COURT: On 18 June last year, you arrived at Hong Kong International Airport carrying a rucksack which was found to contain approximately 460 grammes of cocaine. You accepted that you carried that drug into Hong Kong, knowing that what you were carrying was cocaine.
I am told today, and have no reason not to accept, that the reason that you carried out this trip was that you had got yourself indebted to loan-sharks in Colombia and were offered the opportunity of discharging a substantial, in your terms, liability to them by doing this single drug run. You are a mature male who, until now, has led an apparently ordinary and unremarkable life. I have no doubt that you knew fully well what you were doing at the time you carried out this run.
Hong Kong takes importation of drugs extremely seriously. There are tariffs laid down by the Court of Appeal which guide lower courts as to the correct sentence to impose. In the tariff applicable to this quantity of cocaine, it falls between 400 and 600 grammes which provides for a sentence, on a sliding scale, between 15 and 20 years’ imprisonment. 460 grammes justifies a starting point of 16 years and 6 months, applying that tariff.
The Court of Appeal has also said that importation of drugs into Hong Kong is an aggravating feature. I agree with Mr Percy’s submission that it is not necessary to enhance that sentence by more than 1 year. That makes an aggregate sentence of 17 years and 6 months.
You have pleaded guilty and are entitled to a full one-third discount for that. That reduces the sentence to be served to 11 years and 8 months.
The fact that you are a foreign national and will be serving a period of imprisonment away from your homeland is not a mitigating feature, nor, in my judgment, are there any other matters which entitled me to reduce the sentence further.
Consequently, you are to serve 11 years and 8 months in gaol.