Hong Kong customs seizes HK$130 million of cannabis in sea shipment of soybeans

Hong Kong customs officers have arrested three suspects and confiscated 500kg (1,102lbs) of cannabis buds with an estimated street value of HK$130 million (US$16.7 million) from a sea shipment of soybeans from Canada, pushing the total amount of the drug seized this year to 2.6 tonnes.

The Customs and Excise Department said on Wednesday the 2.6 tonnes of marijuana seized in the first nine months of this year represented an increase of more than 80 per cent compared with the amount discovered during the same period in 2023.

Assistant Superintendent Jacky Tsang Kin-bon of customs’ drugs investigation bureau noted the department seized 2.35 tonnes of the drug in the whole of last year.

Tsang attributed the rise to the effectiveness of risk assessment profiles for air, land and sea shipments, intelligence analysis and law enforcement strategies.

The haul was discovered on September 27 when a container, declared as carrying more than 500 sacks of soybeans from Canada, was unloaded from a cargo vessel at a Kwai Chung shipping terminal and selected for inspection.

Assistant Superintendent Alex Wong Kei-cheung of customs’ cargo search division said the shipment caught their attention because “the sender is an overseas clothing company [whose business] has nothing to do with the nature of the goods in this shipment”.