Police Make Record HK$100mn Cannabis Seizure

Police have arrested three men after making a record seizure of cannabis buds worth some HK$100 million.

At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, detective chief superintendent Chung Wing-man said the suspects, aged 41 to 56, were arrested in a police operation at a container park in Kwai Chung in the early hours of Monday morning.

Chung said they found 580 kilogrammes of cannabis buds which had been smuggled into the SAR from Canada in shipping containers.

Two of the suspects are Hong Kong residents, while one is Canadian-Chinese.

Chung said that in previous years, cannabis normally arrived in Hong Kong from Southeast Asia, and that Monday's haul marked a major change in where Hong Kong criminals source the drug.

“One of the major reasons that there is a change in the source of drugs is that in 2018, Canada legalised the use of cannabis, and as you can imagine, drug dealers can easily get hold of legal cannabis in Canada for use to be smuggled into Hong Kong and elsewhere. I think it would be a challenge for us in the future," she said.

Chung added that in January, customs seized about 70 kilogrammes of marijuana at the airport, and that too had come from Canada.