SOUTH, CHINA MORNING POST. AUGUST 281 73.
Narcotics Bureau to
be expanded
The Narcotics Bureau of the Royal Hongkong Police Force will be expanded and special "field squads" will be set up within the Bureau to crack down on illicit drug trafficking.
By the end of the year, the Burcau will have increased its task force of detectives to 200.
"The expansion will enable us to extend the scope of our work down to street level." explained Superintendent Cheng Chik shin of the Bureau.
"This is all part of our increased efforts to fight the problems of drug abuse in Hongkong which has one of the world's highest drug addiction rates," Supt Cheng said.
The Bureau keeps in close contact with counterpart agencies throughout the world as well as the International Criminal Police Organisation commonly known as the "Interpol" and the United Nations.
The Bureau was set up in the carly 1950s with five police
officers. It was then under the Anti-Corruption Office.
For the past two years. Supt Cheng has been the key guest lecturer at the National Police Drug Enforcement course conducted by the Australian Police College in Sydney.
Supt Cheng said the bulk of drugs supplying the illicit narcotics market in Hongkong continued to come from the known growing
and manufacturing areas of Thailand, Laos and Burma.
"The most common method of conveying large quantities of narcotics from outside Hongkong is still by way of fishing trawlers and junks,” he said.
"It is an extremely difficult job to completely stop such traffic since it is not possible to search all of the 17,000 motorised junks that move in the waters of the Colony.
The police have fewer than two dozen launches on regular patrol duty along the coastline," he added.
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