Police seize cocaine that washed up on beach

Sighting of suspicious packages in Stanley leads to haul of drug worth HK$19 million

Police have launched an investigation following the discovery of a HK$19 million haul of cocaine on a popular beach.

Officers arrived at Chung Hom Kok Beach in Stanley in Southern district on Thursday afternoon after a beachgoer reported spotting suspicious packages.

A source familiar with the case said yesterday that the man found about 10 packages near the shore and another five floating near a shark prevention net.

“The caller unwrapped one of the packages and found white powder inside. He then called police,” the insider said.

At the site, officers discovered 19 packages, each measuring about 12cm by 22cm.

The source said police cordoned off the beach and called bomb experts to the scene, as the parcels had labels that read “TNT”, which could stand for the explosive chemical compound trinitrotoluene.

“After examining the packages, personnel from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau believed the packages carried 19 slabs of what appeared to be cocaine,” police said yesterday.

The force said the haul had an estimated street value of HK$19 million. Detectives from the narcotics bureau are investigating the case. No arrests have been made so far.

The source said officers were investigating all possibilities surrounding this case, including the theory that the packages could have washed up on the beach after somehow falling into the sea.

In a separate case, officers from the narcotics bureau seized 13kg of suspected cocaine and arrested a 31-year-old man during an operation in the New Territories on Wednesday.

Police said the seized drugs were estimated to be worth about HK$13 million.

Provisional figures show that seizures of the five major illegal drugs – cocaine, cannabis, methamphetamine, heroin and ketamine – rose by 68 per cent to 13.29 tonnes last year from 7.9 tonnes in 2022.

The amount of cocaine seized by police and customs in 2023 increased by 55.8 per cent to 3.53 tonnes in 2023 from 2.27 tonnes uncovered the year before.

Last December, customs officers seized a record HK$490 million worth of liquid cocaine disguised as white wine that arrived in an ocean container sent from Brazil.

The haul was hidden in a shipment of 706 boxes of wine and juice that arrived in the city on December 19. Two local men were arrested over the case.