Global Ganja Report

Authorities in Hong Kong are boasting that the city's long-reigning criminal gangs, the notorious Triads, are finally crushed following an operation coordinated with police forces in Macau and mainland China's Guangdong province, in which more than 14,000 were arrested and 2,500 properties raided—including discos, massage parlours and nightclubs. Police confiscated HK$39.3  million (US$5 million) worth of illicit goods, including drugs, contraband cigarettes, pornography and weapons. Leading figures in the powerful Sun Yee On and 14K triads are said to be among the detained. 

Chief Superintendent Kwok Ho-fai from Hong Kong's elite Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, in announcing the operation Aug. 24, denied rumors that the Triads have infiltrated politics in the autonomous island metropolis. Local media speculated that gang rivalries were behind a clash between pro-establishment and pro-democratic groups at a "meet-the-people" forum hosted by the Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying Aug. 11.

Yet despite boasts of a "triad-free" city, press accounts revealed that the suspected Sun Yee On and 14K operatives arrested in the sweeps were released on bail, and have not yet been formally charged. (SCMP, BBC News, Aug. 24)

The Triads established Hong Kong as the key trans-shipment point for Southeast Asian heroin in the 1960s, and there is little reason to believe the trade halted with the city's transfer from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. On Aug. 8, four men—three Taiwanese and one Thai—were arrested at Bangkok's  Suvarnabhumi airport for attempting to traffic 237 kilograms of heroin on a flight to Hong Kong (Bangkok Post, Aug. 8)

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