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weight to it in his analysis because of the supposedly unreliable circumstances. It is accepted therefore that too much should not be made of this incident in assessing Miss Nightingale's claim not to have known Chan previously.

3. The

The second letter suggests that he wishes to pursue the idea that Nightingale was the innocent dupe of an international drug trafficking syndicate. The only comment that can be made on this is that neither the Royal Hong Kong Police nor the Customs Service have any information on the relationship between Nightingale and the other men and in particular, Lewis Cheung. They have no evidence to indicate whether she was telling the truth or not about her relation- ship with Lewis Cheung.

4.

Concerning the relationship between the various people involved in the case it is difficult to come to any firm conclusion on the basis of existing information as to whether an international traffick- ing syndicate really existed involving all of them. Chan Ming-fai is

now serving a five year prison sentence for an unconnected drugs offence. The British Embassy are checking on a rumour that the Thai authorities have issued a warrant for the arrest of Yip Ka-Keung in Bangkok. But, in the end, Miss Nightingale's story can only be sub- stantiated by one of her associates supplying corroboration. This

has so far not been forthcoming.

5.. On page 3 of the second letter, Mr Hallmark appears to suggest that the Hong Kong Customs already had a lot of data on the various Chinese males mentioned before sending their second telex to Thailand, following the arrest of Chan and Rita, in which the Thais were informed that the Customs had no information on Chan concerning a possible drug

conspiracy. The tone of this page also seems to suggest that the relationship between these persons was already known to the Hong Kong Customs. This, of course, as stated above, was not the case. The only information uncovered at that time was that all the three tickets were purchased from the same source. The identities of Lewis Cheung, Khan Mun-sang and Tung Kam-hon had not surfaced then. It was there-

fore considered that no information on a conspiracy could be supplied to the Thais.

6.

Concerning the point that the Hong Kong Customs have not up to now visited Rita to learn about this 'documented drug trafficker'

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/named

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