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bank loans or exhausted the credit limit on newly issued credit cards, thereby potentially defrauding the financial institutions of the amounts outstanding. The CCB is working closely with the Hong Kong Association of Banks' Working Group on Bankruptcy to ensure that all suspected fraud is investigated promptly and thoroughly.

An important development during the year was the Legislative Council's passing of the Securities and Futures Bill on March 13. This new ordinance, which is targeted to take effect in April 2003, consolidates various other pieces of legislation relating to control, regulation and supervision of the securities and futures markets and also creates criminal offences in respect of certain types of market misconduct.

The counterfeiting of local currency and of payment cards remains a concern. Most of the counterfeit notes seized during the year were produced by inkjet printers. The majority of the inkjet counterfeits were in denominations of $100 and below. Although the overall amount of counterfeit banknotes seized has increased compared with 2001, the increase has not posed a threat to the integrity of the local currency. Technology crime increased by 16 per cent (272 cases in 2002 compared with 235 in 2001) following a decline in 2000. With the growing popularity of e-commerce and an increase in broadband Internet users, criminals have exploited the use of information technology in committing crimes. Crimes reported included unauthorised access to computer systems and Internet accounts, e-commerce deception, criminal damage to systems, sexual offences committed after certain chat-room contacts, and the publishing of pornography. A further trend is the use of computers by criminal syndicates for data storage in loansharking, gambling and fraud cases.

Although the total number of technology crime reports has remained small, criminals are moving from 'hacking' activities to crimes with monetary gains. The continuing development of new information technology products and business models has enabled criminals to become increasingly sophisticated, and has put pressure on police resources, both in terms of the availability of experienced investigators and of computer forensics facilities.

The CCB's Technology Crime Division (TCD) has been expanded to meet these challenges. The number of investigations requiring computer forensics examination reached a new level in 2002, with 5 000 gigabytes of data examined. To raise the standard of computer forensics investigation, the Computer Forensics Laboratory was officially opened in September. The laboratory will take a leading role in the move towards the digital evidence era, and work with other agencies around the world to achieve international standards in computer forensics.

The CCB's continued effort to collaborate with the computer industry, academic institutions and other law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of technology crime has achieved a number of notable successes, including the development and introduction of the Digital Evidence Search Kit (DESK) with the University of Hong Kong, and an accredited post-graduate training course with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Narcotics

In 2002, the Police Force gave high priority to tackling the trafficking and abuse of psychotropic substances. At the same time, pressure was maintained in suppressing the trafficking and abuse of heroin. While there were some successes in quelling the previously escalating problem of psychotropic substance abuse, it was clear that

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