CRIMINAL CASE NO. 479 OF 2011
COURT: This defendant pleaded guilty at committal on 23 December 2011 to one charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug. The drug was 1.98 kilograms of a mixture containing 1.73 kilograms of cocaine.
The defendant reaffirmed his plea of guilty before me today and confirmed also the facts that he admitted at committal. Those facts showed that on the day in question he was stopped and searched by Customs & Excise officers who were carrying out an anti-drug operation in the Discovery Park area of Tsuen Wan.
He was carrying a small shopping bag containing two pieces of a brick-like substance wrapped in a plastic bag. When he was asked what they were, the defendant replied that they were drugs. He was arrested and cautioned, and admitted that he was carrying the drugs for a person called “Ah Yan”, and that he was to be paid for doing so.
Subsequent analysis by the Government Chemist confirmed the quantity and nature of the drugs were as set out in the particulars of the charge, and the seized drugs had an estimated retail value at the time of seizure of HK$2,104,740.
The antecedents statement shows that the defendant was born in China and came to Hong Kong to live. He is aged 25 years, is single, and was working as a salesman at the time of his arrest. He has a previous record for robbery in 2008, together with three offences of theft, for which he was sentenced in the High Court to a total of 5 years and 2 months. He has no previous drug convictions. There was no drug history.
In mitigation it was urged on the court that there was no drug history; that the defendant was caught in the act of delivery only; and that his involvement was minimal; he was acting on the instructions of somebody else and he had not received the reward that he had been promised. That reward was said to be $2,500.
On the basis of the guidelines in HKSAR and Abdallah [2009 2 HKLRD 437], the starting point for this offence comes within the range of 23 to 26 years. I propose to set the starting point at the lower end of the range and make it 24 years. The only mitigation is the defendant’s plea of guilty, and he is entitled to the full one-third discount for that plea.
I take a starting point of 24 years, and sentence him to 16 years’ imprisonment.