-ten
million-dollar range. However, as the recent
furore over growing drug use in schools has
highlighted, interdiction of illegal drugs by
law enforcement agencies presents a constantly
shifting challenge, and despite the vigilence
of the Marine Police and Customs and Excise
Department, it is not all success stories for the
forces of law and order.
For instance, just last month the
Marine police seized 13,970 mink furs with
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an estimated value of HK$17 million and
computer hard disks worth about HK$3
million in Yau Tong, but despite the police
pursuit the smugglers escaped in two
speedboats.
Up until 2006 the smuggling syndicates
used to convey the goods by cargo vessel to
waters close to the Hong Kong/Mainland
sea boundary. The goods were then quickly
transferred to speedboats. Once loaded,
the speedboats would head towards the
Mainland waters at high speed. Since then
the modus operandi of the smugglers has
changed from cross-loading from cargo
vessels to speedboats at sea, to cross-loading
from vehicles onto speedboats at remote
road accessible landing sites. The briefing
of the Legislative Council Panel on Security
revealed that sea smuggling often involves
large-scale and organized activities and
that the prevailing mode of operation is
to first convey the goods to a remote pier
or seashore by vehicle. The goods are then
4 Electonic goods worth
around HK$5 million
are siezed
5 Smuggled goods hidden
in the rear of a container
6 A Marine Region
training exercise
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We’ve had live cobras thrown on board, and
once a monitor lizard
Photo: AP / GCMT / SIP Barton-Smith/Marine Police
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Text: Bruce Dawson
loaded on board speedboats or motorized
sampans during the small hours.
In October 2008, after an intensive twoweek investigation and surveillance operation
customs officers broke a sophisticated syndicate
that used powerful speedboats to smuggle
high-value goods to the mainland. After the
operation Thomas Lin Shun-yin, head of the
Customs and Excise Departments Special Task
Force described how the syndicate would first
deliver the goods to a 24 hour public car park
near Chek Lap Kok airport cargo terminal
where they loaded onto delivery vans. These
vans would then be driven to coastal areas such
as Siu Wan Ho and an East Coast Road pier
on Lantau Island where the goods would be
transferred to speedboats. “They could empty
boxes of goods from a fully laden van and load
them onto speedboats in one minute,” he said.
“In order to meet the challenges
posed by faster craft and to meet evolving
operational priorities associated with the
implementation of the ISPS Code, Marine
Region has embarked on a new operating
concept known as the “Versatile Maritime
Policing Response. As a result, the Region
is now deploying a leaner faster fleet of high
performance but environmentally friendly
patrol craft, which will be coordinated with
new day/night cameras and existing radar
systems through a Central Command System
to create a faster more flexible response
capability at reduced cost.”
Superintendent Wong urges the public to
be involved and to get in touch if they suspect
anything suspicious. “Give us information,
we can’t do this without your eyes and ears,”
he says. Police operations are increasingly
intelligence led and the public plays a vital
role in this process. Vessels are generally seven
metres in length with twin 250 or more
recently twin 300 horsepower engines, run
without lights and have access to a road, where
there will be a small light vehicle into which
they will rapidly unload their contraband.
Senior Inspector Barton-Smith says often the
loaders will be seen checking out what they
deem a suitable area where they can berth
their vessel and get the payload off quickly.
“Obviously the locations change frequently
and Hong Kong has hundreds. Tai Tam, Sai
Kung, even yacht clubs have been used."
With crime rates expected to rise as the
financial downturn leads to more job losses
throughout the Pearl River Delta area—“All
kinds of illegal and criminal activities will
continue to increase,” He Guangping, Deputy
Head of the Guangdong Provincial Public
Security Department, said at the Guangdong’s
annual National People’s Congress session in
February—these new anti-smuggling initiatives
are likely to be thoroughly tested.
In summing up the role and future
direction of policing Hong Kong’s waters,
Senior Inspector Barton-Smith noted that,
“The role of the Marine Police is subject to
continual change and the Marine Region
currently has wide ranging responsibilities,
including preventing illegal immigration;
maintaining the integrity of the sea boundary;
search and rescue; providing a casualty
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evacuation capability; preventing smuggling;
prevention/detection of crime; assisting
the Environmental Protection Department
(EPD) in preventing the export of e-waste;
assisting Port Health in preventing the spread
of contagious diseases e.g. (bird flu (H5N1);
assisting the Director of Marine Department
in implementing the International Ship
and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code and
enhancing sea safety.”
The Marine Police also plays an important
role in enforcing maritime regulations
particularly those that impact on sea safety.
Various initiatives by Marine Region have led
to an enhanced overall strategy on sea-safety
by the Hong Kong Government, including
the creation of the ‘Safety Afloat’ committee, a
multi-agency committee tasked with steering
government policy to enhance the safety of the
growing numbers of recreational sea-goers and
which has directly resulted in a reduction in
fatalities. In 2009 Marine Police saved 24 lives
at sea and assisted a further 199 persons in
difficulty in Hong Kong waters.