HKSAR v. OKAFOR JOE K KINGSLEY

HCCC 250/2018

HCCC 251/2018

[2019] HKCFI 1844

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 250 AND 251 OF 2018

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:

The defendant has been found guilty by a jury of trafficking in a dangerous drug namely 499 grammes of a solid containing 343 grammes of cocaine.

The background is that the parcel was sent from Curacao to Hong Kong addressed to a person called Peter Johnson with an address in Yuen Long via UPS. UPS attempted delivery and to make the matter, cut the matter short, the address provided was under renovation and Peter Johnson could not be located.

It transpired that subsequently the defendant, posing as a person called Dennis Kelechi, arranged for the parcel to be collected on 31 October 2017 at the UPS Centre at Cheung Sha Wan Road in Kowloon.

Prior to the collection, customs officer had already identified the parcel as having cocaine secreted in the drill inside the parcel. So a control delivery was made at the UPS Centre so when the defendant came to pick it up, he was duly arrested. The defendant claimed that he did not know what was inside the parcel and hence, the trial. And subsequently the jury found that the defendant knew what was inside the parcel and convicted him.

No doubt there was a lot of planning involved, but there is no evidence that the defendant was the mastermind. However the defendant was given an authorisation letter purportedly signed by Peter Johnson and also an identity card in the name of Dennis Kelechi. The defendant assumed the persona of Dennis Kelechi in collecting the parcel and he signed for the parcel in the name of Dennis Kelechi.

The defendant is aged 45 and has previous convictions in Hong Kong, nothing to do with drugs, but the last offences in 2018 was for dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence and he was sentenced in the District Court on 28 June last year to a total of just over 2 years’ imprisonment. So the defendant in this case it is the first time that he has been convicted of a drug-related offence.

Trafficking in cocaine is a very serious offence. No matter what role a particular defendant plays, it is very serious because without the defendant’s participation, the drugs would not be successfully collected and had the customs officers not known about it, it would subsequently be obviously distributed in Hong Kong.

So following the guidelines laid down in Lau Tak Ming [1990] 2 HKLR 370 for heroin, the case of Pedro Nel Rojas said that cocaine should be viewed, should be following the guidelines of heroin.

So for trafficking in between 200 to 400 grammes of cocaine would merit a guideline sentence of 12 to 15 years. And as Mr Beel correctly identified in this case, it is 343 grammes, I would adopt a starting point of 14 years.

Now, there is an aggravating factor in this case in that the parcel was sent from Curacao to Hong Kong. There is therefore an international element. Whether the drugs were brought into Hong Kong by a courier from abroad or sent from abroad, in my view it makes no difference, it is still the international element. In this case and I would increase the sentence by one year to 15 years.

It is therefore the defendant in this charge, sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. I see no mitigating factor in this case.

Now as far as the other charge of possession of identity card is concerned, it is revealed in the trial in fact, that the defendant had possession of the ID card of a person called Obi Dennis Kelechi and this identity card was reported lost by this Dennis Kelechi in November of 2017.

It is true the defendant did not use the identity card because the staff at the UPS did not ask for it, the staff who was, in fact, an undercover customs officer. But however he had it with him and had he been asked for it, then it logically may have been produced to identify him as Dennis Kelechi.

However, it was not used, so I would in this case, adopt a starting point of 12 months’ imprisonment and taking into account the fact that the defendant had pleaded guilty, he is entitled to a discount and I would therefore impose an 8 months’ imprisonment in this charge. But given the overall, the facts in this case, I would make this 8 months concurrent to the 15 years’ imprisonment that I have just imposed in the trafficking of the dangerous drugs charge.

So the defendant in total, will serve a sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment.